Many Worlds of AI

Many Worlds of AI is the inaugural conference in a series of biennial events organized as part of the ‘Desirable Digitalization: Rethinking AI for Just and Sustainable Futures’ research program. The ‘Desirable Digitalization’ program is a collaboration between the Universities of Cambridge and Bonn funded by Stiftung Mercator. The primary aim of the program is to explore how to design AI and other digital technologies in a responsible way, prioritizing the questions of social justice and environmental sustainability.

Panel:
The Keynote Lecture “Approaches to AI Ethics: ‘Sparks of Ideas’ (Inspirations) from East Asian Philosophies” by Bing Song, Senior Vice President of the Berggruen Institute and Director of the Institute’s China Center, and the Relational Philosophies and Ethical Diversity in the Intercultural Evolution of AI Ethics: A ‘Disruptive’ Conversation panel are co-organized with the Berggruen Research Center at Peking University.

Detailed Agenda (All times below shiown in British Summer Time, GMT+1)

DAY 1: Wednesday, 26 April

9am – Welcome: Dr Stephen Cave, Director of LCFI, University of Cambridge
Session 1: Fundamental Questions
Venue: Frankopan Hall

9:30 am – Panel 1: Common Vocabularies (Chair: Professor Maurizio Ferraris)

Presentations:

• To Build “Fairer AI”, First Thoroughly Understand “Fairness”: A Multidisciplinary Review Through an Intercultural Lens – Was Rahman (Coventry University)
• Towards a Praxis for Intercultural Ethics in Explainable AI – Chinasa T. Okolo (Cornell University)
• Automating Desire: Laws of sex robotics in the US and South Korea – Michael Thate (Princeton University and Northwestern Pritzker School of Law)

10.30 am – Tea/ Coffee Break

11am – Panel 2: Shared Policies? (Chair: Professor Jocelyn Maclure)

Presentations:

• Emerging policy landscape around AI in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa – Amber Sinha (Policy Data Institute, Kampala and Mozilla Foundation)
• “Made in Europe”: exporting European values to the peripheries through the regulation of Artificial Intelligence – an exploratory analysis of the case of Morocco – Oumaima Hajri (Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences)
• AI Regulation in Brazil: National Knowledge or Foreign Appropriation? – Marina Garrote (Brasil Research Association and University of São Paulo), Paula Guedes (Catholic University of Portugal) and Bruno Bioni (Data Privacy Brasil Research Association and Brazilian Data Protection Authority)

12pm – Panel 3: Accounting for AI Harms (Chair: Dr Kanta Dihal)

Presentations:

• AI Colonialism – Karen Hao (Pulitzer Centre)
• A taxonomy of AI-mediated epistemic injustices – Suvradip Maitra (University of Melbourne)
• Can the Ghost Worker Speak? De-colonializing Digital Labor – Sergio Genovesi (University of Bonn)

1 – 2.00 pm: Lunch Break

Session 2: Many worlds…
Venue: Frankopan Hall | Parallel Venue: Bawden Room

2pm – Panel 4: African AI (Chair: Tonii Leach)

Presentations:

• Artificial Intelligence, Data Capitalism, and Bioethics in Sub-Sahara Africa – Golden Lwando Mwinsa, Frances Griffiths, and Benjamin Ferguson (University of Warwick)
• AI, Journalism, and the Ubuntu Robot in Sub-Saharan Africa: A quest for a normative framework – Greg Gondwe (California State University – San Bernardino and Institute for Social Media Rebooting, Harvard)
• African world of AI: a people-centered approach to responsible AI – Makouchi Sam Nkwo (University of Namibia), Annastasia Shipepe (University of Namibia), Shaimaa Lazem (City of Scientific and Technological Applications) Anicia Peters (University of Namibia)

2pm (Parallel Session) – Panel 7: Alternative histories of AI in Europe and the Anglophone West (Chair: Christiane Schäfer)

Presentations :

• Praxis, or the Yugoslav Search for Man: Thinking and Human Self-Realization in the Age of Generative AI – Ana Ilievska (Stanford University)
• Conceptions of Ethics in World-Making Machines: Iconographies of AI in Ireland and the UK – Peter Rees (We and I)
• Contentious Others: Logo and Dilemmas of Difference in the US, Britain, and France – Apolline Taillandier (University of Cambridge and University of Bonn)

[abstracts and author bios]

3pm – Panel 5: AI Cultures in MENA (Chair: Dr Audrey Borowski)

Presentations :

• AI Projects in the Gulf Region and their Ethical Questions: An Analytical Overview – Ala Al-Fuqaha (Hamad Bin Khalifa University)
• Islamic Ethical Discourse on AI: Three Challenges in Focus – Mohammed Ghaly (Hamad Bin Khalifa University)
• Developing a Legal Framework for AI in Qatar and Beyond – Barry Solaiman (Hamad Bin Khalifa University and Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar)
• Lost History and overlooked Present: Mechanical and Artificial Intelligence in Arabic culture – Reham Hosny (The University of Cambridge/ Minia University)

