About | Massachusetts AI Action Network

About MAIAN

The Massachusetts AI Action Network (MAIAN) brings people and organizations across Massachusetts together to actively shape how AI affects their lives and communities.

Our mission

The Massachusetts AI Action Network (MAIAN) brings people and organizations across Massachusetts together to actively shape how AI affects their lives and communities. Through coalition building, grassroots organizing, public education, and engagement with policymakers, our goal is to turn public concerns about AI into collective action to benefit societal well-being and prevent harm.

We aim to be a trusted, community-informed resource for lawmakers, unions, local organizations, and residents trying to understand how AI will impact them and provide resources for them to take meaningful action. Our vision is a Massachusetts where the people affected by AI have a meaningful voice in decisions about its development, use, and oversight.

Why we organize

People want AI to contribute to human well-being rather than cause harm, but often lack a clear place to turn, a shared focus, or a practical way to get involved. In addition, people have widely varied concerns about AI, including children’s development, education, workers’ rights, climate change, data privacy, surveillance, and the risks posed by increasingly powerful AI systems, including existential risks and weaponization. Without opportunities to connect, those concerns can remain siloed. They do not become shared priorities with the public support needed to influence policy. By bringing people together, we intend to build shared understandings, relationships, and priorities around AI use and policy.

Our 1, 2, 3 approach

Providing ways to learn and connect

Public education, issue-focused convenings, and cross-sector gatherings give people an accessible place to learn, connect, and identify shared priorities.

How we do this

MAIAN provides an accessible entry point for people to understand AI’s implications, connect with others, and take concrete action. Through public education, issue-focused convenings, and cross-sector gatherings open to the public, we bring diverse voices together to understand how AI’s impacts are connected. Participants learn from one another’s experiences, identify shared priorities, and explore what well-regulated AI could make possible for their lives and communities. These relationships form the basis of a coalition that can pursue common goals and support members’ related campaigns while respecting their distinct needs and priorities. Convenings are action-oriented, helping participants identify concrete next steps and opportunities to work together.

Alongside these convenings, we grow and support an active grassroots base through recruitment, social gatherings, regular programming, and organizing training. These activities give people ways to build community, develop practical skills, and contribute consistently to collective work.

Organizing way to act together

We connect our organizing base and coalition to community events, policy briefings, meetings with Massachusetts lawmakers, and grassroots campaigns.

How we do this

We connect this organizing base and coalition to practical opportunities for action, including organizing community events, contributing to policy briefings, meeting with Massachusetts lawmakers, and other community-based actions. MAIAN develops grassroots campaigns around shared priorities and lends organizing support and its network to existing campaigns led by partners. Through ongoing relationships with lawmakers and policy organizations, we connect community concerns with policy expertise and opportunities to influence decisions about AI development and use.

By maintaining these connections and bringing community perspectives into policy discussions, we aim to become a trusted, community-informed resource that lawmakers, unions, local organizations, and residents can turn to on AI issues.

Develop leaders and secure wins

Participation builds knowledge, confidence, and relationships. Volunteers take on greater responsibility and sustain organizing beyond individual events.

How we do this

Regular opportunities to build community, learn organizing skills, and take action together help people develop the knowledge, confidence, and relationships they need to take on greater responsibility. As volunteers begin leading by coordinating campaigns and maintaining community partnerships, MAIAN can sustain participation beyond individual events. This creates a network better able to respond to emerging issues while pursuing and achieving longer-term policy goals.

Our theory of change

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MAIAN theory of change: a volunteer network connects diverse community concerns through learning, collective action, and leadership development, building a sustained public voice in AI policymaking. — Our path from public concern to shared priorities, connected coalitions, and lasting organizing capacity. Open the graphic to zoom in.

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Problem, audience, and vision

People want AI to benefit society but often lack a clear entry point or shared focus. MAIAN brings together Massachusetts students, parents, educators, workers, unions, local organizations, and people concerned about increasingly powerful AI. Our vision is for people to shape how AI affects their lives and communities, working toward well-regulated AI that supports human well-being.

Solution and activities

An established volunteer network provides an accessible place to learn, connect, and act. Public education, coalition building, grassroots organizing, and policy engagement connect diverse concerns. The three strands of work are learning and connecting, acting together, and developing leaders. Dedicated coordination would strengthen volunteer leadership and provide continuity.

Short-term outcomes

Shared understanding, relationships, priorities, and practical skills; organized public input connecting community concerns with policy expertise; and volunteers taking on greater organizing responsibility.

Long-term outcomes

Connected coalitions that support common goals and members’ related campaigns, a trusted community-informed resource on AI, and durable organizing sustained by volunteer leadership.

Impact

A stronger, sustained public voice in AI policymaking. Communities better able to influence AI development, use, and regulation. Collective capacity to pursue longer-term policy goals that support human well-being.

How we began

Our story

MAIAN grew out of a recognition that people working on different AI-related issues could achieve more by connecting their efforts. Educators concerned about children and technology, labor advocates focused on job displacement, privacy advocates addressing data use, and AI safety groups examining risks from the most powerful systems brought distinct but overlapping concerns. We saw an opportunity to build relationships across areas and identify shared priorities. What started as three people talking with friends grew into more intentional conversations with educators, students, engineers, parents, grassroots organizations, and policymakers. Those conversations led to the formation of MAIAN as a volunteer-led grassroots network focused on safe AI development and meaningful public participation.

Who we bring together

Building a statewide coalition

MAIAN is building a diverse and expanding coalition of students, educators, parents, labor and environmental organizations, community groups, policy specialists, and people across industries affected by AI.

We connect community experience with technical expertise and policymaking, supporting MAIAN’s campaigns and complementary work led by other organizations.

Our work has included creative production with Creatives for Collective Action, support from the Future of Life Institute, and collaboration with Irreplaceable on student organizing. We also connect local activism with national AI policy and safety organizations.

Connect with the network

Illustration of Massachusetts with connected points representing a statewide network

Get involved

Help shape the future of AI in Massachusetts.

Connect with others, learn about the issues, and find a way to contribute.

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