Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 37, No. 21.
Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
Hosted by DH-Cologne
www.dhhumanist.org
Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
[1] From: Tim Smithers <tim.smithers@cantab.net>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 37.15: two questions (113)
[2] From: maurizio lana <maurizio.lana@uniupo.it>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 37.17: two questions, two answers (20)
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2023-05-13 19:54:32+00:00
From: Tim Smithers <tim.smithers@cantab.net>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 37.15: two questions
Dear Willard,
You ask, in a nutshell, what is the digital humanities?
I'm not qualified to properly answer this, but, from the
outside, I'd say it's something like
people using computation to do the kinds of research
scholars in the Humanities do.
Of course, some of the kinds of research scholars in the
Humanities do has been made possible with the advent of usable
computation, but that's how it is for everyone else who now
uses computation in the doing of their research, engineers,
for example.
Also, think on the bright side. The naming could be worse.
What if, instead of Digital Humanities, people had named it
Computational Humanities, like Computational Biology, for
example? (Yuk!)
AI is an example of a rushed and poorly chosen name for a new
field of research, but names are hard to change and I think
it's best to learn to live with what we have. Computer
Science worked out better, though I mildly prefer the [more
Continental] Informatics. In 1998 Edinburgh University mushed
together its Department of Artificial Intelligence, Department
of Computer Science, Centre for Cognitive Science, Artificial
Intelligence Applications Institute, the Human Communication
Research Centre, and a few other smaller labs, to form it's
(brand new) Informatics Faculty, thus effectively wiping away
the history of its pioneering Departments of AI, CS, and
CogSci. And then found itself having to tell people in the UK
what Informatics is. [Whispering: which it made a poor job of
doing, I think.]
On how to respond to the 'bad actors' creating threats with
AI?
There's not much each of us individually can do, usually, but
we all can, and, I think, should, call out the widespread
tendency to name the AI as the origin for these threats. It's
not. And cannot be. The threats come from the people who
build and/or use these (so called) AI systems for their own
commercial or political gain and advantage, with no real
regard for any negative consequences this has on others,
collectively, or individually.
Perhaps we need something more like the "Stop Star Wars"
protest movement, which followed President Regan's
announcement of the US Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) in
1981. As I remember it, from being a part of this, quite a
lot of what we did involved getting the press and politicians
to tell the truth about the realities of the then available
and needed technologies, software, in particular -- which was
not up to successfully implementing what Regan et al claimed
the SDI would do so wonderfully -- and to call them out when
they didn't do this.
Best regards,
Tim
> On 12 May 2023, at 07:36, Humanist <humanist@dhhumanist.org> wrote:
>
>
> Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 37, No. 15.
> Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
> Hosted by DH-Cologne
> www.dhhumanist.org
> Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
>
>
>
>
> Date: 2023-05-12 05:29:28+00:00
> From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@mccarty.org.uk>
> Subject: two questions
>
> Yesterday I and a three or four colleagues attended a session designed
> to help first-year PhD students make the most of their doctoral studies.
> In a university with a well-known department of digital humanities it's
> not surprising that many would be curious about the field when I
> introduced myself, some show genuine interest and a couple have some
> involvement. But still one of them asked me, "So... what IS digital
> humanities?" I was not lost for words, but evidently my answer was
> insufficiently simple to keep her attention before she wandered off and
> someone else started asking whether what he was involved with qualified.
> Ruminating on the incident this morning has led me to wonder how others
> answer that question in brief. So, in a nutshell, what is it? Does anyone
> have a good one or two-sentence response?
>
> In a subsequent conversation, AI came up, as might be expected. A
> student wanted to know whether AI posed a threat, and if so, what he
> might do about it. Given the number of well-funded 'bad actors' involved
> with AI, the answer to the first was not difficult to put into one word,
> then expand that into a range of examples. But what particularly
> interested me was the second question, how to intervene. One academic I
> know advises us to get involved in the work of AI labs, but that seems
> rather impractical for all but the very few. So, my question here: what
> can we do?
>
> Comments most welcome.
>
> Yours,
> WM
> --
> Willard McCarty,
> Professor emeritus, King's College London;
> Editor, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews; Humanist
> www.mccarty.org.uk
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2023-05-13 13:07:33+00:00
From: maurizio lana <maurizio.lana@uniupo.it>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 37.17: two questions, two answers
> Stop ascribing agency to “the AI” and demand responsibility from humans (and
corporations).
i fully subscribe: this is a (but i would dare to say "the") main part
of the problem of AI today.
and this aspect is fully taken into account but the legislative action
of EU bodies
Maurizio
-----
é imperioso mantermos a esperança mesmo quando
a dureza ou aspereza da realidade sugira o contrário
Paulo Freire
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maurizio Lana
Università del Piemonte Orientale
Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici
Piazza Roma 36 - 13100 Vercelli
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