Call for Participation

In a striking way, at the very moment intelligent machines are supposed to become a reality, the question what it means to be human and what sociality entails seems to become the focal point in the call for a ‘human centered’ robotics and AI. While recent research more and more demonstrates that robotics and AI often perpetuate gender and racial biases along with social power relations, the question arises how bias and interests built into robots and programmed into AI, both intentionally and unintentionally, can be identified and deprogrammed. Engaging with these questions, decolonializing, feminist, queer, crip and other critical scholars have emphasized the need for a more just and inclusive future of AI and robotics. The aim of this symposium is to bring together scholars from different fields of study, opening up the space for truly multi-disciplinary engagements with AI promising to provide us with points of departure for relating responsibility, accountability, and social justice as well as ‘our’ history, present, and future with AI differently. In doing so, the symposium will not only emphasize the crucial need for including manifold perspectives and reflecting on who is allowed to be part of these discussions and developments, but also aim at opening up the space for concrete interventions.

The workshop shall spark a dialog between early carrier scholars from different disciplines critically exploring questions of de/coloniality, social justice, response-ability, dis/ability, and techno-biopower, to name but a few, as well as potential challenges for decolonializing, feminist, queer, crip, and other critical scholars in engaging critically with intelligent machines, code, and algorithms. In order to register for the workshop, please send a short statement of interest and a description of your research project or the questions you would like to discuss (max. 500 words) to barla@soz-uni-frankfurt.de by 15 August 2019. Notifications will be sent out by the end of August.