CFP “VIEW FROM NOWHERE IN AI”

International conference May 11-12, 2023, University of Paris 8, Paris area, France

This international conference is organized within the framework of the UNESCO EVA Chair (Ethics of the Living and the Artificial) held by Vanessa Nurock, CRHI, Université Côté d’Azur. It is co-organized by Pierre Cassou-Noguès, LLCP, and Arnaud Regnauld, TransCrit, Université Paris 8

Artificial Intelligence has now become ubiquitous and pervades all aspects of our personal, communal, and professional lives. However, claims about the numerous biases of AI have appeared and become established in recent years, which are in contrast to the neutrality, objectivity and impartiality that we (more or less) spontaneously attribute to it. This international interdisciplinary symposium aims to question and analyze the idea that AI offers a neutral, objective and impartial point of view, which is expressed as much in data as in images, and theories as in applications. From algorithms to drones, or from the allocation of social benefits to women being erased from AI history, this idea is prevalent throughout AI. Ubiquitous, it thus appears as a “view from nowhere”.  We wish to focus the discussion on the tension between ubiquity and the view from nowhere, and the implicit neutral or impartial spectator of AI, by bringing together ethical, epistemological, aesthetic, theoretical and artistic perspectives.

We can approach the question of the emergence of a view from nowhere in connection with the development of certain uses of artificial intelligence, particularly, but not exclusively, the widespread proliferation of surveillance systems, which permeate both public and private spaces. Indeed, the machine does not deal with the person as such, but selects relevant features and develops statistical models by combining them with other data, in other words, produces profiles from supraindividual representations that then become objects, or even an it. This it is replicated in multiple invisible – or at least invisibilized – places, in data centers or the camera lens, which is generally hidden under an opaque dome, reminiscent of the panopticon without being reduced to it, since these data form only part of the processed flows. What about my smart watch? My cell phone? Or my banking transactions? The list could go on forever, once any technological object becomes an interface for data collection and production.

If the view from nowhere gives rise, not to a collective, but to a collection of data, do we not end up with a median and disengaged point of view, that cannot be localized, the point of view of all, that is to say, of no one?

We will start by exploring the concept of the “view from nowhere” in the history of ideas in order to put into perspective how this notion could have crystallized one of the essential aspects of AI. The idea of a “view from nowhere” has its roots in many approaches (sciences and technology, morality and politics, economics, art, etc.), therefore, rather than focusing on one or another aspect, it is important to seek to understand both how and why this idea has prevailed, but also why it is problematic.

The conference will be organized in 5 sessions:

1/ Perspectives on the view from nowhere

2/ Epistemological, scientific and technological approaches

3/ Ethical and political approaches

4/ Aesthetic and artistic approaches

5/ Session on the implementation of the UNESCO recommendation on AI regarding the issue of diversity and inclusion

Deadline for submission of proposals: April 3, 2023

Working language: English / French

Please upload your proposal to Easychair in PDF format and include a short bio-bibliography:

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=noview23