Karen Palmer

Karen Palmer is a Black British XR creator, futurist, and TED speaker whose work explores the intersection of artificial intelligence, immersive storytelling, neuroscience, behavioral psychology, and social justice. Palmer develops emotionally responsive film experiences that use AI and facial recognition technology to adapt narratives in real time based on a participant's eye gaze and emotional state. Her projects examine the implications of AI bias, surveillance technologies, and digital inequality, transforming viewers into active participants in their own stories.

Palmer's background in parkour and freerunning informs her philosophy of moving through fear and rewiring subconscious behavior. Her early interactive project, "Syncself," combined film, technology, and parkour to explore how media can respond to human emotion. This foundation led to "RIOT," an emotionally responsive, live-action film that uses AI and facial recognition to place participants inside a riot scenario, prompting them to confront implicit biases. "RIOT" was recognized as part of Columbia University's Digital Dozen: Breakthroughs in Storytelling and has been exhibited at institutions including V&A London, Museum of Modern Art Peru, and PHI Centre Montreal, with coverage in The Guardian and Forbes.

Following "RIOT," Palmer created "Perception iO," an AI law enforcement training simulation and facial emotion detection experience that interrogates bias in AI systems and the need for transparency and regulation. The work was exhibited at Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York as part of the Face Values: Exploring Artificial Intelligence exhibition, and received an Honorary Mention for the STARTS Prize at Ars Electronica. Palmer also developed "Consensus Gentium," commissioned by BFI, which won the XR Experience Competition at SXSW. Designed for smartphones, the film branches in real time based on the participant's eye gaze and emotions, fostering discussion about data privacy, unconscious bias, and AI governance. It has been shown at London Film Festival, Kaohsiung Film Festival in Taiwan, Geneva International Film Festival, Munich Film Festival, and Ars Electronica in Austria.

As an international speaker, Palmer has delivered keynotes at venues and institutions including MIT, AT&T Shape Conference, Wired for Wonder Festival in Australia, TEDx Australia at the Sydney Opera House, Microsoft in Seattle, and Google Cultural Institute in Paris. She founded Hack the Future Labs, interdisciplinary think-and-action tanks that integrate art, neuroscience, technology, activism, and social justice to help individuals and organizations build new narratives. Palmer's work has been featured in Wired, Fast Company, CBS News, Channel 4 News, BBC News, and The Guardian. Through her projects, Palmer challenges audiences to engage with the futures shaped by emerging technologies and to claim agency within them.