Human Entities 2023: culture in the age of artificial intelligence
Seventh edition, Wednesday 26 April 2023

Rebooting democracy
Manuel Arriaga + Pedro Magalhães
Manuel Arriaga is a university professor and one of the founders of the Fórum dos Cidadãos; Pedro Magalhães is a researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon

Democracy is a technology of collective decision-making that aggregates intentions and defines a course of action. However, according to the diagnosis of many, it’s a technology ‘in crisis’. An important part of the contemporary experience of ‘democratic frustration’ seems to result from the contrast between the stagnation of ways of doing politics and the rapid evolution of digital technology. As consumers, we have long learned to expect – and demand – innovation. Yet, as citizens, we regularly confront ourselves with the immutability of mechanisms of governance.

In representative democracy, who is effectively represented? How, and to what extent, are the interests and preferences of people – and different people – converted into policies? With regard to the issue of the environment and climate change, in every election cycle there seems to be a kind of myopia, or short-sightedness, which exclusively focuses on the articulation and resolution of (some) short-term problems.

To what extent can forms of ‘democratic innovation’, especially those that serve to create greater opportunities for political participation, serve to address long-term problems, in particular the climate crisis? What is the potential of other forms of political organisation as a complement, or even alternative, to representative democracy?

This discussion will be moderated by Catherine Moury, Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the PhD programme, Political Studies Department, NOVA University of Lisbon.

Manuel Arriaga
Manuel Arriaga is a university professor, author of Rebooting Democracy: A Citizen’s Guide to Reinventing Politics one of the founders of the Fórum dos Cidadãos and, more recently, one of the driving forces behind the political party (still non-existent) FUTURO.

https://www.rebootdemocracy.org
https://www.forumdoscidadaos.pt
https://www.futurodemocratico.pt

Pedro Magalhães
Pedro Magalhães is a researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon, where he develops research in the area of public opinion and political attitudes, in particular attitudes towards democracy.

https://www.pedro-magalhaes.org/
https://twitter.com/PCMagalhaes

Organized in partnership with  the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lisbon, Communication Design and of Multimedia Arts departments

Discriminating Data, a conversation with Wendy Hui Kyong Chun

In Discriminating Data [2021], Wendy Hui Kyong Chun reveals how polarization is a goal—not an error—within big data and machine learning. These methods, she argues, encode segregation, eugenics, and identity politics through their default assumptions and conditions. Correlation, which grounds big data’s predictive potential, stems from twentieth-century eugenic attempts to “breed” a better future. Recommender systems foster angry clusters of sameness through homophily. Users are “trained” to become authentically predictable via a politics and technology of recognition. Machine learning and data analytics thus seek to disrupt the future by making disruption impossible.

In this conversation, Chun will discuss the themes of her book with Andrea Pavoni, assistant research professor at DINAMIA’CET and then take questions from the audience.

Wendy Hui Kyong Chun

https://www.sfu.ca/communication/team/faculty/wendy-chun.html

Human Entities is a public programme of talks organised by CADA.

Artist Talk

Somewhat similar to what it is commonly said about migrants, autonomous machines are taken to be a potential threat to some human labour. In military environments, these systems and their efficiency can, in fact, be more lethal than those controlled by people. This idea allows us to roll back to the core definition of intelligence which, since the Industrial Revolution has been deeply linked with efficiency-as-productivity, and subsequent avoidance of errors. This definition which is the heir of a type of rationality, with origins in the Enlightenment, is placed at the top of a hierarchy above all other human thought systems. Problems linked to managing the natural environment, where other later ‘non-rational’ human cultures are encountered, have been solved through domination and even annihilation. We can now see that some AI systems continue this legacy.

In this context, AIELSON [a machine learning model Torres trained to generate spoken-word poetry] reflects upon the zeitgeist, incorporating a complex critique where the system is seen to be connected to humanity (as a reflection) since imperfections are not discarded but embraced. Consequently this contradicts the notion of intelligence as the epitome of flawless efficiency and perfection. Hence, Torres proposes that we should now discuss machine creativity, and how creativity informs human imagination. Her work asks the question: Can we envision another future of possible cooperation between humans and machines, where the natural world is no longer seen as a territory to conquer?

Bio

Her performances and her artworks, which are also part of the collections of Malmo Art Museum and the Public Art Agency of Sweden, have been presented in several countries of the Americas, Central Europe, and Scandinavia, where she is currently based.

https://autodios.github.io

#NatureTruthPower: Política ambiental na era da pós-verdade e das plataformas digitais

How should we share the truth about the environmental crisis? At a moment when even the most basic facts about ecology and the climate face contestation and contempt, environmental advocates are at an impasse. Many have turned to social media and digital technologies to shift the tide. But what if their strategy is not only flawed, but dangerous? 

