The future of artificial intelligence, or: anticipating desirable world futures, Talk at the Symposium: Visions of Artificial Intelligence: Society, Art and Future Technologies, June 12, 2021

Invited to speak at the International Symposium Visions of Artificial Intelligence: Society, Art and Future Technologies, Friday– Saturday, June 11 – 12, 2021 (online) HafenCity University Hamburg (HCU) June 12, 2021.

Abstract of my talk: The transformations in society by artificial intelligence are the subject of controversial visions of the future. How we act towards this world, how we shape it politically, will also depend on how we anticipate future or futures and what changes will be the subject of action in the shared world and at what level. In research, technology and innovation policy, scenarios and visions are used for transdisciplinary understanding of possible futures and for preparing decision-making processes. Scenarios in particular are closely related to current states of affairs and thus represent a limited horizon of thought and action: Possible futures in the form of scenarios and visions are designed and analyzed by experts from science, politics and academia on an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary basis in order to develop policies for the immediate future. But what might the future of the world with artificial intelligence look like if futures were methodically conceptualized as political utopias or dystopias? In this contribution, I will present scenarios of a future with artificial intelligence and make an experiment to use the method of utopia and dystopia to address essential moments of the political of disruptive developments.

The symposium assembles experts from the fields of science and technology studies, technology assessment, art, art research, informatics, and media studies to discuss societal, scientific, and artistic visions on artificial intelligence and inquires into the role of art in societal debates about the development and assessment of emerging technologies.

Registration & contact
www.hcu-hamburg.de, Prof. Dr. Regula Valérie Burri
Registration by June 10, 2021 at Visions-of-AI (at) gmx.net