Cartography of Generative AI

What can I learn?

A mapping project, by Estampa and others, that charts the connections between generative-AI technologies, human activities and more-than-human territories. It asks what set of extractions, agencies and resources allows us to converse with a text generator or obtain images in seconds — mapping the system rather than just the product.

Core insight

A generative-AI tool is the visible tip of a sprawling territory of resource extraction, labour and infrastructure. Cartographing that territory makes plain that "asking a chatbot" is an act embedded in material and geographic reality.

How to use it in daily work

A companion to other life-cycle resources, giving a geographic and systemic view of generative AI that helps situate it in the wider world.

• Use the cartography to show a group the breadth of what stands behind a single generated image or paragraph.
• Pair it with hands-on AI experiments so learners see both what the tool does and what it depends on.