3pm (Parallel Session) – Panel 8: AI Histories in India (Chair: Dr Maya Indira Ganesh)

Presentations :

• Taking off with ease or Face-off with Justice? Mapping Digital Citizenship and ‘Ways of Seeing’ the Indian Biometric State – Madhavi Shukla (Jawaharlal Nehru University)
• Data power, AI and the “doubtful citizens”: The case of India’s National Population Register – Anirban Mukhopadhyay (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)
• Palmistry , Predictive Analytics and Imprints of Colonized Bodies – Charu Maithani (University of New South Wales)
• The Digital Afterlives of Brahminical Colonialism: Biometric Surveillance, Facial Recognition Technology, & AI Ethical Complicities in India, 1858-2022 – Nikhil Dharmaraj (Harvard College)

4pm – Tea/ Coffee Break

4.30 pm – Panel 6: Confronting AI at the Margin: Conflicts around Faith, Hope, and Identity in Bangladesh (Chair: Abdullah Hasan Safir)

Panel Discussants:

• Sharifa Sultana (Cornell University and Facebook Fellow)
• Mohammad Rashidujjaman Rifat (University of Toronto and Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society)
• Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed (University of Toronto)

4.30 pm (Parallel Session) – Panel 9: Contemporary China and AI (Chair: Dr Kerry McInerney)

Presentations:

• A community-of-practice approach to understanding Chinese policymaking on AI ethics – Guangyu Qiao-Franco (University of Radboud and University of Southern Denmark
• From Accuracy to Alignment: The Practical Logic of ‘Trustworthy AI’ among Chinese Radiologists – Wanheng Hu (Cornell University/Harvard University)
• AI Ethics and Governance in China: from Principles to Practice – Rebecca Arcesati (Mercator Institute for China Studies)

Art Performances and Presentations
Venue: Frankopan Hall

5:30 pm (Chair: Dr Stephen Cave)

• Post-modern dance performance and a group conversation about responsible design and social impact of AI – Betsy Campbell (Edgelands Institute)
• ΑΠΟαποικιοΠΟΙΗΣΗ: Decolonising Cypriot AI through poetry – Alexia Achilleos (CYENS Centre of Excellenece & Cyprus University of Technology), Spyros Armostis (University of Cyprus), Eleftheria Sokratous (Ypogia Skini)
• Cultural Memory: Artistic Experiments in AI – Yasmine Boudiaf (Royal Society of Arts and the Ada Lovelace Institute)

7.00 pm – Conference Dinner (by invitation only)

DAY 2: Thursday, 27 April
Session 3: Many worlds… (contd.)
Venue: Frankopan Hall

9:30 am – Panel 10: In search of new fundamentals (Chair: Professor Alan Blackwell)

Presentations:

• Korean value of ‘jeong’ – Robert M Geraci and Yong Sup Song (Manhattan College; Youngnam Theological Seminary)
• The Five Tests: Designing and Evaluating AI According to Indigenous Māori Principles – Luke Munn (University of Queensland)
• What would an anti-casteist AI system look like? – Shyam Krishna (Alan Turing Institute)

10.30 am – Tea/ Coffee Break

11.00 am -Panel 11: Relational Philosophies and Ethical Diversity in the Intercultural Evolution of AI Ethics: A ‘Disruptive’ Conversation (co-organized with the Berggruen Research Center, Peking University)

Panelists:

• Robin R Wang (Loyola Marymount University)
• Peter D. Hershock (East-West Center)
• Osamu Sakura (The University of Tokyo)

12pm – Panel 12: The Ethics of Digitization in India (co-organized with Ashoka University)

Moderator: Subhashis Banerjee (Ashoka University) and Jaspreet Bindra (TechWhisperer)

Panelists:

• Malavika Raghavan (LSE)
• Urvashi Aneja (Digital Futures Lab)
• Amber Sinha (Mozilla Foundation)

1 – 2.00 pm Lunch Break

Session 4: Practical Approaches
Venue: Frankopan Hall | Parallel Venue: Bawden Room

2pm – Panel 13: Intercultural and Decolonial Approaches in Practice (Chair: Dr Chelsea Haramia)

Presentations:

• Operationalizing decolonial AI through Ethics-as-a-Service – Saif Malhem (AI Future Lab), Daricia Wilkinson (Microsoft Research), Kathy Kim (Booz Allen Hamilton), Paul Sedille (Harvard Kennedy School and Stanford Graduate School of Business), Nupur Kohli (European Health Parliament)
• Multicultural design and ubuntu ethics – Bev Townsend (University of York and University of KwaZulu-Natal), Bongi Shozi (University of California, San Diego and University of KwaZulu-Natal), Donrich Thaldar (University of KwaZulu-Natal).
• How People Ethically Evaluate Facial Analysis AI. A cross-cultural study in Japan, Argentina, Kenya, and the United States – Severin Engelmann and Chiara Ullstein (Technical University of Munich)

2pm (Parallel Session) – Panel 15: NLP and Intercultural Ethics (Chair: Dr Eleanor Drage)

Presentations:

