The Right Way for Communities to Engage with AI
Palm Springs turned tech hype into a community affair, the way it should be
I’ve been to more tech conferences than I can count: South by Southwest, Web Summit, dozens of others where the rhythm is predictable: investors on stage, technologists pitching those investors, brand activations everywhere competing for your attention.
But earlier this summer in Palm Springs—my newly adopted hometown—I experienced something radically different. The first AI & Creativity Expo wasn’t about hype or valuations. It was about people. Read this write-up in our very local Palm Springs Post newspaper and a highlight reel:
Why Palm Springs, Why Now
Palm Springs is a place of striking contrasts. You probably know of the city and the larger Coachella Valley because of its tourism and seasonal visitors, yet our school district is among the poorest in California. Nearly every student qualifies as socioeconomically disadvantaged by federal standards.
Migrant workers labor in the fields while billionaires winter in gated communities. Bill Gates is known to have a home here, Larry Ellison owns a multi-hundred-acre resort, and the Obamas have spent time here. This is a valley of artists, retirees, undocumented families, and fourth-home owners, all coexisting in a fragile desert ecosystem stewarded by the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians.
It’s not the obvious place to host a major conversation on artificial intelligence. But that’s precisely what made it perfect. If AI is going to shape our future, it shouldn’t be decided only in Silicon Valley boardrooms. It should be shaped in communities like Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley, by the people who will actually live with its consequences.
What Made This Different
From the moment I walked into the convention center, I knew this was different. There was no brand overload. And critically, there was no hint of venture capital driving the discussion.
So many tech conferences are filled with investors pontificating about disruption or technologists shaping their story for investors’ ears. The Palm Springs Expo flipped that script. The people in the seats were not VCs and founders angling for deals. They were residents—students, retirees, educators, artists, small business owners—showing up to ask their own questions.
The spirit of the day was people first.
How It Came Together
Much of the credit goes to Peter Loforte, a longtime Microsoft leader who retired here just before ChatGPT burst into public consciousness. You may remember him as our Special Envoy to the Machines for Life With Machines, aka BLAIR’s creator and dad. (See his episode here). I also know Peter as my neighbor and appreciate the fact that instead of chasing another startup, Peter asked: How can I give back?
He began talking with schools, nonprofits, and civic leaders. He didn’t want to “drop” Silicon Valley into Palm Springs. He wanted to spark a local conversation about AI that was rooted in the valley’s actual needs. With the support of city leaders and residents, he built a team, created a steering committee (which included me), and for the past two years we’ve been doing local events to explore how and if we want AI to be involved in our community life. This Expo was a culmination of those efforts.
That community first ethos was felt everywhere, from the design of the programming to the use of AI to summarize and offer access to the event after the fact. Sessions were recorded and processed using Contented AI, a product of a woman-owned company Peter supports, with those notes loaded into a custom GPT created by 22-year old local resident, Habib Jaffer. It’s all accessible from PSAIexpo.com so anyone can explore sessions they missed. It wasn’t a conference delivered at Palm Springs; it was a gathering created with Palm Springs.
As Peter shared with me, “We looked at the economic disparity in our region and saw a unique moment in time. With generative AI being so new, we have a rare chance to level the playing field, ensuring no child starts behind.”
He added, “This conference is the beginning of that journey: we’re building an ecosystem of mentorship to empower our kids, so they can develop the skills to lift up our local businesses and become the authors of our region’s future.”
Highlights From the Day
Because I couldn’t be in every room, I’ll share just a few moments that stuck with me, from the practical to the profound:
Residents learning together. Sessions didn’t assume prior expertise. They broke down what AI is and what it isn’t, showing people how to use tools responsibly while highlighting risks: scams, deepfakes, catfishing. The message was clear: literacy is at least a step towards power.
Small businesses weighing tradeoffs. Workshops explored how AI might accelerate local enterprises, but also raised cybersecurity and moral questions. It wasn’t cheerleading. It was grappling.
Students creating with AI. At College of the Desert, a group of young filmmakers participated in a one-day “GenJam” organized by Machine Cinema creating short films with generative tools. The standout was a documentary about the windmills that define our valley skyline—an act of re-seeing local life through new technology.
