Alternative Models: The Small, the Specific, and From the Majority
Interview with
Sam Heckle, Ari Melenciano, Claudia Tomateo Chang, and Taeyoon Choi
After the third panel, "Alternative Models: The Small, the Specific, and From the Majority," concluded, its four panelists, Sam Heckle, Ari Melenciano, Claudia Tomateo Chang, and Taeyoon Choi, kept the conversation going, documented by this recording.
Where the first two panels centered on labor, contracts, and law, this one asks a harder question, one no legislation can settle. What should stay illegible to a machine at all? Claudia connects this to an idea from indigenous scholarship, the practice of refusal, choosing not to share everything rather than assuming more openness is always better. But what does refusal actually look like for people whose work depends on being seen? Ari pushes further with a framework she calls incomputable intelligence, the parts of a person a model simply cannot hold, and Taeyoon offers a different kind of answer entirely, arguing that art can sit inside contradiction in a way a policy paper or a lawsuit never could. What does it mean to treat contradiction as a strength rather than something to resolve?
Sam ends on something more personal: the discomfort of watching students lose the slow, frustrating process of learning to code. What happens to a breakthrough once the struggle that used to earn it disappears? Watch the video for the discussion, and review the Symposium Proceedings for the full panel conversation that took place earlier.
At: The New School, New York City
On: Friday, May 1, 2026
Sponsored by: The New School's Office of University Initiatives
Video Production: Tatiana Stolpovskaya
Selected Works
We investigate how AI transforms the conditions, politics, and value of creative work.
