Critically mapping the ‘affects of intelligence’ associated with AI

Description:

This project aims to better understand the ways in which ideas relating to ‘intelligence’ are made felt and affectively performed within contemporary discourses relating to artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. 

Contemporary debates concerning the social and cultural impacts of technology are increasingly dominated by appeals to the ‘intelligence’ of computational machines, and yet we do not often stop to consider precisely what is being appealed to in these scenarios. This is perhaps most obvious in the case of AI, where intelligence tends to be uncritically attributed to technological processes such as machine learning, with very little understanding of the historical context and contested meanings associated with this term. Attention towards the way particular perceptions, feelings, and experiences of machine ‘intelligence’ are generated thus represents a critical step towards a more nuanced understanding of the impact of AI on contemporary Australian society and culture.  

To carry out this project, we are looking for a prospective PhD candidate with a social science and humanities background (e.g., human geography, sociology, anthropology, or cultural studies) who also has an interest in furthering critical understanding of AI and its impact on society and culture. The successful candidate will have a strong grounding in affect theory, as well as familiarity with related conversations in the areas of new materialism, non-representational theory, and theories of performance/performativity. The project will also require familiarity with qualitative research methodologies, including traditional forms of discourse analysis, as well as methods that are more attuned to the material and performative dimensions of contemporary media such as film. Suggested research questions for this project include: 

• What kinds of affects – e.g., feelings, atmospheres, vibes, etc. – are being enlisted in the marketing of new and emerging technologies as ‘intelligent’? 
• How are particular concepts of ‘intelligence’ performed and made-felt in contemporary discussions relating to AI technologies?  
  
• What forms of popular culture – e.g., film, literature, social media, etc. – are enlisted in these circulations of affect?  
  
• To what extent are alternative ‘affects of intelligence’ being experimented with, and through which means?  
  

This PhD project will be based in the Cultural Geography research group at the School of Science, UNSW Canberra. The group has established an international reputation for carrying out conceptually innovative research about the affective, non-representational, and more-than-human dimensions of contemporary society. Tom Roberts, the primary supervisor for this project, is a Lecturer in Cultural Geography who is currently working on research relating to people’s experiences of trust and distrust about AI-enabled technologies.

Scholarships of AUD$35,000 are available for PhD students who achieved H1 / High Distinction in their UG program and/or have completed a Masters by Research. If you are interested, contact Tom Roberts.