• Building NLP models to teach local languages in Africa – Aderonke Busayo Sakpere (University of Ibadan) and Makuochi Samuel Nkwo (University of Namibia, Windhoek)
• Critical Evaluation of AI-Powered Digital Dialogue Tools in Peacemaking: Insights from United Nations’ Digital Dialogues in Libya and Yemen – Ali Altiok (University of Notre Dame)
• Towards Building a Gender-Inclusive Khaya AI for English← or →Twi Text Translator – Abigail Oppong (NLP Ghana)

3pm – Panel 14: Alternative Practices: New Datasets and Archives (Chair: Dr Miri Zilka)

Presentations:

• Artificial intelligence as a decolonisation tool: Lessons from libraries, archives and museums – Maribel Hidalgo-Urbaneja (University of the Arts London) and Lise Jaillant (Loughborough University)
• Sharp Image, Vague Face: Disrupting the Facial Transparency in A.I. through a Diasporic Approach – Yifeng Wei (National College of Art and Design, Ireland)
• AI’s Colonial Archives – Rida Qadri (Google), Huma Gupta (MIT); Katrina Sluis (ANU); Fuchsia Hart (Victoria and Albert Museum), Emily Denton (Google)

3pm (Parallel Session) – Panel 16: Alternative Practices: Design and Participation (Chair: Dr Dorian Peters)

Presentations:

• Participatory speculative design framework for fostering an accessible AI discourse: Japan and Germany – Michel Hohendanner (Munich University of Applied Sciences) and Chiara Ullstein (Technical University of Munich)
• Imagining AI through participatory design in Nigeria, Brazil, and South Korea – Cornelius Onimisi Adejoro and Tom Yeh (University of Colorado Boulder)
• Responsible Future-Making? Testing Intercultural AI Ethics through the Use of Generative Tools – Nikita Chiu (University of Exeter)

4pm – Tea/ Coffee Break

Workshops
Venue: Frankopan Hall | Parallel Venue: Bawden Room

4.30 pm – Workshop 1: Envisioning equitable representation in ML evaluation – Stevie Bergman (DeepMind), Willie Agnew (University of Washington), Maribeth Rauh (DeepMind)

4.30 pm (Parallel Session) – Workshop 2: Provotypes for embodiment of value tensions across cultures – Dasha Simons (IBM)

Keynote Lecture: “Sparks of Ideas” (Inspirations) from East Asian Philosophies

Venue: Frankopan Hall
5:30pm – Keynote speaker: Bing Song (Berggruen Research Center, Peking University)

DAY 3: Friday, 28 April

Session 5: Just AI Futures
Venue: Elena Hall | Parallel Venue: Bawden Room

9:30 am – Panel 17: AI and the Planetary (Chair: Dr Tomasz Hollanek)

Presentations:

• Occupying Urgency: How AI Solutionism Shapes the Narrating of Urgency around the Climate Crisis – Eugenia Stamboliev and Mark Coeckelbergh (University of Vienna)
• An Approach Based in Eastern Philosophy to Identify Ethical Issues in Early Stages of AI for Earth Observation Research – Mrinalini Kochupillai (Technical University of Munich)
• AI for Datong: A Normative Framework for Sustainable AI – Pak-Hang Wong (Independent)

9:30 am (Parallel Session) – Panel 19: Many Stories of AI (Chair: Dr Jan Voosholz)

• Presentations: Media coverage of AI in Sweden and Chile – Claudia Wladdimiro Quevedo (Uppsala University)
• Narratives of weaponised AI: France, Japan, the US – Ingvild Bode, Hendrik Huelss, Anna Nadibaidze (University of Southern Denmark) and Tom Watts (Royal Holloway, UofL)
• Responsible AI reporting requires cross-border collaboration – Boyoung Lim (Pulitzer Centre)

10:30 am – Tea/ Coffee Break

11am – Panel 18: Sustainability of AI (Chair: Charlotte Bander)

Panel Discussants:

• Şebnem Yardımcı Geyikçi(University of Bonn)
• Tijs Vandemeulebroucke (University of Bonn)
• Larissa Bolte (University of Bonn)
• Sophia Falk (University of Bonn)

11am (Parallel Session) – Panel 20: AI with/for the Youth and the Elderly (Chair: Dr Rune Nyrup)

• Exploring Children’s Rights and Child-Centred AI – Janis Wong, Morgan Briggs, Mhairi Aitken, Sabeehah Mahomed (Turing Institute)
• Human First Innovation for AI ethics? : a Cross-cultural Perspective on Youth and AI – Toshie Takahashi (Waseda University)
• (Old) age in the age of artificial intelligence – crossing generational borders in AI research and development – Justyna Stypinska (Weizenbaum Institute)

12pm – Imagining AI: How the World Sees Intelligent Machines: Book launch and Discussion

Venue: Elena Hall
1 – 2.00 pm: Lunch Break

Conclusion
2pm – Concluding Remarks: Prof. Markus Gabriel, Director of CST, University of Bonn
Venue: Elena Hall

3pm – Finish