Call for Submissions
21st-century AI is very much in its formative stage: It is still unsettled, and is continually being both stabilised and contested by diverse sets of actors: from technologists, startup founders and global companies to policy makers, journalists, and civil society. For some, AI is being positioned as a fix to our social problems, which in turn will change how we live, communicate, work and travel. Others raise substantive concerns that these developments might reinforce inequality, exacerbate the opacity of decision-making processes, and ultimately question human autonomy. We are thus living in a time when the infrastructures and institutions of our everyday lives are being (re)built at the hands of techniques which already elude popular and professional understanding; but while the controversies about the specific pathways to be taken are still visible, we can already perceive elements of closure and institutionalization.
Our symposium invites contributions from an international audience to interrogate the shaping of AI. Building on an international collaboration between research teams from Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Canada, we invite presentations that pursue critical engagements with AI’s media representations, policy framings, and scientific debates. Crucially, we also invite epistemic reflections in how we are all Shaping AI, including practice-based research or research-creation.
The symposium runs from May 23-24 at the Milieux Institute at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Presentations in person are encourage. Remote participation will be available.
We encourage submissions along these following themes:
- Global, Local, and Frictions of AI governance
- AI Cultures
- Media representations of AI
- Ethics, a Techno-Solution to AI Controversies?
- Reflexivity and Positionality in AI Labs / Scenes / Collaborations
- Research Methods after AI
- Mapping AI Publics
- Skill Sharing on AI Engagements
- AI in and through Artistic Practice
Admissions will be guided by our desire to broaden our critical cases around shaping AI, encouraging submissions outside EU and Anglocentric contexts. Student submissions are welcome.
The symposium’s format encourages discussion with presentations capped at 10 minutes to ensure ample time for discussion.
Submissions due 18 January 2023. Abstracts 500 words or less.