With these lectures we hope to once again bring together scholars from around the world in engaging discussions and further contribute to Critical AI Studies as a continuing ‘field in formation’ (Raley and Rhee, 2023).

The seminars are online, open to everyone and take place on a bi-monthly basis. For each seminar one or two prominent invited speaker(s) are invited to give a talk that engages theoretically or empirically with AI.

The seminar series is organised by Anna Schjøtt Hansen, Dieuwertje Luitse and Tobias Blanke who are part of the Critical Data & AI Research Group at the University of Amsterdam. It is supported by the University of Amsterdam Research Priority Area Global Digital Cultures and the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis and hosted by Creative Amsterdam (CREATE).

Upcoming seminars

October 16 from 5:30-7 PM: ‘Deadly ground truths of AI-enabled warfighting’

Invited lecture by Lucy Suchman

Lucy Suchman Professor Emerita of Anthropology of Science and Technology in the Department of Sociology at Lancaster University. Her research works at the intersections of anthropology and the field of feminist science and technology studies, focused on cultural imaginaries and material practices of technology design. My current research extends my longstanding critical engagement with the fields of artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction to the domain of contemporary militarism. I am concerned with the question of whose bodies are incorporated into military systems, how and with what consequences for social justice and the possibility for a less violent world.

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December 3 from 5:30-7 PM: ‘Stabilising Generative AI as a Public Concern’

Invited lecture by Mike Ananny

Mike Ananny is an associate professor of communication and journalism at USC Annenberg, where he studies how technologies and cultures of media production have the power to shape public life. Working across communication, journalism studies, media studies, and science and technology studies, he sees the future of public life in the practices, assumptions, and controversies driving social media platforms, data infrastructures, algorithms, and artificial intelligence.

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January 22 (2025) from 5:30-7 PM: ‘Algorithms of Suspicion: Authentication and Distrust on Digital Labor Platforms’

Invited lecture by Lilly Irani

Lilly Irani is an associate professor at the University of California, San Diego. Her research investigates the cultural politics of high-tech work practices with a focus on how actors produce “innovation” cultures. She is an ethnographer of work trained to analyse interactional, organizational, and cultural dynamics as mediated by technology. She also draws on her training as a Computer Scientist and designer to develop novel technical, organizational systems for contexts she studies.

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March 12 from 5:30-7 PM: ‘Synthetic Vision/Algorithmic Violence’

Invited lecture by Rocco Bellanova & Francesco Ragazzi

Rocco Bellanova is a Research Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (interdisciplinary research group Law, Science, Technology & Society-LSTS). His work sits at the intersection of politics, law, and science and technology studies. He studies how digital data become pivotal elements in the governing of societies. His research focuses on European security practices and the role of data protection therein and he is the PI of the ERC Starting Grant project DATAUNION - The European Data Union: European Security Integration through Database Interoperability.

Francesco Ragazzi is Associate Professor in International Relations. He is currently interested in the relation between images, power and social practices, with a focus on security. His current research, supported by the ERC Consolidator Grant Security Vision, focuses on artificial intelligence and the place of algorithmic socio-technical systems in the field of security, with a focus on the treatment of images (biometric identification, emotion recognition, social media content moderation). His past themes of research include diaspora politics, radicalisation and counter-radicalisation.

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May 14 from 5:30-7 PM: ‘AI and the (Re)Shaping of Intelligence’

Invited lecture by Wendy Chun, Stephanie Dick & Matt Canute

Wendy Hui Kyong Chun is Simon Fraser University’s Canada 150 Research Chair in New Media, Professor in the School of Communication, and Director of the Digital Democracies Institute. At the Institute, she leads the Mellon-funded Data Fluencies Project, which combines the interpretative traditions of the arts and humanities with critical work in the data sciences to express, imagine, and create innovative engagements with (and resistances to) our data-filled world.

Stephanie Dick is an Assistant Professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University. Her research and teaching are informed by her background in STS and History of Science, with a focus on computing, mathematics, and artificial intelligence since the Second World War.

Matt Canute is a postgraduate researcher in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University, Canada.

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Contact

In case you have questions regarding the seminar series, feel free to reach out to Anna Schjøtt Hansen (a.s.hansen@uva.nl) or Dieuwertje Luitse (d.luitse@uva.nl).