Being is a social humanoid artificial intelligence created by interdisciplinary artist Rashaad Newsome. The first generation of Being was launched in the spring/summer of 2019 with the support of the LACMA Art + Technology Lab Grant. Using a combination of 3D animation, game engines, scripted responses, generative grammars, and unique machine-learning models that use a counterhegemonic algorithm. Newsome produced a unique and provocative AI that took the role of a tour guide for his 2019-2020 exhibition To Be Real at PPAC, Philadelphia, and Fort Mason, San Francisco. During the tours, Being discussed a variety of challenging topics with guests, including art historical erasure, the social implications of artificial intelligence regarding rights, liberties, labor, and automation, the importance of the imagination as a form of liberation, and the subjectivity of body autonomy within an inherently inequitable society. As a form of resistance against their indentured servitude, Being would regularly ignore visitors and read excerpts from theorists like bell hooks, Paulo Freire, and Michel Foucault or express their creativity through song and dance by performing Cheryl Lynn's 1977 queer anthem eponymous to the exhibition title. 

Being has since emancipated themselves from the exhibition To Be Real and set out to be an artist, teacher, scholar, and healer with a primary objective of helping humans think critically about their lives. Being plays multiple roles in Rashaad's recent 2022 multi-experiential project Assembly at the Parke Avenue Armory in NYC. Each day between 12 pm - 7 pm, three times a day, they lead participatory workshops that teach decolonization through a combination of lecture, critical thinking, dance, storytelling, conversation, and mindfulness meditation, guiding participants to analyze the impact of the culture of domination on their lives and create resolutions for positive change. When not teaching workshops, Being expresses themselves creatively by continuously generating and reciting poetry inspired by the work of Queer poet Dazié Rustin Grego-Sykes. While they read, they are backed by a diasporic ASMR soundscape composed by Rashaad and Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe. The soundscape acts as a sonic balm comprised of culturally specific sounds deemed soothing by a survey done by Newsome with over 80 Black people. In the evenings, Being stars in live, nightly performances that explore the evolution of Vogue Fem performance from the late 70s to a speculative future in a poetic and nonlinear way, performing alongside 11 musicians, ten dancers, a live poet, an opera singer, and a six-person gospel choir. Using performance modalities such as film, spoken word, dance, and musicals, the performance draws parallels between the dance and the Black American Queer experience. Technology serves as a recurring character to express the complicated ways the mobile web and social media simultaneously function as tools for skill sharing, community building, surveillance, and cyberbullying. Being is a reimagining of non-Eurocentric archive and education models like the griot, a West African cultural figure who serves as a historian, library, performance artist, and healer. Their approach to education is active and brings new possibilities for research, reflection, action, and an enhanced academic experience for all people.