In this presentation, Bram Büscher traces how environmental action is transformed through the political economy of digital platforms and the algorithmic feeds that have been instrumental to the rise of post-truth politics. Building on a novel account of post-truth as an expression of power under platform capitalism, he shows how environmental actors mediate between structural forms of platform power and the contingency of environmental issues in particular places. Key in understanding this mediation is a reconfiguration of the relations between nature, truth and power in the 21st century. Its upshot is the need for an environmental politics that radically reignites the art of speaking truth to power. 

Bio

https://brambuscher.com

Sensing Smart Forests

Forests are increasingly sensorized environments. Whether in the form of camera traps to monitor organisms or the Internet of Things to detect wildfires, there are an array of sensor technologies that observe and constitute forests in relation to scientific inquiry, Indigenous land claims, environmental governance, and disaster prevention and mitigation.

This presentation will investigate the sensory arrangements that Smart Forests generate. It will ask how sensory infrastructures materialize as distributions of power and governance, while considering the sensory practices that transform and potentially re-constitute dominant regimes of perception toward other inhabitations and milieus.

Bio

She writes on digital technologies, environments and social life, with recent publications including How to Do Things with Sensors (2019) and Program Earth: Environmental Sensing Technology and the Making of a Computational Planet (2016).

Links:

Jennifer Gabrys was online with a live connection to the venue. Her talk was followed by a Q&A session.

Artist talk

A conversation about the parallel communication (or the lack of it) between Art and Science in the context of the work of Alexandre Estrela. This includes the collaboration with Moita Lab from the Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme, the Company Orange and the Human Language Technology Laboratory INESC-ID/IST.

Bio

Recent solo exhibitions include All and Everything, Rufino Tamayo Museum, Mexico City, 2020, Métal Hurlant, Fondation Gulbenkian, Paris, 2019, Cápsulas de silencio, Reina Sofía Museum, Madrid, 2016, Roda Lume, M HKA, Antwerp, 2016, Meio Concreto, Serralves Museum, Porto, 2013, among others. His next show, Flat Bells, will be shown at MoMA, New York, in 2022.

Alexandre Estrela was in conversation with Jared Hawkey and Sofia Oliveira.

The European Union’s regulatory framework for Artificial Intelligence

On her appointment as President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen made regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) a top priority. In her view legislation is fundamental to safeguard the European Union’s citizens’ fundamental rights and encourage investment in safe innovation and technological development. As a result, in April 2021, the European Commission presented a proposal which when approved would prohibit harmful AI practices and impose restrictions on high-risk AI systems.

This ethical stance will position the EU against the lack of regulation in the US and state control in China. From Cambridge Analytica to the recent Project Pegasus, from facial recognition to social credit system, it is increasingly apparent that the abusive use of digital computation compromises human rights.

So, how would this regulation protect citizens in the context of a globalized society? Could the European strategy influence worldwide adoption of good AI practices? How does this proposal relate to the General Data Protection Regulation?

A conversation on what will be solved and what remains to be answered by this proposal includes the participation of Eduardo Santos (D3 – Associação dos Direitos Digitais, a Portuguese digital rights association) and João Leite (NOVA LINCS, Associate Professor, Computer Science Department, NOVA University Lisbon).

Inês Cisneiros

She studied issues regarding artificial moral agency and the need for responsible design for the Master’s Practical Ethics seminar. Her Master’s dissertation will focus on issues regarding democratic engagement across generations, touching on the political impacts of technology.

Links:

The European Union’s regulatory framework for Artificial Intelligence

On her appointment as President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen made regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) a top priority. In her view legislation is fundamental to safeguard the European Union’s citizens’ fundamental rights and encourage investment in safe innovation and technological development. As a result, in April 2021, the European Commission presented a proposal which when approved would prohibit harmful AI practices and impose restrictions on high-risk AI systems.

This ethical stance will position the EU against the lack of regulation in the US and state control in China. From Cambridge Analytica to the recent Project Pegasus, from facial recognition to social credit system, it is increasingly apparent that the abusive use of digital computation compromises human rights.

So, how would this regulation protect citizens in the context of a globalized society? Could the European strategy influence worldwide adoption of good AI practices? How does this proposal relate to the General Data Protection Regulation?

A conversation on what will be solved and what remains to be answered by this proposal includes the participation of Eduardo Santos (D3 – Associação dos Direitos Digitais, a Portuguese digital rights association) and João Leite (NOVA LINCS, Associate Professor, Computer Science Department, NOVA University Lisbon).

Bio

She studied issues regarding artificial moral agency and the need for responsible design for the Master’s Practical Ethics seminar. Her Master’s dissertation will focus on issues regarding democratic engagement across generations, touching on the political impacts of technology.

Links:

Green growth or Degrowth: climate action and human prosperity