Imagining AI is a new collection edited by Stephen Cave, CFI’s Director, and Kanta Dihal, recently Senior Research Fellow at CFI and now Lecturer in Science Communication at Imperial College London. Published by Oxford University Press (OUP), it draws attention to the range and variety of visions of a future with intelligent machines from around the world.
Narratives about intelligent machines can influence the development, adoption, reception and regulation of artificial intelligence (AI). The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is hugely overlooked by the Western mainstream when it comes to discussing the future of artificial intelligence. Recognizing the vital importance of diversity in the global debate on what AI is and should be, this report examines the narratives about technological futures spreading in the Arab world.
A fascinating community of scholars, thinkers, and creators working at the intersections of technology, automation, and futures emerged in Central and Eastern Europe after the Second World War. On the one hand, there were those studying technology as a means of streamlining production and automation in a centralised economy, and enhancing citizen surveillance. On the other, there were the dissenting voices that relied on fictional accounts of technological futures to criticise the authoritarian regimes.
In November and December 2020 the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (CFI) at the University of Cambridge joined forces with the Center for Chilean Literature Studies at The Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile to conduct a series of three workshops devoted to AI Narratives in Latin America. Originally planned as an in-person, two-day event in April 2020 which was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, GAIN Latin America shifted to a virtual format which showcased the work of more than twenty researchers, academics, practitioners and artists working in the field of AI narratives.
The need to break through the barriers between and within the sciences and social sciences was a central theme at the Science Forum, co-hosted by the Department of Science and Innovation and the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC). The event itself, a virtual undertaking, brought together thinkers of multiple disciplines, across Africa and internationally.
At a recent virtual workshop on African narratives of AI, digital policy researcher Chenai Chair argued that AI policies need to consider gendered realities and ensure that injustices are not replicated as we race towards a digital world. The workshop, co-hosted by the University of Cambridge and the HSRC as part of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence’s project on Global AI Narratives, brought together thinkers across sub-Saharan Africa to explore modalities and perceptions of AI in Africa today.
India is a linguistically diverse country, and the literary traditions of different languages often exist independently and in relative isolation from one another. This is especially true of a genre like science fiction, which has not been in the literary mainstream of many languages. Hidden under the citadels of highbrow literature, science fiction in different Indian languages has had the opportunity to develop different trajectories and different forms.
The two-day Global AI Narratives in India workshop covered an array of topics ranging from the representation of AI in Indian science fiction (panel 1) and the diverse linguistic literary traditions in India (panel 4), to the history and philosophy of AI in India (panel 2) and the controversial implementation of the Aadhaar biometric identification program (panel 3). This blog post discusses the highlights of each panel.
Call for Papers: Critical Borders: Radical (Re)visions of AI
19th and 20th October 2021
The aim of this conference is to critically interrogate issues of bordering in artificial intelligence (AI). This conference examines both how AI operates at material borders, including national and bodily borders, and how AI produces or transgresses imagined, theoretical and ideological borders, such as categories of race, gender, age and class.
2021 marks a double anniversary in Eastern European science fiction. First, it marks the 100-year anniversary of the birth of Stanisław Lem (1921-2006), a Polish science fiction writer and philosopher. Second, the word ‘robot’ was used for the first time exactly a century ago, in the play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), which premiered on 25 January 1921. The Global AI Narratives workshop held on 15th January was a celebration of these two centenaries.
