🔬 Doctoral Field Study
Who actually gets to write the rules for the future?
Washington and Silicon Valley are currently writing the rules for the AI age, but they rarely ask the rest of us how we actually feel about it. As a doctoral student and community field reporter, I am building a ground-truth dataset to take into the rooms where policies are made.
You do not need to be a tech expert to answer this. In fact, if you have never touched an AI tool in your life, your perspective is exactly what is missing from the research. I want to hear from:
- ›Students and recent grads trying to figure out what's next
- ›Legacy workers worried about what AI means for their job
- ›Teachers adapting their classrooms without any real guidance
- ›Small business owners navigating tools they weren't trained on
- ›People who have never touched an AI tool in their life
Numbers change policies, and your voice belongs in this data.
Field Research Project · Techs in the City
The Human Edge: Who Actually Gets to Write the Rules for AI?
A Field Research Project by Al Dungo, Community Technologist & Doctoral Candidate
I am traveling the national correspondent circuit — from San Antonio to federal research centers, hacker spaces, and dev meetups — to find out what builders, teachers, and everyday people actually need from the next era of technology. Your voice belongs in the rooms where the future is being decided.
Why I Am Asking
I grew up in Uvalde, Texas, in an underserved community without a single computer science class in my K–12 education. I know exactly what the wrong side of the tech pipeline looks like.
I didn't have a standard blueprint, but I managed to figure it out. Through two DoD SMART Scholarships, I became a first-generation technologist, a former university adjunct, and I am now officially beginning my Doctorate in Information Technology (DIT) at Capella University.
But my core mission has never changed since college: I want to help people through technology.
Right now, we are standing at the edge of the biggest technological shift of our lifetime: the AI age. But there is a massive problem with how it is being handled.
The rules, policies, and systems for AI are currently being written in closed rooms in Washington DC and Silicon Valley. The people making these decisions are rarely talking to the startup founders at DevSA, the developers at Geekdom, the K–12 teachers trying to adapt, or the everyday people in towns like Uvalde who will actually feel the impact of these tools.
The Ground Truth Data
As a Community Technologist and field reporter for Techs in the City, I am running a van-based mobile studio across the national correspondent circuit. From San Antonio to federal tech hubs, cyber conferences, and AI summits, I embed myself in hacker spaces, dev meetups, and classrooms to see what builders and ordinary people are actually experiencing.
My doctoral research is dedicated to the “Human Edge” of technology. I am collecting ground truth data straight from the field to ensure that the next generation of policies doesn't just protect the tech elite, but actively sends the elevator back down for the rest of us.
I want to synthesize this data to prove that local ecosystems and everyday citizens — the Domestic AI Majority — deserve a seat at the table.
Government
Federal policy + compliance lens
Academia
DIT doctoral research at Capella
Industry
DevSA, Geekdom, community rooms
📋 The 4-Question Field Study
When I walk into high-level academic and policy rooms, I am taking your answers with me.
Question 1
What is your relationship to technology right now — as a user, a builder, a skeptic, or something else?
Question 2
What is the biggest way AI has already changed your daily life or work — for better or worse?
Question 3
Who do you think is currently being left out of the AI conversation, and why does that matter?
Question 4
What is one thing you wish the people building AI policy actually understood about your community or your life?
I'm Al Dungo. First-gen Filipino-American from Uvalde, Texas. Incoming Doctoral student. Builder. Field correspondent.
Thank you for helping me build the pipeline for the next generation of Digital Warriors.
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