Three new workshops have been announced in September and October by the Better Images of AI project team. We will once again bring a range of AI practitioners and communicators together with artists and designers working in different creative fields, to explore in small groups how to represent artificial intelligence technologies and impacts in more helpful ways.
Following a first insightful initial workshop in July, we’re inviting anyone in relevant fields to apply to join the remaining workshops,- taking place both online and in person. We are particularly interested in hearing from journalists who write about AI. However if you are interested in critiquing and exploring new images in an attempt to find more inclusive, varied and realistic visual representations of AI, we would like to hear from you!
Our next workshops will be held on:
- Monday 12 September, 3.30 – 5.30pm UTC+1 – ONLINE
- Wednesday 28 September, 3 – 5pm UTC+1 – ONLINE
- Thursday 6 October, 2:30 – 4:30pm UTC+1 – IN PERSON – The Alan Turing Institute, British Library 96 Euston Road London NW1 2DB
If you would like to attend or know anyone in these fields, email research@betterimagesofai.org, specifying which date. Please include some information about your current field and ideally a link to an online profile or portfolio.
The workshops will look at approaches to meet the criteria of being a ‘better image of AI’, identified by stakeholders at earlier roundtable sessions.
The discussions in all four workshops will inform an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded research project undertaken by the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, the University of Cambridge and organised by We and AI.
Our first workshop was held on 25 July, and brought together over 20 individuals from creative arts, communications, technology and academia to discuss sets of curated and created images of AI and to explore the next steps in meeting the needs identified in providing better images of AI moving forward.
The four workshops follow a series of roundtable discussions, which set out to examine and identify user requirements for helpfully communicating visual narratives, metaphors, information and stories related to AI.
The first workshop was incredibly rich in terms of generating creative ideas and giving feedback on gaps in current imagery. Not only has it surfaced lots of new concepts for the wider Better Images of AI to work on, but the series of workshops will also form part of a research paper to be published in January 2023. This process is really critical to ensuring that our mission to communicate AI in more inclusive, realistic and transparent ways is informed by a variety of stakeholders and underpinned by good evidence.
Dagmar Monett, Head of the Computer Science Department at Berlin School of Economics and Law and one of the July workshop attendees, said: “”Better Images of AI also means better AI: coming forward in AI as a field also means creating and using narratives that don’t distort its goals nor obscure what is possible from its actual capacities. Better Images of AI is an excellent example of how to do it the right way.”
The academic research project is being led by Dr Kanta Dihal, who has published many related books, journal articles and papers related to emerging technology narratives and public perceptions.
The workshops will ultimately contribute to research-informed design brief guidance, which will then be made freely available to anyone commissioning or selecting images to accompany communications – such as news articles, press releases, web communications, and research papers related to AI technologies and their impacts.
They will also be used to identify and commission new stock images for the Better Images of AI free library.
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To register interest: Email our team at research@betterimagesofai.org, letting us know which date you’d like to attend and giving us some information about your current field as well as a link to your LinkedIn profile or similar.