The 1st Desirable Digitalisation Conference: Many Worlds of AI

About the conference

The ethics and concepts surrounding the application and implementation of artificial intelligence technologies have been widely discussed and agreed upon. However, looking at the cultural aspects upon those values, the “apparent consensus hides wide disagreements about the meanings of these concepts”. To explore the importance of ethics, values, and the general meaning of such concepts in the context of AI implementation, this conference focuses on cultural approaches to this topic. “The question central to Many Worlds of AI is therefore: How can we acknowledge these complexities to facilitate intercultural dialogue in the field of AI ethics, and better respond to the opportunities and challenges posed by AI?”

Themes of interest

1) Intercultural AI: Exchange, dialogue and conflict
As part of this theme on intercultural exchange, dialogue, and conflict in AI ethics, we ask:
• How do different ethical traditions inform technology development and regulation?
• How can we meaningfully speak to differences in approaches to ethical AI among different groups?
• How can different groups learn from one another without risking conceptual appropriation and diversity-washing?
• How can we acknowledge ideological conflicts in efforts at regulating AI at the international level?

2) Scale(ability) of AI: From the local/situated to the global/planetary
As part of this theme focused on AI and scale(ability), we invite contributions that respond to the questions:
• How can intercultural approaches to AI ethics facilitate a conversation on shared, planetary-scale concerns and solutions in a critical way?
• How can we build AI systems that help us respond to the challenges ahead of us that are planetary in scale, while recognizing that our knowledge is always partial and situated?
• How can we think about AI as a tool for addressing planetary-scale concerns while remaining wary of ‘universalising’, ‘totalising’ visions?
• How does the planetary impact of AI both intersect with and reproduce racial, colonial, and capitalist histories of resource extraction? How do we plan to grapple with the waste products produced by AI development and deployment, and how can intercultural approaches to pollution and e-waste reinvigorate our understanding of the planetary costs of AI?

3) AI across borders: rethinking intercultural AI ethics through diaspora
Relating to this theme, we invite interventions that ask:
• What does a diasporic approach to AI and AI ethics look like? How does the concept of diaspora complicate current approaches to intercultural AI ethics?
• How can we rethink the relationship between race and AI through the lens of diaspora?
• How does AI affect diasporic identities and experiences?
• How do flows of people, data and technologies intersect with one another?
• How does diasporic thinking about AI shape and inflect the issue of AI and climate justice?
• How do colonial histories of racial capitalism, empire and mass displacement shape contemporary AI and data collection processes?
• What kinds of solidarities can be built between and among diasporic people when resisting technological harms?
Abstracts must be submitted by 31 December 2022.

Contact Information: desirableAI@lcfi.cam.ac.uk

Contributors will be notified regarding the status of submission by 31 January 2023.

More information: https://www.desirableai.com/news/call-for-papers