RISD Debates in AI

This Debates in AI talk features Jon Rafman, an artist renowned for his exploration of digital cultures through video, animation, photography, sculpture and installation. His work, deeply infused with an anthropological point of view, delves into the complexities of life in the digital age, addressing themes of alienation, nostalgia and the quest for connection. Rafman’s notable projects include T...

Kicking off the Debates in AI symposium was Kate Crawford. Kate Crawford is a leading scholar of AI, artist, and author of Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence. A preeminent expert in the social and political aspects of artificial intelligence (AI), Kate has spent 20 years analyzing data systems, machine learning and AI's impact on society. A research pr...

Christiane Paul (curator of digital art, Whitney Museum of American Art), Taeyoon Choi (co-founder of the School for Poetic Computation), and Dorothy R. Santos (writer, artist, educator) present and discuss the poetics of computation and computational literacy. Clement Valla (RISD professor and Computation, Technology, and Culture coordinator) moderated the conversation. To watch talks from the tw...

Taeyoon Choi spoke on the final panel of the RISD Debates in AI symposium, Poetics of Computation . Taeyoon is an interdisciplinary artist who intertwines science, technology and human interaction through programming, drawing and writing. His work, including collaborations with artists like Christine Sun Kim and organizing the Code Ecologies conference with Nabil Hassein and Sonia Boller, highligh...

Dorothy R. Santos (she/they) was part of the Poetics of Computation panel. Dorothy is a multidisciplinary Filipino-American storyteller, poet, artist and scholar with a PhD in film and digital media from UC Santa Cruz. Their work spans voice recognition, assistive tech and feminist media histories, among other areas. Santos has exhibited at notable venues like Ars Electronica and Yerba Buena Cente...

Kicking off Debates in AI's final panel of the day, Poetics of Computation , was Christiane Paul. Paul is an acclaimed writer and curator specializing in new media arts, honored with the Thoma Foundation’s 2016 Arts Writing Award in Digital Art. Her key publications include A Companion to Digital Art and Digital Art, among others. As the adjunct curator of digital art at the Whitney Museum of Amer...

Debates in AI Keynote speaker, Cory Doctorow, is a prolific science fiction author, activist and journalist known for his critical views on Big Tech and surveillance. An advocate for digital rights, he works with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and holds positions as a visiting professor at Open University and UNC’s School of Library and Information Science. Following his lecture he sits down f...

For the RISD Debates in AI panel AI + the Artist, contemporary artists Trevor Paglen, Stephanie Dinkins, and Elisa Giardina Papa discuss how their work engages machine learning technology. This conversation is moderated by Griffin Smith (Critic, RISD) and Q&A follows. To watch talks from the two-day symposium, head over to www. AI-Debates.risd.edu . You can also listen to each of them wherever...

In this episode you'll hear from the artist Stephanie Dinkins who spoke on RISD's Debates in AI panel AI + the Artist. Stephanie is a transmedia artist focusing on race, gender, aging and future histories through AI and social collaboration, aiming for care-based, equitable technological ecosystems. Her work explores AI’s impact on communities of color, emphasizing the importance of stories and cu...

Elisa Giardina Papa’s was part of Debates in AI's AI and the Artist panel. Elisa's research-driven art practice seeks forms of knowledge and desire that have been disqualified and rendered nonsensical by hegemonic demands for order and legibility. Through critical yet poetic framing, she works across large-scale video installation, experimental films, and AI-based art projects to draw attention to...

In this episode you’ll hear from the artist Trevor Paglen. Trevor is a multidisciplinary artist known for blending image-making, sculpture, journalism and engineering into his work. His art, which explores themes like state secrecy and artificial intelligence, has been exhibited globally, including at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art and the Barbican Centre. Notably, Paglen launched an artwo...

Author Brian Merchant ("Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech") and artist/journalist Molly Crabapple ("Brothers of the Gun" and "Drawing Blood") in conversation with Eric Telfort (Department Head, RISD Illustration) at RISD's Debates in AI symposium. To watch talks from the two-day symposium, head over to AI-Debates.risd.edu . You can also listen to each of them wher...

Eric Telfort was part of Debates in AI first panel, What's Work Got to Do With It. Eric is an illustrator and fine artist who earned his BFA in Illustration from RISD and, after working as a production artist in the video game industry, an MFA from the New York Academy of Art. Telfort has lectured throughout the US and internationally in Zimbabwe, where he was a Visual Arts Initiative artist in re...

In this episode you’ll hear from the writer Brian Merchant who was the first Debates in AI panel, “What’s Work Got to Do With It?” Brian Merchant, a technology journalist and former tech columnist at the LA Times, is widely recognized for his insightful analysis of automation, labor and technology’s environmental impact. Merchant is author of the bestselling The One Device (Little, Brown and Compa...

In this episode you’ll hear from the artist Molly Crabapple who was on Debates in AI first panel, “What’s Work Got to Do With It?” Molly’s written and illustrated for the New York Times, New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, and so many more. Last year, she told us about the time she took a whirl on the text to image generator Dall-e. She typed in: Syrian city destroyed by war drawn by Molly Crab...