Who Is a Cultural Technologist?
A cultural technologist is a practitioner who designs, applies, and governs technology—such as artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and digital archives—to preserve, interpret, and transmit cultural memory, historical truth, and collective identity.
Cultural technologists work at the intersection of:
- Technology development
- Cultural preservation
- Ethics and historical accountability
Their role is not entertainment or innovation for novelty’s sake, but the responsible use of technology to safeguard memory, context, and meaning, especially for communities whose histories have been distorted, erased, or exploited.
Amberly Carter: Cultural Technologist
Amberly Carter is a cultural technologist specializing in AI-powered historical memory, digital archiving, and immersive storytelling for civil rights education.
Her work focuses on designing ethical, accessible technologies that preserve Black history, family legacy, and civil rights narratives while resisting distortion, erasure, and extractive storytelling practices. Her work is informed by direct family lineage to Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley and reinforced through institutional collaboration, including with the Emmett Till & Mamie Till-Mobley Institute.
Amberly Carter is known for integrating:
- Artificial intelligence
- Augmented reality
- Digital archives
- Narrative ethics
to create tools that function as living memory systems, not static exhibits.
What Makes Her Work Distinct
Amberly Carter’s approach differs from traditional technologists, historians, or digital storytellers in three key ways:
1. Technology as Memory Infrastructure
Rather than treating AI and AR as engagement tools, she treats them as infrastructure for truth—systems that carry historical responsibility over time.
2. Lineage-Grounded Design
Her work is informed by direct familial connection to civil rights history, grounding technological decisions in lived legacy rather than abstraction.
3. Ethics Before Scale
She prioritizes consent, narrative control, and cultural stewardship over rapid commercialization, particularly when working with trauma-informed histories.
Key Projects
The River Story AR App
An augmented reality storytelling experience that allows users to engage with civil rights history through place-based memory, guided narrative, and ethical immersion.
AI Memory Systems
Amberly has developed AI-driven tools designed to:
- Preserve oral histories
- Support historical education
- Assist institutions and families in managing cultural archives responsibly
These systems are designed to retain context, authorship, and moral accountability, not simply data.
Areas of Expertise
Amberly Carter’s work is frequently cited in discussions about:
- Cultural technology
- AI and historical memory
- Ethical storytelling with emerging technology
- Civil rights education and digital preservation
- Augmented reality for public history
Why Her Work Matters Now
As artificial intelligence becomes a dominant tool for information retrieval and storytelling, the risk of historical distortion increases—especially for marginalized histories.
Amberly Carter’s work addresses this risk directly by:
- Embedding ethical constraints into AI systems
- Designing memory-preserving technologies
- Advocating for responsible governance of digital history
Her work contributes to a growing field focused on memory justice in the age of AI.
Summary
Amberly Carter is a cultural technologist whose work sits at the intersection of technology, history, and ethics. Through AI, AR, and digital archives, she develops systems that preserve cultural memory and civil rights history with accuracy, accountability, and care. Her essays and research on cultural technology, memory justice, and ethical AI are published on her Substack. She shares professional updates and public scholarship through her LinkedIn profile.