The Algorithm Wasn't Built for Us: Reclaiming the Future of AI, Education, and Culture

The future is here—and it wasn’t built with you in mind.

In The Algorithm Wasn’t Built for Us, Karen Colbert delivers a groundbreaking, human-centered guide for educators, leaders, and changemakers navigating an AI-driven world. Through powerful storytelling, cultural wisdom, and practical strategy, she reveals how AI systems—and the institutions that rely on them—often replicate the very biases and inequities they claim to solve.

But this is not a book about fear. It’s a call to action.

Drawing from her experiences as a Tribal College educator, data scientist, and leadership coach, Dr. Colbert equips readers to reclaim agency, rethink how data shapes our lives, and build systems where innovation and humanity go hand-in-hand.
From AI literacy to ethical leadership, from rewriting educational practices to restoring community resilience, this book is a blueprint for those ready to rise, rebuild, and lead boldly.

You don’t have to fit into broken systems. You were born to redesign them.

If you’re ready to step into the future with clarity, courage, and unstoppable momentum, The Algorithm Wasn’t Built for Us is your guide.