A voice from Hollywood. Acclaimed director, animator and producer Rob Minkoff (The Lion King, Stuart Little and so much more), did a lunchtime keynote sharing the history of technological embrace and disruption in filmmaking and animation “from pencils to pixels to prompts” as he put it. Hearing such a clear-eyed perspective from an industry veteran made clear so many of the risks and opportunities for those of us in creative fields.
Cross-sector panel. In the closing session I hosted, leaders from health care, the art museum, the local college, and the local newspaper sat side by side. They wrestled openly with how AI is already touching their fields—from medical records to museum accessibility to journalism. Having those voices in one room, answering questions from residents, felt unprecedented.
Was it perfect? No. I wish we’d spent more time on AI’s climate and energy costs. But perfection wasn’t the point. The point was a diverse community trying, together, to face a shared technological future.
What Made It Powerful
In two decades of speaking at technology conferences, I’ve never been in a room where an 18-year-old student and an 80-year-old retiree were learning side by side. I’ve never seen a city bring its artists, health professionals, educators, journalists, and residents together to collectively ask: What does this technology mean for us?
That multigenerational, cross-sector mix is what made the Palm Springs event powerful. It wasn’t an audience consuming a spectacle. It was a community engaged in sense-making.
What I Learned
The lesson isn’t that Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley are unique. It’s that communities everywhere can and should do this.
If you’re thinking about bringing AI discussions to your community, here’s what stood out to me:
Include more than the business crowd. The magic came from educators, artists, retirees, health workers, voices too often absent from tech discussions.
Go for age diversity. Teenagers and elders see the world differently. Put them in the same room and watch the learning multiply.
Ask first. A pre-event survey could make these gatherings even stronger, surfacing what people are most curious or worried about so programming meets real needs.
Don’t try to solve everything. AI is a huge topic. Don’t feel pressure to address all its implications in one event or organization. It’s already radical enough for a community to face its tech future together rather than as isolated individuals.
Toward a People-First Tech Culture
Palm Springs was one spark. But imagine if sparks like this were lit in hundreds of communities. Some already exist.
Last year I did a keynote at the Richmond Forum, one of the U.S.’s largest non-profit speaker series. There I learned about AI Ready RVA, a local group created to “cultivate AI literacy in the Greater Richmond Region through awareness, community engagement, education, and advocacy.”
In France a few weeks ago, I met Gilles Babinet, who helped create Café IA (here’s an English language article), a simple but powerful series of public debates about AI. They’ve hosted hundreds of gatherings in cafés and libraries, giving ordinary people the chance to ask questions, argue, and learn together. That’s the same spirit we tapped into in Palm Springs. It shows this isn’t a one-off idea. It can be a civic habit, a way of life.
Closing Reflections
Out of this conference, the City of Palm Springs is funding regular meet-ups to keep the conversation alive. The College of Desert is investing in new curriculum and learning resources to help students, faculty, and administrators work together in defining an AI and technology roadmap that benefits the region, not corporate giants. And, the momentum from the conference is being leveraged to kickoff and support broader strategic economic plans in the region. The goal is that by the end of the decade, the Palm Springs tourism and hospitality industries will be thriving alongside a robust, year-round economy built on health, climate, and creative technology—securing a resilient and prosperous future for all residents.
As Palm Springs continues down this path, I hope we remember where we are. This is Cahuilla land, with Indigenous history and ecology that long predates the term “artificial intelligence.” As we integrate technology into our valley, we have a chance to also integrate reverence for the land, for the people who’ve cared for it, for the fragile desert ecosystem that sustains us all.
I left the Expo with something rare in the AI conversation: justified optimism because students, business owners, retirees, and educators all showed up to shape their own relationship to technology.
Palm Springs is not the model; it’s a model. If you’ve seen similar experiments where you live, or want to help start one, drop us a line at contact@lifewithmachines.media, reply to this email, or comment on this post. The future of AI for all shouldn’t be decided by the few in Silicon Valley. It should be decided in our communities, by all of us, together.