Vladan Joler

Vladan Joler is a researcher and co-founder of the SHARE Foundation who has become known for mapping the hidden infrastructures and supply chains that power artificial intelligence systems. His landmark 2018 work, Anatomy of an AI System, created with Kate Crawford, visualized the complex global supply chain behind Amazon's Echo device, revealing the environmental, labor, and material costs obscured in consumer technology. This poster fundamentally changed how researchers and the public understand AI systems as material, extractive processes rather than purely digital phenomena.

Beyond this signature achievement, Joler has built a substantial research and institutional practice. As a professor at the University of Novi Sad, he continues to investigate the systems underlying artificial intelligence. His subsequent work includes New Extractivism (2020), which deepens the analysis of resource extraction embedded in digital technologies. His research has been exhibited internationally at prestigious venues including ZKM, the V&A Museum, and Gaite Lyrique, bringing these critical investigations to diverse audiences across Europe and beyond.

For audiences, Joler offers a grounded, evidence-based perspective on how artificial intelligence systems are built and maintained. Rather than treating AI as an abstract technology, he traces the concrete supply chains, mining operations, labor conditions, and environmental impacts that constitute these systems. His work matters because it shifts conversations from algorithmic abstractions to material realities, asking what costs are hidden when we use AI devices and who bears those costs across global supply chains.