Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 34, No. 315.
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[1] From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@mccarty.org.uk>
Subject: slave, servant or companion? (42)
[2] From: Rafael Grohmann <rafael-ng@uol.com.br>
Subject: Histories of AI: Imaginaries and Materialities - Online Seminar - April 19-20 (131)
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2021-04-06 07:15:11+00:00
From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@mccarty.org.uk>
Subject: slave, servant or companion?
Aristotle imagines automata on the model of slaves: “if
every tool could perform its own work when ordered, or by seeing what to
do in advance… masters [would have] no need of slaves” (Pol. 1253b-1254a).
He himself had slaves, as was universal in the ancient Mediterranean world,
so when automata came to mind, he had a convenient way of
conceptualising the idea. Classically educated Oscar Wilde, who had
servants, wrote that, "On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the
machine, the future of the world depends." He was, of course, thinking
of machines that Marvin Minsky more than a century later would call
"precomputational". About that time, in a review of two or three
computer books in the Times Literary Supplement, pioneering systems
scientist Geoffrey Vickers strongly warned against yielding to the
computational machine's seductive potential for slave labour:
doing so, he wrote, would bury the crucial epistemological question it
raised by implication: "Whether, and if so how, the playing of a role
differs from the application of rules which could and should be made
explicit and compatible" (1971).
Quite apart from all other considerations, answering Vickers' question
with an absolute division between ourselves as role-players (mother,
father, friend, neighbour etc) and the computer as an implemented
structure of totally explicit and absolutely consistent rules at least
feels wrong. Computer scientist Yorick Wilks is fond of the term
"artificial companion"; such are common in Japanese nursing homes, and a
Buddhist temple in Kyoto has one teaching the Heart Sutra to visitors.
Is the problem I am clumsily gesturing toward one of ontological status,
or, as Darwin remarked about the attempt to divide humans from the
other animals, is it the drawing of a line that is useless, or worse, to
draw?
Comments?
Yours,
WM
--
Willard McCarty,
Professor emeritus, King's College London;
Editor, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews; Humanist
www.mccarty.org.uk
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2021-04-06 05:54:00+00:00
From: Rafael Grohmann <rafael-ng@uol.com.br>
Subject: Histories of AI: Imaginaries and Materialities - Online Seminar - April 19-20
Histories of AI: Imaginaries and Materialities
April 19-20
Hosted by [1]DigiLabour Research Lab and University of Cambridge
-[2] Histories of Artificial Intelligence: A Genealogy of Power
Online and free webinar
Registration
Link: [3]https://digilabour-br.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_YkXOyY4dRNC9jKVWZTB7Sw
Brazilian Time Zone (BRT) - please[4] check your timezone
Program:
April 19
08:30 AM - Welcome
Rafael Grohmann (Unisinos University/ Histories of Artificial
Intelligence)
Jonnie Penn (University of Cambridge/ Histories of Artificial
Intelligence)
Bruno Moreschi (University of São Paulo/ Histories of Artificial
Intelligence)
09 AM - AI Imaginaries
Kanta Dihal (University of Cambridge)
Gustavo Fischer (Unisinos University)
Simone Natale (University of Turin)
Moderator: Giselle Beiguelman (University of São Paulo)
11AM - AI Infrastructures
Vladan Joler (University of Novi Sad)
Jian Xiao (Zhejiang University)
Moderator: Gabriel Pereira (Aarhus University)
2PM - AI & Colonialism
Syed Mustafa Ali (Open University)
Paola Ricaurte (Monterrey Institute of Technology)
Rachel Adams (Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa)
Michael Kwet (Rhodes University, South Africa/ Yale Law School)
Moderator: Kruskaya Hidalgo Cordero (Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Ecuador)
4PM - Vocabulary & Design of AI
Amba Kak (AI Now!)
Carla Vieira (perifaCode/ University of São Paulo)
Luke Stark (University of Western Ontario)
Ranjit Singh (Data & Society)
Moderator: Évilin Matos (Unisinos University)
April 20
09AM - AI, Automation and Economics
Matthew Cole (University of Oxford)
Edemilson Paraná (Federal University of Ceará)
Moderator: Esther Majerowicz (Federal University of Rio Grande do
Norte)
11AM - AI & Gender
Chenai Chair (My Data Rights Africa/ Mozilla Foundation)
Janet Abbate (VirginiaTech)
Mariana Valente (InternetLab)
Moderator: Maria Clara Aquino (Unisinos University)
2PM - AI & Work
Sarah T. Roberts (University of California, Los Angeles - UCLA)
Rafael Grohmann (Unisinos University)
Julian Posada (University of Toronto)
Moderator: Camila Acosta (University of São Paulo)
4PM - AI & Music
Jonathan Sterne (McGill University)
Adriana Amaral (Unisinos University)
Andrés Segura-Castillo (Universidad Estatal a Distancia Costa Rica)
Moderator: Carol Govari (Unisinos University)
6PM: Closing Keynote
Sareeta Amrute (University of Washington)
More
information: [5]https://digilabour.com.br/2021/04/05/histories-of-ai-im
aginaries-and-materialities-seminar-april-19-20/
If you have any queries, please email us: [6]hello@digilabour.com.br
Rafael Grohmann
Assistant Professor in Communication, [7]Universidade do Vale do Rio
dos Sinos (Unisinos), Brazil
Coordinator, DigiLabour[8] Research Lab
Principal Investigator for Fairwork Project in Brazil
Researcher of[9] Histories of AI project, University of Cambridge,
International Research and Collaboration Award
Member, Scholarly Council, Center for Critical Internet Inquiry
(C2i2)[10], UCLA
Founding Board Member of the Labor Tech Research Network
References
Visible links
1. https://digilabour.com.br/
2. https://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/histories-of-ai
3.
https://digilabour-br.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_YkXOyY4dRNC9jKVWZTB7Sw
4. https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zones/brt
5.
https://digilabour.com.br/2021/04/05/histories-of-ai-imaginaries-and-
materialities-seminar-april-19-20/
6. mailto:hello@digilabour.com.br
7. http://unisinos.br/
8. https://digilabour.com.br/
9. https://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/histories-of-ai
10. https://www.c2i2.ucla.edu/scholarly-council/
Hidden links:
12. https://fair.work/
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