AIRA workshop at Autscape 2025 brought AI advocacy themes to the attention of a multinational audience of autistic people. Now the project continues to develop materials that aim to make the key advocacy topics accessible to those who need support with abstract concepts.
On 5th August 2025, the Artificial Intelligence and the Rights of Autistic People (AIRA) project hosted a workshop at the Autscape Conference, an annual gathering of autistic people from the UK and many European countries. The positions of the people involved in running the workshop reflected the growing importance of the topic in autistic communities. The session was led by Willow Caroline Holloway, Chair of Autistic UK, with support from Kabie Brook, Chair of ARGH Scotland, Heta Pukki, President of EUCAP and Silke Rudolph, Acting Vice President of EUCAP, with Kacey Clark, Chair of Autscape Organisation joining networking discussions about potential future developments. It was concluded that training for autistic activists on AI related themes, such as those delivered earlier in the AIRA project in Berlin and Helsinki, would be welcome and necessary in England, Scotland and Wales – ideally as three seprate trainings, because of the different legislatures.
Learn more about the AIRA project.
Why the AIRA workshop Autscape 2025 matters
The workshop participants agreed that autistic communities need to understand the systems around us so we can challenge them and co-create tools that reflect our values. It is vital that autistic people understand how these technologies work and how they can shape them. The key principle that has been repeated many times in the course of this project was affirmed once again: tools that make decisions about our lives must be designed and developed with our input. This shows a clear need to continue the work of the AIRA project.
Willow reflected on leading the session:
“Leading the workshop was really informative as we had a wide range of knowledge and views from our attendees. We provided educational materials for those who were new to AI. Attendees who had more knowledge shared this with the group. It was a learning experience for all of us. We had rich discussions about the benefits of AI and also the increasing concerns.”
AIRA workshop at Autscape 2025 – Willow Holloway leading the session
Growing interest and persistent obstacles
As AI is becoming omnipresent in our societies, it’s touching more and more on autistic people’s lives in ways that many of them have not expected. This change was reflected in the number of people participating in the workshop and the lively exchange of ideas. A participant remarked:
Loads and loads of conversation where there was already a lot of knowledge in the room. Too many people don’t engage any of their natural human intelligence in understanding the huge changes happening in the world, not only because of AI, but AI is one of the drivers of change.
From her perspective of having observed AIRA closely from the beginning, Heta saw positive developments, but also challenges in moving on from developing ideas within like-minded groups to having real impact in the wider world:
“This was the third year that we brought discussions about AI to Autscape, and throughout this time I have seen growing enthusiasm for the topic, as well as an ever-growing range of concerns. We hear all the autistic voices within our communities, but we still struggle with taking the next steps, turning all this talk into changes in policy or the directions of autism research that utilizes AI.”
Daria Satkovskaia (left), Kabie Brook, Chen Gerschuni and Heta Pukki at the AIRA exhibition stand at Autscape
Moving ahead without leaving anyone behind
The workshop participants heard that one of the main goals of the third and final year of AIRA is to bring information about AI topics in accessible form to people who face the greatest obstacles in getting their voices heard. These include the youngest and oldest in our communities, as well as those with communication impairments or learning disabilities, who may often find AI related matters too abstract and distant from their lived realities. With the ethos of leaving no one behinf, AIRA has sought impact through collaboration with the projects Digital for All, which develops peer training for those who struggle with digital skills, ACTIVATE, building an Advocacy Academy for autistic youth, and NeuroDem, which supports the engagement of neurodivergent youth in advocacy. Parts of AIRA outputs are finding their way into the materials of all three projects.
A process that began at the AIRA workshop at Autscape – with only partial success because the organising team did not want to curb the enthusiastic discussions – was the testing of practical assignments designed to provide accessible introductions to abstract AI advocacy topics. As AIRA proceeds to its final months, these assignments will be tested by groups of autistic people in other settings, and integrated into materials to be added to EUCAP’s AI Advocacy resource page.
Overall, the AIRA workshop Autscape 2025 was promising in its energy and sense of growing interest, leaving us with the impression that the project has reached one of its key audiences: autistic adults engaging in advocacy at local and national levels, and identified issues that really matter to autistic communities. This has given everyone involved in the project a sense of confidence, expecting to see AIRA outputs in active use beyond the end of the project, as well as inspiring research into genuinely beneficial, autism friendly applications of AI.
#autism #AutisticRights #artificialintelligence
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