Opening the echo chamber – “Society is embedded in technology”

The CRAI-CIS seminars offer a monthly dialogue and critical perspectives on artificial intelligence (AI).

Some members of the CRAI-CIS research group. Image: Matti Ahlgren/Aalto University

Nitin Sawhney is determined to get his colleagues off Zoom and into the lecture hall again. The Computer Science Professor of Practice and his research group have launched the third season of talks with a diverse lineup bridging the humanities, sociology, law, computer science and human-computer interaction. “It’s the kind of series I would want to be a part of, where we can unpack the social implications of our work,” says Sawhney. “The effects of digitalization on society are widespread and the implications cannot be understood through just one lens. We need a socio-cultural understanding, which has been missing from more traditional machine learning seminars.”

The CRAI-CIS (Critical AI and Crisis Interrogatives) seminar series is not only about crises, as the name might suggest. “The pandemic brought crises to the fore, but we should be examining these issues before, throughout—always,” stresses the group’s design researcher Uttishta Varanasi. Sawhney’s CRAI-CIS group studies topics like rights and responsibilities in the digital age, civic agency and AI, public communication during the COVID pandemic and trust in public services. The talks in this autumn’s CRAI-CIS series reflect diverse perspectives on these topics: “They are four lenses on how AI is changing society and how society is embedded in technology,” says doctoral researcher Antti Rannisto, who is looking forward to Massimo Airoldi’s appearance. “His talk title [Machine Habitus: Toward a Sociology of Algorithms] is the same as that of his recent book, which connects technology to traditional power structures and inequality.”

Sawhney says it’s high time to bring a critical perspective to the field. “Computer science is not just the realm of coding. We function as part of bigger societal changes, from sustainability and climate change to our impact on privacy and surveillance. If we don’t think of these changes critically, aren’t we doing a disservice to the field?”

The CRAI-CIS seminar is also meant to be a springboard for creating connections across the university. “It’s not just a public lecture. We want to bring these speakers to campus for deep engagement, to be a resource, visit faculty and students, and influence our thinking,” says Sawhney. On October 5, for example, Professor Virginia Dignum from Umeå University will speak about “Responsible AI: from principles to practices” and participate in discussions around the group’s research on civic agency in AI. “There is value in gathering in person for these seminars because it can generate new ideas,” adds Varanasi.

Some computer scientists may not be drawn to talks about “affirmative biopolitics” or “machine habitus”. “They think it’s not relevant to algorithms or optimization, so they don’t show up,” reflects Ana Paula Gonzalez Torres, a doctoral researcher in the CRAI-CIS group. “But if you’re in your own technical echo chamber, you don’t see how society is changing and how your own work might contribute or harm. Interacting outside your own field can open your eyes to this.”

Sawhney hopes participants will gain fresh perspectives on shared challenges through the seminars. “Large societal changes need a multidisciplinary approach. It’s an important objective for our group to bring pluralistic voices to the forefront. Inclusion, societal interactions and power structures—we need to bring these issues in from the very beginning” when discussing and developing artificial intelligence systems.

“You can’t think of technology as somehow separate from how it is used and how we live,” concludes Rannisto.

The CRAI-CIS seminar is supported by the Finnish Center for Artificial Intelligence (FCAI) and Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (HIIT).