AI: to participate or to abolish?

Critical AI and Data Studies scholarship suffers a contradiction: many of our colleagues suggest that AI’s undesired outcomes can be remedied through participatory practices, a change-from-within approach; others suggest that the technology is fixed with specific political properties in its design that no “un-design” is possible, thus suggesting the complete abolishing of its existence and use. None of these approaches are fully technologically deterministic, they both acknowledge human agency and the need for action – hence they pose a very serious dilemma. In this talk, I cover the historical basis of these questions and drawing from recent work coauthored with my team, I offer actionable insights as to how to take advantage of both approaches simultaneously in a context-aware fashion.

About the speaker:

I am a Lecturer in Digital Work at the University of Stirling focusing at the historical sociology of artificial intelligence and the role of hype and metaphors in its social shaping.