The University of Cambridge is hosting a Mellon Sawyer Seminar entitled 'Histories of AI: A Genealogy of Power' from May 2020 to December 2021. The Seminar will be co-hosted by the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, and the Faculty of English.
Sawyer Seminars support comparative research on the historical and cultural sources of contemporary developments. This Seminar aims to develop an interpretive community capable of offering a structural, historical perspective on the promises and problematics of AI and machine learning. This new community includes scholars from a variety of fields including historians of science and technology, and scholars from decolonial studies and critical theory, such as race, gender, and disability studies. We engage in critical and comparative research, from antiquity to the present, on the historical and cultural sources of contemporary developments in AI technologies to investigate their entanglement in systems of politics, power and control. Four themes guide our considerations: hidden labour, encoded behaviour, cognitive injustice and disingenuous rhetoric.
Learn more about the Seminar in our About page, Themes page and Rationale page, or by reading about the Seminar's Co-Organisers.
The Seminar's activities include:
- A week long Summer School, hosted virtually from 12 to 16 July 2021
- A monthly Reading Group, commencing May 2020, accessible online for international participants (subscribe via our mailing list)
- A series of Seminar Virtual Events, spanning Methods and Critical Issues Trainings and Community Research Seminars (subscribe via our mailing list)
- Four Public Events in 2021 on the Seminar themes, each held virtually
- A concluding Symposium for core Seminar members, held at the University of Cambridge in December 2021
The Sawyer Seminar supports various Fellowships and Awards:
- A Research Project Grant Coordinator
- One Postdoctoral Research Assistant Fellowship
- Two Graduate Dissertation Fellowships for students enrolled at the University of Cambridge
- Eleven International Research and Collaboration Awards
- An International Research and Collaboration Award for Translation
- Travel Bursaries to participate in Seminar events
To receive further information on all our activities (and learn their online coordinates), please subscribe to the HoAI mailing list.
Email us at: hoai [at] hermes [dot] cam [dot] ac [dot] uk