Atlas of AI: On Deep Time, Deep Tissue, and Deep Space
Pluralizing the Anthropocene II
Pluralizing the Anthropocene II
Schedule: 6 pm (GMT, Lisbon Time)
The session will be in English
Events
will take place online. All welcome but registration required
Kate CRAWFORD (USC Annenberg)
Moderator: Gonçalo Santos (CIAS / Sci-Tech Asia / University of
Coimbra)
Artificial
intelligence is commonly discussed as being abstract, technical, and
immaterial, as algorithms “in the cloud.” But in fact, AI is both embodied and
material, made from natural resources, fuel, human labor, infrastructures,
logistics, histories, and classifications. AI is born from salt lakes in
Bolivia and mines in Congo, constructed from crowdworker-labeled datasets that
seek to classify human actions, emotions, and identities. It is used to
navigate drones over Yemen, direct immigration police in the United States, and
modulate credit scores of human value and risk across the world. A wide-angle,
multiscalar perspective on AI is needed to contend with these overlapping
regimes. This talk contends with the global interconnected systems of
extraction and power in the empires of AI, and considers the implications of
the current practices of enclosure.
Related
Gonçalo D. SANTOS is an anthropologist and a leading international
scholar in the field of China studies. His research explores new approaches to
questions of modernity, subjectivity, and social, technological, and ecological
transformation in contemporary China. He is an assistant professor of
socio-cultural anthropology in the Department of Life Sciences and a Researcher
and Group Coordinator in the Research Center for Anthropology and Health (CIAS) at the
University of Coimbra. Prior to joining the University of Coimbra in 2020, he
held positions at the London School of Economics, the Max Planck Institute for
Social Anthropology, and the University of Hong Kong. He is the author of Chinese Village
Life Today (University of
Washington Press, 2021) and the co-editor of Transforming
Patriarchy (University of Washington Press, 2017). His research
has been published in leading scientific journals in the fields of
anthropology, science and technology studies, and Asian studies. He is a member
of the Research Group on
Culture and Society, Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues,
at Georgetown University, and is the founder and the director of Sci-Tech Asia, a transnational research
network that focuses on the relations between technoscience, politics, and
society in Asia and around the world. He is interested in comparative
approaches that draw on Chinese and Asian perspectives and histories to
challenge the hegemonic power of Euro-American epistemologies and narratives of
modernity.