Anneshia Hardy | The Hardy Exchange
I’m grateful to share a recent conversation that feels especially urgent for this moment.
I had the opportunity to join Rock the Native Vote for a wide-ranging discussion on artificial intelligence, misinformation, elections, and community protection. What made this conversation powerful wasn’t just the subject matter, but the grounding. We approached AI not as a futuristic abstraction, but as a present-day force shaping how people see, believe, and make decisions right now.
Why this conversation matters
AI is already embedded in everyday life. It decides what shows up in our feeds, which stories are elevated, and which voices are quietly filtered out. As I shared in the interview, these systems don’t learn from our values. They learn from our reactions. Our clicks. Our pauses. Our attention.
That matters deeply for Black, Indigenous, rural, and other marginalized communities. When our histories, cultural context, and lived realities are absent from the data training these systems, the result is distortion. Flattening. Erasure. And when technology shapes what we see, it also shapes what we believe is possible.
This conversation moved through:
- How AI quietly curates our information ecosystems
- The growing accessibility and danger of deepfakes
- How misinformation spreads through emotional and relational trust
- Why discernment, verification, and community communication matter more than ever
- How voter suppression tactics are evolving, not disappearing
- The environmental and land impacts of AI infrastructure
- And what it means for communities to lead technology with intention instead of being managed by it
Throughout the interview, I kept returning to one core idea: this is not just a technology conversation. It is a power conversation.
Community is the defense
One of the most important points we discussed is that no tool alone will save us. Detection software and platform policies will always lag behind the technology itself. Our strongest protection is community capacity.
When people are connected, informed, and able to communicate quickly with one another, misinformation loses its grip. Truth is collective. Discernment is relational. And protection is built through shared responsibility, not individual vigilance alone.
For young people especially, I shared this reminder: you don’t need to master every digital tool. Your role is to help protect the integrity of information in your community. To pause. To verify. To ask, “Does this align with what we know to be true?”
That work is sacred. It is bridge-building between generations, between the digital and the ancestral.
Listen and reflect
I’m honored to have been invited into this space, and I’m grateful to Rock the Native Vote for holding conversations that treat community wisdom as essential infrastructure.
I encourage you watch the full episode and to take your time with it. Sit with it. Share it thoughtfully. Talk about it with people you trust.
As always, this is part of a larger practice. The work continues between conversations, in how we consume information, how we care for one another, and how we insist on shaping the future instead of being shaped by it.
About the Author
Anneshia Hardy is a narrative strategist, scholar-activist, and social impact entrepreneur committed to leveraging storytelling and messaging for transformative social change. As Executive Director of grassroots communications and media advocacy organizations, Alabama Values and Alabama Values Progress, she leads efforts to strengthen the pro-democracy movement in Alabama and across the South through strategic messaging and digital strategies.
Co-founder of Blackyard LLC, Anneshia equips changemakers to amplify their impact in marginalized communities. With over a decade of experience, she has conducted narrative and messaging trainings for organizations like the NAACP and the Obama Foundation. Anneshia has also shaped strategies for landmark voting rights cases, including Allen v. Milligan and Louisiana v. Callais Rooted in the belief that culturally relevant narratives can drive equity and inspire action, she bridges academic insight and real-world advocacy to create lasting change.