July 2024 - Air-L - lists.aoir.org

Sociotechnical Consequences of AI Workshop at UNC Reminder Deadline Approaching: 15 July for Abstracts
by Schelenz, Laura 08 Jul '24

08 Jul '24

A kind reminder to submit your abstracts by July 15 midnight EST. Call for Contributions Sociotechnical Consequences of AI: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of Ethical, Organizational, Social, and Computational Dimensions International Workshop at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA (in person) 13 September 2024, 9 am to 6 pm Artificial Intelligence is increasingly permeating different areas of society and being integrated into daily work and leisure practices, organizational structures, and ways of thinking about the world. Some of the areas impacted by AI and relevant to contemporary discourses are information retrieval and knowledge production (business, science, journalism, librarianship and education), predictive and evaluative work (policing, climate science, health and prevention of disease, finance, insurance), as well as communication tasks (customer service, human resources/recruiting). Some of the pertinent topics related to AI include access and accessibility, social justice, interpersonal relationships, skills and competences, cognitive and behavioral changes, human-computer interaction and the division of labor between humans and machines. Discourse within these fields takes place along ethical, organizational, social and computational dimensions. These dimensions are deeply interrelated. Addressing these connections and intersections is essential for a comprehensive understanding of AI systems. For this workshop, we invite contributions that focus not merely on one of the four dimensions but address at least two dimensions together in an interdisciplinary way. The workshop aims to not only discuss how tools, processes, and relations of AI operate, but for whom and why they (do not) work. Additionally, we want to render visible the people, resources, processes, materials and politics that are often a hidden part of the current AI discourse. We primarily welcome paper presentations but are also open to other suggestions for presentation formats. The following list depicts some of the fields and aspects which are of interest for the workshop and can serve as starting points for discussions, but can be complemented by further aspects. Ethical ● Diversity and inclusion (queer LGBT, minority, indigenous, disability) ● Social justice ● Environmental justice ● Access and use of copyrighted material ● Labor exploitation Social ● Care work ● Relationships (human, socio-technical) ● Assistive technologies and impact Organizational ● Employment ● Job (In)security ● Future of work // New work ● AI recruitment tools ● Human-AI collaboration Computational ● Mechanics ● Practices of training computational models ● Data quality ● Bias ● Cybersecurity Deadline for submission of abstract: 15 July 2024, midnight EST Abstracts should be between 300 and 500 words. Applicants will be notified by July 22. Please send your abstracts to Laura Schelenz (laura.schelenz(a)uni-tuebingen.de<mailto:laura.schelenz@uni-tuebingen.de>). If you have any questions, feel free to contact us. The transatlantic team of organizers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Tübingen includes Prof. Mohammad Hossein Jarrahi, PD Dr. Jessica Heesen, Prof. Dr. Regina Ammicht Quinn, Jan-David Bühler, Jana Hecktor, Lisa Koeritz, Jimmy McKinnell, and Laura Schelenz. Laura Schelenz Researcher International Center for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities (IZEW) University of Tübingen Wilhelmstr. 19 72074 Tübingen Germany (Physical location: Lothar-Meyer-Bau, Wilhelmstr. 56, Room 250) Phone: +49 7071 29-77985

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Real-Time Intelligent Systems 2024
by ijwa dline.info 08 Jul '24

