Experimental Algorithmic Futures Working Group
This stream takes on a fundamental flaw within current predictive algorithmic systems—their reduction of the future to the past—through cross-disciplinary collaboration. In particular, we are revisiting three of the foundational ‘moves’ that underpin machine learning. Machine learning systems train on data that is assumed to describe the world in some way, in order to identify patterns and develop classification rules, and finally, apply those classification rules to predict future instances. Building on a growing body of critical scholarship that questions each of these ‘moves’ and their underlying assumptions, we ask: if data doesn’t simply describe the world, what is it doing or what might it do? If our classification schemes are reproducing past injustices, might we classify according to different principles or look for new kinds of patterns? If machine learning doesn’t actually predict the future except as a reproduction of the past, what else might it do? We are working on producing metrics and methods for evaluating these systems that assess how they can be deployed to help usher in just futures, as imagined by Indigenous and Afro-futurisms. This entails some innovative technical work, especially in terms of fine-tuning models, but the most pressing and difficult task will be devising criteria for how, if, and when these systems should be used, to what end, and in combination with what other methods and actions.
About the Project
This working group will consist of members data fluencies project and several invited external members from a diversity of fields, including computer scientists working on machine learning and natural language processing, Indigenous AI researchers, and trans-media artists.
This stream draws from the DDI’s From Hate to Agonism Project, which has been investigating how AI might be used responsibly to support groups targeted by abusive language, given that current content moderation systems shut down—rather than foster—multivocal futures. To do so, we have been focusing on understanding the importance of historical context and healthy forms of conflict integral to democratic dialogue and change. Based on past work, we have crafted a plan to overcome obstacles that many cross-disciplinary groups have faced: either an over-reliance on technical fixes or, conversely, too little emphasis on the mathematical and computational research required for workable solutions. A Mellon-SFU PhD fellow (Akinwumi) whose work focuses on Afrofuturism will also participate in this stream.
People Involved
At SFU
Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Communications at Simon Fraser University.
Karrmen Crey is Sto:lo and a member of the Cheam Band. She is an Assistant Professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University, where her research examines the rise of Indigenous media in Canada, and the institutions of media culture that Indigenous media practitioners have historically engaged and navigated to produce their work. Her current research examines Indigenous film festivals and Indigenous digital media, particularly Indigenous virtual reality and augmented reality.
Canada 150 Research Chair in New Media
Assistant Professor in the School of Communication.
SFU-Mellon Data Fluencies Fellow.
Assistant Professor in design at Simon Fraser University’s School of Interactive Arts and Technology, Vancouver, Canada. Working at the intersection of critical design, anthropological futures, and narrative environments, her work investigates the unique cultural, ethical and critical challenges posed by digital technologies, focusing on ways to re-shape technology through value-based imagination.
Around the World
Associate Professor of Experimental Digital Media at the University of Waterloo, where she directs the City as Platform Lab.
Senior Lecturer in Data Science in the School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Canterbury, Aotearoa | New Zealand. His research focuses on developing data science methods to understand complex, dynamical phenomena where interactions are crucially important.
Transmedia artist who creates experiences that spark dialogue about race, gender, aging, and our future histories.
Scholar of computational media in Duke University’s Computational Media, Arts & Cultures program.
Interdisciplinary policy researcher with formal education spanning natural and social sciences.
Associate Professor in the Writing, Rhetoric, Digital Studies program at the University of Kentucky. She is an interdisciplinary, intersectional, digital media scholar whose areas of research include identity, performance and online environments, embodied deviance, cultural production, video games, and Black Cyberfeminism.
Assistant Professor of Social and Cultural Inquiry at Emerson College and artist-researcher who works across the fields of theatre and performance studies, media studies, and philosophy. Her current research follows several intersecting threads: mechanisms of knowledge and value production in the age of “Big Data” and “post-truth”; global capitalism’s (dis)simulation machines; and more just and sustainable alternatives to toxic capitalist models and mindsets as well as aesthetic practices that can help us imagine and enact such alternatives.
Digital media theorist, poet, and software designer; and the University Research Chair in Computational Media and the Indigenous Future Imaginary and Professor of Computation Arts at Concordia University.
Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania in the Computer and Information Science department.
Assistant professor at The University of Lausanne (UNIL).
Co-founded a nonprofit, Buffalo Tongue, with her husband, Michael Running Wolf. Together they create virtual and augmented reality experiences to advocate for Native American voices, languages, and cultures.
Machine-learning-design researcher and artist examining the intersections of technology’s impact in society, interface design, artificial intelligence, abuse, and politics in digital, conversational spaces.
Director of the Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) and professor in the faculty of Design at OCAD University.
A media artist, computer programmer, and researcher. Her practice examines social and technological defaults; interrogates rules, conventions and protocols that we often ignore or take for granted; and centers humanity and community in explorations of technology’s impacts on society.