“AFTER AI”
SYMPOSIUM
JOIN US ONLINE
MAY 17, 2024 @ 10:00 - 17:00 BST (GMT +1)
Registration open until may 16 @ 17:00
“Shifting Power” is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship project exploring the long-term impacts of AI, particularly those that do not centre (primarily) White, Western European notions of innovation, morality and justice.
To help us explore the future of this technology, and the consequences we expect it to have on people, society, the planet and beyond, the Shifting Power team is hosting a symposium on what happens “After AI”.
As part of our current explorations into the topic with researchers and enthusiasts from all over the world, we have learned that our understanding of AI and its impacts is often coupled with a sense of urgency, what’s right in front of our faces, the real and present impacts of AI now and in the near future. With this event, we want to look further.
We are therefore asking you to use whatever form of prediction you find relevant – science, intuition, divine inspiration, prophecy, astrology, folklore, etc. – and help us explore the question:
After AI?
For us, "after" indexes both a temporality and object of inquiry - something that may come about following another event and something we are chasing. How might we imagine our futures within and without AI (as it is coming to be known, or will be known)? What is your prediction? Will the dreams and nightmares all come to pass? What can we recognise right now and from the past that makes this future happen?
We have a long history, globally, of examining the present and the past through the future. We want this event to be an interdisciplinary and holistic exploration of the future After AI. We welcome anyone who has something to share, be they academics, technology enthusiasts or luddites, artists, activists, healers, etc.
About
the Event
“After AI” Symposium is an interdisciplinary holistic discussion on Artificial Intelligence
Format Of The Event
The symposium will be held online, over Zoom, with BSL interpreter. It is entirely free to participate. We are planning to have 12 presentations during the day, with plenty of breaks and time for discussion. As it will be a long day and attention can be difficult for such a long period, we will encourage participants to move if they are able, to spend time outside, and to come and go as their schedules and energy allow. If you have another accessibility need, please write to a member of the program committee, and we will address accommodations to the best of our ability.
We aim to provide a forum for presentations and focused discussions from a diverse cohort of contributors with different epistemological, cultural and social backgrounds.
In particular, given the overall goals of our project, we want to highlight contributions from those who experience discrimination, marginalisation or peripheralization in society. Therefore, the program committee (see below) will curate submissions to facilitate stimulating discussion, surface novel contributions, and highlight hidden perspectives.
Symposium Programme*
session 1
10:00
session 2
11:50
session 3
14:15
session 4
15:30
Lessons from Wittgenstein and the Unbearable Lightness of "Artificial Intelligence”
Paul Wong (he/him)
The Ecological in AI Fictions and Futures
Joanna Boehnert (she/her), Alistair Alexander (he/him)
‘Is it possible to learn how to see the softness of wood shavings?’
Peter Marsh (he/him)
The Future of AI is Ancestral
Mateus van Stralen (he/him)
Shaping AI Futures. Collective AI Towards a Solarpunk Tomorrow
Anca Serbanescu (she/her)
VR & AI - our new way of grieving?
Chantal Pisarzowski (she/her)
Algorithmic patterns after AI
Alex McLean (he/him),
Anu Reddy (she/her)
Apocalyptic AI Otherwise
Mustafa Ali
AI Atemporality vs. Recursive Sacred Time: The plural Machine-Now
Gaston Welisch (he/him)
'Queering Autobiographical Memory: Emotional Analysis of Goodreads Book Reviews for (Sub)-Genre Recognition'
Izzy Barrett-Lally (she/her)
After the Binary: AI and Greenberg in 2024
Sarah Jane Field (she/her)
Charting the Human-AI Creative Continuum: A Personalized Navigation
Caleb Weintraub (he/him)
BREAK 11:15-11:50
LUNCH 13:15 - 14:15
BREAK 15:15 - 15:30
END
*Registrants are free to attend all or parts of the sessions
Submission Guidelines
The submission format will be a 10-15 sentence abstract that describes either an audio/visual presentation or a planned paper that you would like to contribute to the event.
Your abstract should describe how you plan to explore what happens “After AI”.
Inspiration and Ideas on Topics is here
Only those abstracts selected by the program committee will be asked to submit a full-length paper of 5-8 pages or an outline for a 10-15 minute presentation.
Symposium Organisers And Program Committee
DR. TRACIE FARRELL
Research Fellow at the Open University and recipient of the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship (Round 6). Her transdisciplinary, mixed methods research explores the impact of Artificial Intelligence on society, including impacts on people, their communities, and the wider ecosystems in which they live. Before her academic career, Tracie worked for 18 years in the non-formal education sector on issues related to human rights, gender, leadership and citizenship.
DR. R. JUSTIN HUNT
An artist, lecturer, and producer. He is currently a Senior Relationship Manager at Arts Council England and freelances as an academic consultant and business coach. He is a Cultural Advocacy Fellow at the Mile End Institute, Queen Mary University of London, and External Examiner at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Glasgow. Hunt was previously a Research Practitioner at the Open University in the Knowledge Media Institute and Adjunct Professor of Film, Gender & Sexuality Studies at Syracuse University, London. His current research is on the after effects of sex and performance, primarily focussed on after parties as sites of intimate knowledge exchange.
Riv Rosenfeld
Berlin based visual and performance artist who works in film/video, performance, and experimental writing practice. Their work addresses the sustainability of emotional and political ecologies, cruising methodologies, past and future histories in regard to the ways in which memory is queered.
Serena Coppolino Perfumi
Computational Social Scientist, who also specialises in Human-Computer-Interaction and user experience. Her previous research has explored the ways in which social media users understand and deal with disinformation.
DR. VENETIA BROWN
Postdoctoral Research Associate in mixed methods at the Knowledge Media Institute in the Open University. Her current research focuses on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and justice intersections, using Grounded Theory to investigate the impacts of AI from the perspective of queer, marginalised and peripheralized communities.
Dr. Aisling Third
Research Fellow at the Open University specialising in the Decent Web; she investigates technical and social models supporting digital self-determination, applied to AI, education, healthcare, and human data systems. Her background is in formal semantics, mathematics, and philosophy.
DR. RETNO LARASATI
Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Knowledge Media Institute in the Open University. Her research interest is focused on trust, explainable AI, and AI ethics. Her current interest is around new methodologies and approaches that can be used to identify and measure key factors in an ecological understanding of AI and its impacts.
Dr. Bukola Oyinloye
Post-doctoral researcher at York University where she examines the doctoral recruitment and selection landscape for British applicants from minoritised ethnic groups. Her research spans equity and diversity in access to higher education; ethics and indigenous epistemologies.
DR. Syed Mustafa Ali
Lecturer and Convenor of the Critical Information Studies research group in the School of Computing and Communications at The Open University. His transdisciplinary research focuses on developing a hermeneutic framework grounded in Heideggerian phenomenology, critical race theory, and postcolonial/decolonial thought, and using this framework to explore how race, religion, politics, and ethics are entangled with various technological phenomena.
Dr. Ben Sweeting
Principal Lecturer at the University of Brighton, teaching architecture and design. Ben studied architecture but ended up learning about cybernetics, a strange transdisciplinary field that studies circular processes and which relates to almost everything in one way or another, including AI but also forests, design methods, classrooms, cities. At Brighton, Ben is part of the Radical Methodologies Research Group, a small team interested in questioning foundational assumptions in research and practice in multiple contexts.
Partners and Support
CONTACT US
Email Address
tracie.farrell@open.ac.uk