David Gray Widder

David Gray Widder is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell Tech's Digital Life Initiative and will join the University of Texas at Austin School of Information as an Assistant Professor in December 2025. He studies how AI system creators conceptualize downstream harms, situated within broader political economy of technology and feminist STS frameworks.

• Education: PhD in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University
• Industry Experience: Former research roles at Intel Labs, Microsoft Research, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

His research bridges AI ethics with critical infrastructure studies, analyzing how cloud computing monopolies (Google, Microsoft, Amazon) shape technological futures through financial investments. Key publications include work in Nature, FAccT, and Big Data & Society, alongside influential reports in TechPolicy.Press and Data & Society.

Recent articles focus on:

• Corporate capture of AI ecosystems through cloud market dominance
• Hypocrisy in ML research regarding social impact claims versus technical realities
• Open source AI as a counter-strategy to corporate control

Scientific contributions include:

• Digital Life Initiative Fellowship at Cornell Tech
• Big Cloud research with Nathan Kim
• Algorithmic Collective Action workshop at NeurIPS

He maintains a conceptual-realist art practice, advocates against police terror, and engages in distance running. Active in UT Austin AAUP labor organizing and queer AI advocacy networks.