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Public Problematisations of AI

How do we publicly problematise the role Artificial Intelligence (AI) plays in society to challenge its inevitability and imagine other ways of living with AI? This panel explores this question, as it invites leading researchers who critically engage with AI and its relation to the public to discuss their ongoing work.

In recent years, AI has moved from its discrete existence in various research labs to being implemented across societal sectors, from health to media, and has become part of the everyday practices of citizens. In this panel discussion, leading researchers will discuss how AI can be publicly problematised to ensure that these systems are developed and implemented in ways that are beneficial to society and its citizens.

Problematisation involves questioning the assumption that technologies are inevitable in their current form. It requires examining who defines the problems that guide technological development. By doing this, we create space for alternative perspectives and new possibilities for public repositioning.

Speakers

Dr Mercedes Bunz is Professor in Digital Culture and Society at the Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London. She studied Philosophy, Art History and Media Studies at the FU Berlin and the Bauhaus University Weimar, and wrote her thesis on the history of the internet driven by a deep curiosity about digital technology. Mercedes Bunz co-leads the Creative AI Lab, a collaboration with the Serpentine Gallery, London.

Mike Ananny is an Associate Professor of Communication and Journalism and, by courtesy, Cinematic Arts, at the University of Southern California. He studies how people build digital infrastructures, algorithmicsystems, and artificial intelligence that create public life – and he tries to intervene to make cultures of production, regulatory initiatives, and system designs better serve public interests. He co-directs the interdisciplinary USC collective Media As SocioTechnical Systems (MASTS) and the AI for Media & Storytelling (AIMS) initiative of the USC Center on Generative AI and Society.

Taina Bucher is Professor and Head of Research in the Department of Media and Communications at the University of Oslo. She currently leads HumAIn, a humanities-based research hub focused on thereimagination of AI, and is involved in several funded projects on AI, imaginaries, and opinion formation. She leads the Norwegian AI Research School for Humanities and Society. Her research explores the socialand cultural imaginaries of algorithms and AI.

Tobias Blanke (moderator) is Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Humanities at the University of Amsterdam.