ÌÇÐÄTV

The Centre for Cultural and Media Policy Studies is delighted to invite you to ‘Critical Dialogues on Artificial Intelligence’ a day of events exploring the ethics and politics of AI’. Taking place on the 6th of June at ÌÇÐÄTV’s Faculty of Arts Building, the day is co-produced by the Digital Data Science and AI Spotlight, the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, the Social Theory Centre and the Centre for Digital Inquiry.

Please find poster and full details below.

Everyone is welcome but places are limited, arrive early to avoid disappointment.

The ‘Troubling AI’ networking event. 6 June 10:30-12:30 FAB 1.01

This event aims to bring together colleagues across the University of ÌÇÐÄTV interested in exploring critical perspectives on AI, including its ethical implications, societal impacts, and the narratives that shape our understanding of its rapid expansion. This is an opportunity to meet others who are interrogating the development, deployment, and consequences of AI technologies. For further information and to register: /fac/arts/schoolforcross-facultystudies/igsd/wcgpn/ai/

6 June 13:30-14:45 FAB 1.01

Recuperating, remembering and reporting on older women on screen at scale with an inclusive and interdisciplinary methodology requires significant integration of human-centred histories and memories of film and TV with machine learning. Ten years ago, researchers at USC Viterbi School of Engineering led a project with USC Annenberg (Communication Sciences), Google LA and the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media and SeeJane. They were coding film characters and developing an automated machine learning approach to gender and time on screen. Tanaya Guha brought that research to ÌÇÐÄTV and with Joanne Garde-Hansen explored more deeply gender and age on screen. Guha (now at Glasgow) and Garde-Hansen (now at Leeds) joined with Sanjay Sharma (ÌÇÐÄTV), secured Leverhulme funding for the Women, Ageing and Machine Learning on Screen project (2024-2027). Close readings of women and age in media texts are a defining feature of the field of study (Dolan 2012, Gorton and Garde-Hansen 2013, Richardson 2018). Critical approaches to media archive technologies (Parikka 2013), data justice and feminism (see D’Ignazio and Klein) and machine learning for social and cultural memory (Merrill 2023) all intersect in this research in ways we will discuss.

In this seminar, we present the underlying basis and questions of our research from an arts, social sciences and computing collaboration that seeks to analyse media texts at scale and report back to audiences and industry. Gender and ageing on screen, film and TV archetypes, genres and face recognition models drawn from ready-made training data will be explored, in terms of HOW we have approached the problem in this first year of the research programme. Why is such a ‘way of seeing’ women’s age on screen useful? What does screen ageing look like for film and TV scholars and what does it look like to machine learning? How does this research afford ‘ways of speaking’ to the film and TV industry by unlocking new ways of generating data, and what does it say about remembering older women on screen through the ‘calculation’ alongside the ‘culture’ of ageing?

16:30-18:30 FAB 1.16 and online.

In this CDI TV Stream we will engage in an interdisciplinary and collective dialogue on the ethical, political and social implications of AI. We explore AI in relation to environmentalism, inclusivity and democracy. The event will take place in person in FAB 1.16 and be streamed live. Speakers include Jo Garde Hansen, Tanaya Guha, Sebastian Lehuede, Bahareh Heravi, Sanjay Sharma. Hosted by Carolina Bandinelli. Produced by the Media Lab. To join online go here. If attending in person, you'll be pleased to know there will be cold beers available—and the evening will conclude with a pizza and prosecco reception.

CDI-TV is an experimental initiative from the Centre for Digital Inquiry dedicated to the exploration of digital media culture through hybrid livestreaming. You can think about it as a talk show for intellectually minded people with a taste for quirky digital aesthetic. The mood is very informal, it is not going to be scholars showcasing their accomplishments or explaining theories, we rather try to co-produce some (new?) knowledge in an open debate. Humor is very welcome. You can have a look at our last episodes here https://www.youtube.com/@centrefordigitalinquiryuni1068