The Future of the Future: The Ethics and Implications of AI


 Humanities Center     Feb 22 2020 | 9:30 AM - 5:00 PM HG 1800

6th annual conference of the Forum for the Academy and the Public
February 21 & 22, Crystal Cove and HG 1800

Artificial intelligence is emerging as an important element in almost every aspect of human life. Yet little has been said or done about the overall implications of this huge leap forward in technology. How will electoral procedures be protected from interference? Can any semblance of individual privacy be preserved in democratic settings, let alone authoritarian ones? Even the simplest questions still plague us: will we be able to control the intelligent machines we've created? will they outwit us?; will we rely on them for the most important things? (hint: we already do). At the Forum for the Academy and the Public's 6th annual conference, The Future of the Future: The Ethics and Implications of AI, experts and thinkers of all kinds will come together to discuss these and other AI issues—for example, AI's effects on climate, work, art, medicine, and war—and to help us understand what awaits the planet as humanity moves into a problematic technological future.

The Future of the Future: The Ethics and Implications of AI website

Please RSVP via Eventbrite, here.

9:30am-10am Coffee and Pastries

10 am- 11:30 am Controlling the AI Genii: Surveillance and Disruption
Moderator: Kavita Philip – Professor of History, UCI
Neil Sahota – Lecturer, UCI Paul Mirage School of Business
Darren Byler – Lecturer of Anthropology, University of Washington
Lucy Suchman – Professor of Sociology, Lancaster University
Geoff Bowker – Professor of Informatics, Director of Values in Design Laboratory, UCI

11:30 am – 12 pm Lunch

12 pm – 1 pm Luncheon Conversation: Tell Me Something I Don't Know: Eyes in the Skies, Money for Nothing, Algorithms as Artists, and Other Conundrums of the AI Future
Cory Doctorow – co-editor of Boing Boing, blogger, journalist, science fiction author
Rose Eveleth – producer, host, reporter, writer

1 pm – 1:30 pm Coffee

1:30 pm – 3:00 pm AI and Democracy: Bots, Trolls, Phishers, and the Hacking of the Vote
Moderator: David Kaye – Clinical Professor of Law, UCI Law
Noam Cohen – journalist, author
Rebecca MacKinnon – director of Ranking Digital Rights (RDR)
Misha Glenny – journalist
Vidushi Marda – legal researcher, Programme Officer at ARTICLE 19's Team Digital

3:30 pm – 5 pm Creativity and Work in the Age of AI
Moderator: Erika Hayasaki – Associate Professor of Literary Journalism, UCI
Tom Boellstorf – Anthropology, UCI
An Xiao Mina – associate researcher at the Beckman Klein Center, Harvard
Lilly Irani – Associate Professor of Communication, UCSD
Louisa Clement – artist

Forum AI conference poster