08 Jul '24

Sixth International Conference on Real-Time Intelligent Systems (RTIS 2024) Tien Giang University My Tho (near Ho-chi-Minh) Vietnam October 17-19, 2024 www.socio.org.uk/rtis Springer Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems (LNNS) The International Conference on Real-time Intelligent Systems (RTIS) has traveled from Beijing, China (2016), to Ho-Chi-Min, Vietnam. The sixth edition will take place at Tien Giang University. Over the last few years, real-time intelligent computing has radically transformed the human lifestyle. Research on real-time intelligent systems is multi-disciplinary, exploiting concepts from diverse areas such as big data processing, computational intelligence, location-based services, recommendation systems, and multimedia processing. In today’s highly dynamic environment, analysing data in real-time is necessary to understand how systems process data, reason the outputs, and anticipate trends in intelligent computing. To this end, this conference will serve as a platform to manifest the ongoing research in the field. Thus, RTIS welcomes theoretically grounded, methodologically sound papers that address aspects related to topics, such as: Artificial Intelligence and Data mining Streaming data, streaming engines Trace-based intelligent real-time services Adaptive vision algorithms Location-based services Intelligent Robotic Systems Collaborative Intelligence Data capture in real-time Data quality and cleansing Intelligent Data Analysis Intelligent Database Systems Knowledge representation and reasoning Intelligent information fusion Large Language Models, cognitive methods, sequential inference, data mining, pattern/behavioral analysis, Big Data systems and applications for high-velocity data Intelligent Information Systems Privacy and security in Intelligence Software Engineering Solutions Intelligent Soft Computing Real-time multiprocessor systems Internet of Things Architectures for Intelligence Real-time distributed coding Smart services and platforms Real-time modelling user information needs Wireless Communication Real-time intelligent communication Real-time intelligent network solutions Mobile Smart Systems Broadband Intelligence Cloud Computing and Intelligence Collaborative Intelligence Analysis in domains such as energy, sensors Decision support systems in real-time Multi-agent Intelligent Systems Multilingual information access Recommendation systems Real-time intelligent alert systems Real-time remote access systems Intelligent Transportation Systems Autonomous systems (incl. autonomous vehicles and drones) Distributed systems Cloud/edge computing/fusion Defence/security, robotics, aerospace, intelligent transportation Mining/Manufacturing Environmental monitoring Critical Real-time Applications Real-time noise removal systems Event-driven analytics Intelligent Fuzzy Systems Machine translation in real-time OLAP for real-time decision support Crowdsourcing and crowd intelligence Submission, proceedings Papers must be submitted online through OpenConf. Author instructions and LaTex2e (preferred) and Word macro files are available on the submission page. Submitted papers should be at most 14 pages (long papers) and 8 pages (short ones), including figures, tables and references (in the Springer template). Authors of accepted papers are required to transfer their copyrights. For a paper to appear in the proceedings, at least one of the authors MUST register for the conference by the camera-ready submission deadline with a full registration. Springer’s Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems (LNNS) (https://www.springer.com/series/15179) will publish the accepted papers and be indexed in SCOPUS, EI Compendex, INSPEC, WTI Frankfurt eG, zbMATH, and SCImago. All the papers published in the series are submitted for consideration in the Web of Science. Important Dates Submission of papers: August 05, 2024 Notification: September 01, 2024 Camera-ready: October 01, 2024 Registration: October 01, 2024 Conference Dates: October 17-19, 2024 Honorary Chair Vo Ngoc Ha, Tien Giang University, Vietnam General Chairs Le Minh Tung, Tien Giang University, Vietnam Martín LÓPEZ-NORES, University of Vigo, Spain Program Chairs Nguyen Hoang Vu, Tien Giang University, Vietnam Pit Pichappan, Digital Information Research Labs, India & UK Dion Goh Hoe Lian, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Co-Program Chairs Duong Van Hieu, Tien Giang University, Vietnam Ricardo Rodriguez-Jorge, Technological Centre Ceit, Spain Pavel Losket, Zhejiang University-University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign Institute, China Organizing Chair Cao Nguyen Thi, Tien Giang University, Vietnam Publicity Chair Beniysa Mohsin, LTI laboratory, Abdelmalek Essaâdi University, Morocco Paper submission at https://socio.org.uk/rtis/paper-submission/ Contact- stm(a)socio.org.uk

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JOB: 3 Professorships in Philosophy & Blockchain, Political Science & Blockchain, Sociology & Blockchain
by Sophie Muetzel 08 Jul '24

08 Jul '24

Dear all The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Lucerne, Switzerland, is looking to fill the following positions for the “Zug Institute for Blockchain Research” *Professor of “Philosophy and Blockchain” (100%, open rank).* *Professor of “Political Science and Blockchain” (100%, open rank)* *Professor of “Sociology and Blockchain” (100%, open rank)* starting February 1, 2025, or by agreement. The successful candidates will play an active role in establishing the interdisciplinary Zug Institute for Blockchain Research at the University of Lucerne. The newly appointed professorships and their research teams will focus on the social, political, legal and economic consequences of blockchain technology. The aim is to create an institute for blockchain research with a human science focus that is unique in the world in terms of its breadth and diversity. The University of Lucerne explicitly encourages qualified female scientists to apply. *Application deadline is August 4, 2024.* For further information, please see https://www.unilu.ch/en/university/personnel/human-resources-department/vac… Also, please feel free to circulate the job ad amongst your networks. Thanks and best Sophie Mützel sophie.muetzel(a)unilu.ch Professor of Sociology Department of Sociology University of Lucerne Switzerland

