November Research-in-Progress Seminar: AI, Digital Sovereignty and Media Infrastructures in India and Elsewhere

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The Open Cities Platform brings you another edition of their Monthly Research Seminars, an engaging and collaborative space designed for UU researchers and students. This month, the research-in-progress seminar has the pleasure of presenting the works of Prof. dr. Annette Markham and dr. Maxigas. We also have the pleasure of welcoming Prof. dr. Payal Arora as the main discussant.

Challenging the Inevitability of Digital Twins: From Speculations to Interventions - Annette Markham

The inevitable feeling around AI can seem particularly relentless, as the claims of radical transformation combine with rapid integration of AI into systems across all sectors. This, in combination with the rapid development of digital twins in urban environments, seems to outpace human scales of mindful analysis. Having an open-ended or truly exploratory perspective is not as easy as it seems, even when we are aware that there’s something deeply flawed in the incessant reminders that we cannot veer from the course. Not only is there little room for novel imaginaries, the power of anticipatory and trajectory logics can actually shut down efforts to “think otherwise,” through the processes of discursive closure. What opportunities and techniques can shift this dynamic? This paper by Annette Markham, in early development stages, discusses whether and how creative speculative thinking models can work to specify and elaborate proactive imaginaries for AI Futures in the era of digital twins, and can highlight ethical problems and accountabilities, as well as the possibilities. Speculation alone is not adequate, however. To move to the next step in building ethical shared AI futures involves actualizing these imaginaries, at the level of practice, communities, manifestos and mission statements. 

Annette Markham is Chair Professor of Media Literacy and Public Engagement in the department of Media and Culture at Utrecht University, Netherlands. She holds a PhD in organizational theory (Purdue University, 1997), with special emphasis on interpretive qualitative methods. She has been researching the impact of digitalization on identity and organizing practices since 1995 and now holds specializations in the lived experience of human/machine interactions, impact of datafication and algorithmic logics on social practices, and critical approaches to digital and algorithmic identity. Methods specializations include guided digital autoethnography, critical pedagogy, arts-based interventions, citizen social science, digital and data literacy through critical pedagogy, and digital ethnography.

Technological Sovereignty in Media Infrastructures: Indigenous 5G Networks in India - Maxigas

Technological sovereignty is increasingly sounded by policy makers world wide as the common objective of three megatrends: digitalisation, decarbonisation and deglobalisation. Within such a framework, this paper by Maxigas Dunajcsik examines how “indigenous 5G networks” are articulated in India. The empirical material is drawn from recent infrastructural ethnography in Delhi and Bangalore, which focused on making new media in the context of the government’s “Make in India” campaign. The story takes place on contested territory defined by the geopolitical ambitions, telecommunications standards, and technology vendors of the USA, EU and China. The findings are made relevant to the burning questions of the day by contrasting them with current policy developments closer to home. In particular, the ongoing debate on industrial policy for the new European Council, the publication of the Draghi report, and the conference on European Digital Independence. 

Maxigas is Assistant Professor of Computational Methods for Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University and co-Principal Investigator with the critical infrastructure lab. His co-authored monograph with Johan Söderberg, Resistance to the Current: The Dialectics of Hacking, is a theoretical driven collection of case studies on the politics of informational capitalism, accounting for the long-term trajectory of hacker cultures. His research interest is how infrastructural ideologies translate to digital materialities, which he currently explores through studying standards and protocols related to programmable infrastructures such as 5G networks.

The main discussant, Payal Arora, is a Professor of Inclusive AI Cultures at Utrecht University and Co-founder of FemLab, a feminist futures of work initiative. She is a digital anthropologist and comes with two decades of user experiences among low-income communities, especially in the Global South, to shape inclusive designs and policies. She is the author of award-winning books including the “The Next Billion Users” with Harvard Press. Engadget (Top 5 in the ‘Technorati top 100’ and Times endorsed ‘best blogs on tech’) stated that her Harvard book is one of “the most interesting, thought-provoking books on science and technology we can find.” She has an upcoming book ‘From Pessimism to Promise: Lessons from the Global South on Designing Inclusive Tech” with MIT Press and Harper Collins India. 

Start date and time
End date and time
Location
Grote Zaal, Kromme Nieuwegracht 20, Utrecht (entrance at Muntstraat 2A) / online via Teams
More information
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