Responsibility
Re-imagined
About
AI, the IoT (Internet of Things) and robotics are starting to pervade our everyday lives. In this workshop we bring together artists and academics who are working in these domains as a way to explore issues which relate to Responsible Innovation, Design, Trust, Privacy and Security -in the context of the Digital Arts and Environmental Sustainability, with a view to examining and unpacking these issues. This will inform and expand traditional notions of these research areas.
The workshop is multidisciplinary and brings together the TAS RRI Project and PETRAS EXIoT projects, we have also invited members from the STAHR Collective; a growing cross-institutional multidisciplinary group.
For a summary from the artists involved in this workshop see the bios and text below.
Agenda
9.30 - 10 for Coffee & Croissant
10 - 10.30 Intro and round table intros.
10.30 - 12.30 Artists - Present, Play, Perform
Chaired by Alan Chamberlain
- Rachel Jacobs
- Makers of Imaginary Worlds
- Richard Ramchurn
- Ali Houssaini
12.30 Lunch (provided in situ)
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13.00 (Open timings)
Round-table Discussion & Provocations - Relating to Responsibility, Trust, Privacy and Security.
- Environmental Responsibility (All)
- Sonic and Sensory: Human Centred Approaches
to the Arts and IoT ( led by Prof Dave De Roure)
- Identity and the individual in Design (TBD)
- Felt Aesthetics: Soma and Beyond
End
Rachel Jacobs
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Will autonomous systems help us, when the future comes?
Rachel will be discussing her ambitious 30 year project 'When the Future Comes', a series of artist’s interventions taking place across England, each witnessed by a mysterious and mystical device – Future Machine. Newly formed rituals or special occasions are emerging as the Future Machine appears in Oxfordshire, Nottingham, Cumbria, Somerset and London every year until 2050, the year that scientists predict will be a watershed for more even extreme climate and environmental change. This project highlights the tensions involved in facilitating real world, meaningful connections between people, ecologies and places and designing interactive technologies and autonomous systems to engage us with sustainability, environmental change and future resilience. 30 years is a long time to maintain, archive and manage a robust portable interactive artwork, therefore Rachel is in the process of deciding whether to develop the Future Machine as a more autonomous system, in the hope that it eventually exists as it's own autonomous being... or to slowly remove Future Machine's interactivity, turning it into a strange mystical sculpture. More totem than robot. This presentation will reflect the larger debate around technological versus ecological and cultural solutions to the environmental crisis.
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Children, the future users of robotics
Our audiences are children, parents and carers; we are interested in how robotics can be used creatively and how these innovative technologies empower our users. One of my company's goals is to bring innovative technologies to young audiences. We recognise our young audiences are potential future users of robotics. So, we would like to discuss firstly how we consider their voice in the conversations today and what future we are creating for them. Secondly, what is the role of creative practitioners and fictional worlds in helping future users understand and talk about robotics and other digital innovations?
Before We Disappear
This presentation will focus on the themes of Environment, Trust, and Autonomous systems, with a particular emphasis on identifying privacy and security implications. Using my interactive media works, "Before We Disappear" and "Virtual Climate Reality," we'll examine how narrative and technology can be combined to create immersive experiences that inspire action, while also considering the ethical implications of these technologies. In "Virtual Climate Reality," we'll look at how AI is used in the design of the adaptive VR experience, which creates a personalized experience for each user based on their emotional response. We'll discuss how these works challenge the audience to engage with the pressing issues of climate change, and explore how we can reimagine cinematic narratives to inspire change. Whether you're a digital creative, technology researcher, or just interested in the intersection of narrative, sustainability, and responsible innovation, this presentation will provide a space for exploration, ideation, and reflection on responsible innovation.
Ali Hossaini
What happens when we’re all connected?
Agency embodied in human individuals underlies how responsibility is assigned in ethics, jurisprudence and the arts. As part of what defines an ‘individual’, agency also affects related concepts of privacy, intellectual property and a host of human rights.Artificial and distributed agency has long been accepted in the legal status of corporations, but the definition of agency differs depending on context, and current concepts of agency fall short of emerging technological paradigms. We will examine these emerging paradigms against the boundary condition of AI-mediated brain-to-brain interface over the Internet. Then we will review contrasting definitions of agency from legal, informatic, philosophic and biological perspectives, and watch videos from GROUPTHINK, an experiment in distributed agency. Our aim is to consider a conceptual framework for understanding emergent forms of agency, and also to develop pathways for applying this framework in society.
*[NOTE: For the workshop, I will provide the GROUPTHINK video + 4 slides offering definitions of agency from law, informatics, philosophy and biology.]
LINKS / PROVOCATIONS
Background reading on emerging paradigms
Privacy, Security & Trust in the Internet of Neurons
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/978-3-030-79318-0_11.pdf
BCI advances towards direct neural connection: ‘A functional model for BCI: Physiology’
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2326263X.2021.1968665
(Paper attached: Suggested reading in Section 5.5)
Background links on
GROUPTHINK: Introduction and performance
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/national-gallery-x/groupthink
Please watch the 30-sec promotional video at page bottom and the featured introduction / performance video.
GROUPTHINK: Telepresence & agency during live performance
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3533610
Please watch 12-minute video and download the paper
Presentation Slides
Rachel Jacobs - Sildes PDF
Ali Hossaini - Sides PDF
Makers of Imaginary Worlds - Slides PDF
Richard Ramchurn - Slides PDF
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Associate Chairs:
Chris Greenhalgh - University of Nottingham
Anna-Maria Piskopani - University of Nottingham
Virginia Portillo - University of Nottingham
Supported by the TAS RRI and HoRRIzon Project,
Co-Design of Context-Aware Trustworthy Audio Capture,
TAS Benchmarks Library
