Piercing the veil of authority in techno-utopian and AGI future-driven innovation
When:
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Venue:
Birkbeck Clore Management Centre
As ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini have shifted into everyday use, AI innovation has entered its next phase. This phase can be summarized as 'not as evil as social media', where dangers of social media for our mental health are used to counterbalance the equally serious risks of AI-based chatbots. While regulation and safeguarding have offered well-meaning responses, they are not timely enough to mitigate the damage these systems can cause. This raises the age-old question of how technological development---in general, not just AI---could be shaped to be more responsible.
This question is urgent and current shifts from tech giants and academic communities to seek a 'people-centred AI' are well underway. The concept of 'people-centred AI' conceptualized by social scientists, scholars of human-computer interaction and industry experts in fields of user experience and usability. It has however, been co-opted by the industry in particular and walks the dangerous line of seeming to enact responsible technological development while simply carrying on as usual, without real inclusion of social and human needs. A PhD degree in AI or Machine Learning; experience in statistical modelling or similar mathematical backgrounds are required qualifications in order to contribute to a 'people-centred AI'.
The exclusion of social sciences from creating a more people-centred AI is not an oversight, but an effort to erect a boundary and avoid challenges to entrenched tech-focused models of development that make business sense. In this talk, Rebekah will discuss how Science and Technology Studies helps to unmask this version of 'a people-centric, responsible AI', question the authority afforded to the 'Hard Sciences', and highlight how technology works to establish authority through its interface with the human.
Contact name: External Relations Events
Speakers-
Dr Rebekah Cupitt
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Rebekah Cupitt has a BA (University of Queensland, Australia) and an MA in Social Anthropology (Stockholm University, Sweden) and holds a PhD in Human-Computer Interaction specialising in Mediated Communication. Rebekah's research focuses on the people who use technology in their everyday lives and the socio-cultural aspects of technology relevant to its design. More specifically, Rebekah examines the ways in which technology influences communication in Swedish Sign Language and how it then becomes an active participant in performances of deaf (and hearing) identity in technology and media-rich organisational contexts. Rebekah's research takes a post-human and anti-normative approach to techno-utopias which often haunt human-computer interactions and therefore have implications for design.
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