"Artificial Futures: Critical Visions of AI and Algorithmic Society." A multi-disciplinary symposium on artificial intelligence at IU Bloomington, April 9 and 10.
On Thursday, April 9 and Friday, April 10 IU Bloomington will host a large, multidisciplinary symposium titled "Artificial Futures: Critical Visions of AI and Algorithmic Society." The co-organizers are Shane Greene (Professor of Anthropology), Minjeong Kim (Professor of Merchandising, Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture, and Design) and Larry Moss (Professor of Math). Sponsors include: Institute of Advanced Study, Luddy Center for Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence and Digital Futures Initiative, and the Eskenazi Technolology and Innovation Lab. The co-organizers first met and exchanged ideas in the context of "The Bloomington Symposium" on "Intelligence," organized by the Institute of Advanced Study in 2024.
In this 2-day symposium two invited specialists and a highly interdisciplinary group of IU faculty will present current research and perspectives that engage critically with recent forms of AI and the algorithmic logics that underpin contemporary tech-saturated society. The term “Artificial Intelligence” (AI) dates to the 1950s and the development of "smart" technologies associated with it has experienced various “winters” and “springs” ever since. It is only in the last few years that generative AI has exploded into popular consciousness as chatbots, text-to-image generators, AI-made music platforms and more have taken over the internet and become integrated into the very infrastructure of contemporary lives, politics, labor, and education. The dramatic rise of AI technologies in recent years has resulted in everything from practical pedagogical questions (How does an Instructor fully detect and respond to the glut of AI written essays?) and environmental issues (How much water does it take to cool a data center?) to global economic problems (How does AI-assisted decision-making affect consumer confidence? How much does the average Kenyan “clickworker” get paid to help AI “learn” relative to the CEO of OpenAI?) to speculative scenarios (Is the idea of humans going extinct because of smart robots still just sci-fi?). The symposium title invokes the term “artifice” in the sense of a creative act but one that can produce something just as deceiving as it is revelatory of underlying reality. It invokes the term “critique” to indicate a range of possible responses, from disappointment and worry to more constructive criticisms – and everything in between.
Two outside experts will give keynotes. On Thursday, April 9 at 4pm Roc Albalat will give the first keynote in Franklin Hall's Media Commons. Albalat is a member of Taller Estampa, an artistic collective of programmers, filmmakers, and researchers based in Barcelona. They take a critical and archaeological approach to audiovisual and digital technologies, with a particular focus on archival and experimental media. Since 2017, one of their primary areas of research has been the uses and ideologies of artificial intelligence. The collective takes a hands-on, experimental approach to demystify AI, shifting from abstract theory to a tangible understanding through direct technical engagement. Albalat's presentation will introduce the “Cartography of Generative AI,” a project that maps the vast, global ecosystem of actors, resources,
knowledge, and infrastructures that underpins the reception of this technology.
Dr. Cornelia C. Walther will give a second keynote on Friday, April 10 at 1pm in the Mies van der Rohe Building. Walther is a humanitarian practitioner with more than two decades of experience at the United Nations, advancing social change across global contexts. She is a Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, and the Harvard Learning and Innovation Lab where her work focuses on hybrid intelligence and ProSocial AI. Through the global POZE alliance, she pioneers research and practice to strengthen human agency in the age of AI. She is currently collaborating with the Sunway Centre for Planetary Health and Sunway’s Global Strategy and Competitiveness Centre in Malaysia, as well as with the United Nations Populations Fund in Morocco, on ProSocial AI initiatives.
In addition to two keynotes, the symposium will feature two panels of IU faculty and PhD students from across the College of Arts and Sciences, the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture and Design, the Media School, and the Luddy School of Informatics. Panel One (Friday, April 10, 9am) and Panel Two (Friday, April 10, 2:30pm) will both take place in the Mies van der Rohe Building. Students, faculty, and the public are invited.
