Episode 6 | Joy Is a System: Grief, AI, and the Power of Context

In our first guest episode, Beth and Katie are joined by Dr. Desmond Patton—renowned social worker, AI ethics leader, and founder of SAFELab—for a soul-stirring conversation on what’s ending, what’s beginning, and why joy is more than a feeling—it’s an intentional system.

From pioneering research on youth expression and gun violence to building JoyNet, a machine learning platform designed to surface joy in digital spaces, Desmond shares how community, nuance, and vulnerability can change the future of tech. Together, the trio explores why context matters in AI, how social media misreads grief as aggression, and what it means to decolonize data through trust.

This is a masterclass in human-centered design—one rooted in lived experience, radical listening, and the belief that joy and justice are not opposites.

🔑 Topics Covered:

• What’s ending: the era of joyless performance
• What’s beginning: joy as an intentional operating system
• The origin and mission of JoyNet
• Why traditional NLP tools misinterpret Black and Brown grief
• CASM: a 7-step contextual analysis system for social media
• Building tech with, not for, marginalized communities
• How AI systems get culture—and people—so wrong
• Scaling empathy without erasing depth
• Social media as a space of both trauma and healing
• Reimagining metrics, value, and thick data
• Storytelling, digital connection, and the slow power of joy

📌 Key Takeaways:

• Joy is not frivolous; it’s resilient, rooted, and revolutionary.
• AI systems must be designed with contextual nuance and cultural fluency—or they cause harm.
• Grief doesn’t look the same across cultures, and we need tech that understands that.
• Participatory research and lived experience are non-negotiable in building responsible AI.
• The movement toward healing, justice, and connection is growing—even if it’s quiet.

⏱️ Chapters (Timestamps):

00:00 What's Ending and Beginning: Joy as Operating System

03:00 JoyNet and the Science of Digital Uplift

06:00 When NLP Fails: Misreading Black Grief as Aggression

12:00 Introducing CASM: Contextual Analysis of Social Media

16:00 InterpretMe: A Tool for Training Ethical Annotation

20:00 Why Youth Voice and Lived Experience Must Lead

26:00 Collaborating with Tech Platforms for Change

30:00 The Case for Thick Data Over Scale

35:00 Polarization, Algorithms, and the Cost of Misunderstanding

40:00 The Quiet Power of Joy Posts and the Future We Can Choose