The 'inevitable' socio-ecological damage of AI – and what we can do about it
This event will be part of the Stewart Alan Robertson's Lecture Series at The University of Edinburgh's Moray House School of Education and Sport.
Speakers: Masoumeh Iran Mansouri and David Bailey, University of Birmingham
***Date and venue to be determined***
Abstract
The rapid escalation of AI, seen as the next big technological change transforming global capitalism, has been met with widespread fear that it will generate ecological, social, democratic and work-related harms. At the same time, there is a widespread sense that the adoption of AI into all aspects of our lives is inevitable, necessitated by the drive for further economic growth and the need for humans to be able to ‘realise their full potential’.
These contradictory, but widely held, views prompt the question of what – if anything – we can, and should, do about AI. This is felt especially acutely within the sphere of education, with institutions being torn between the imperative to embrace AI and scholarly objections to its impacts.
Rejecting the ‘inevitability narrative’, our talk explores and maps the range of anti-AI activity that is flourishing in the present, including within higher education, and suggests a number of ways in which new AI technologies are currently proving to be vulnerable to the pressures generated by the growing anti-AI movement.
Bios
Masoumeh Iran Mansouri is an Associate Professor in the School of Computer Science at the University of Birmingham. Her research interests are complementary and wide-ranging, from developing AI-driven algorithms for robots operating in unstructured environments to exploring topics at the intersection of cultural theory and robotics, as well as critical approaches to understanding the societal impact of AI, how it is contested, and the alternative forms of AI that might be possible. She is the co-founder of the Critical Cultural Robotics Network and the Contentious Politics of AI, both based at the University of Birmingham.
David J. Bailey is Associate Professor in Politics at the University of Birmingham. His research and teaching focuses on different ways in which capitalism has been – and is being – contested, and with what effect, with a recent focus on anti-AI activism, climate activism, anti-austerity and the recent activities of the British labour movement. He is the co-editor in chief of the journal, Global Political Economy, and on the editorial board of Capital & Class, and he currently teaches a final year undergraduate module, ‘The Politics of Protest and Dissent’. Together with Masoumeh Iran Mansouri he recently co-founded the Contentious Politics of AI network, also at the University of Birmingham.
If you have any questions about this event, please email MHSES-RKEI-Events@ed.ac.uk.