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JERAA2024 Deadline Extension
by Silvia Montana Nino 08 Jul '24

08 Jul '24

Dear colleagues, **Apologies for cross-posting** We have extended the abstracts and panel proposals submission deadline for the JERAA2024 conference in Australia till Monday, July 29th. Call For Papers 2024 JERAA Conference University of Melbourne Wednesday 27 - Friday 29 November 2024 Early Career Researchers Day Tuesday 26 November 2024 Forward: facing the next wave of journalism disruption 'Forward' is about imagining and preparing for the future and then proceeding to face the challenges and possibilities ahead. For contemporary journalism, it implies critically anticipating and dealing with the consequences of seemingly endless waves of technological disruption. This year, the news industry - practitioners, educators, researchers and consumers - are experiencing the impacts of Artificial Intelligence, the defunding of news on digital platforms, copyright battles, further downsizing of media businesses and the belligerence of big tech, and all in the context of looming elections and global conflict. The 2024 JERAA conference will offer space to consider these pressing social and technological issues, as well as our role as educators and researchers in working to future-proof the industry, craft and discipline of journalism. We invite abstracts (250 words) and panel proposals (300-400 words) with short bios (100 words max) that include (but are not exclusive to) industry and education discussions and theoretical and empirical research on the following themes: *Digital platforms: The line in the sand or the "post social media" moment? Sovereign states versus Big Tech The News Media Bargaining Code and its international adaptations Trends and challenges for sovereign states in regulating digital platforms The news media industry after the decline of news on social media *Identity and news Australian journalism after The Voice referendum First Nations media in Australia and across the globe Race, feminism, LGBTQ+ inclusion in newsrooms and journalism Safety and online abuse *Activism, advocacy and journalism Freedom and journalism in war zones New forms of journalism in conflict zones Freedom fighters, civil rights and journalists in prison Reportage in Gaza and Ukraine Covering protests *Misinformation, fact-checking and ethical behaviour Hyper-partisan and far-right media and the polarisation of news Covering elections and political campaigns Science journalism after COVID-19: climate change, health crises Journalism ethics on trial, both legally and in the court of public opinion. *Trauma, stigma and framing (for good or evil) Lessons from Bondi Who is a terrorist? Covering gendered violence Guidelines for reporting suicide in Indigenous communities *Educating and training journalists Learning and teaching journalism for international students in Australia What to do about AI and journalism? Podcasting and excellence in audio storytelling New trends in authentic and experiential learning in journalism Collaboration to tell big stories We have extended our submission deadline to 5pm on Monday 29 July 2024. Please send your abstracts or panel proposals to this email: jeraa-2024(a)unimelb.edu.au<mailto:jeraa-2024@unimelb.edu.au> The Centre for Advancing Journalism warmly invites you to the JERAA conference on the campus of the University of Melbourne on the lands of Wurundjeri and Boonwurrung People during the last week of November 2024. The JERAA Early Career Researchers Day will be held on Tuesday 26 November, followed by the main conference between Wednesday and Friday 27-29 November. On Wednesday 27 November we will hold a joint session with the annual AANZCA (Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand Communication Association) conference. This rare occasion will be an opportunity to network with colleagues and discuss issues that are critical to both associations. We will also host AANZCA for a joint celebration to mark the end of their conference and the beginning of ours. We encourage AANZCA members to stay on and participate at JERAA. For those intending to do so, we offer a 15% discount on the conference price. Our first three keynote speakers *Investigative journalist Gerard Ryle will discuss Collaborative Journalism as a way to fight disruption in a Q&A-style conference discussion. Gerard is the Pulitzer Prize and Emmy-award winning director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in Washington, DC. He led the worldwide teams of journalists who worked on the Offshore Leaks, Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Implant Files, FinCEN Files, and Pandora Papers investigations - the six biggest collaborations in journalism history. The Pandora Papers project involved more than 600 journalists at more than 150 news outlets in 117 countries working together. Gerard has won and shared in more than 90 major journalism awards from eight countries, including five Walkley Awards. In 2021, ICIJ was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. *Award-winning ABC journalist Bridget Brennan will deliver a keynote address on critical topics including reporting on Indigenous affairs and violence against women. Bridget has been a journalist with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for more than a decade. A Dja Dja Wurrung, Yorta Yorta woman, she is a newsreader and presenter at News Breakfast, and recently the Indigenous Affairs Editor at ABC. In 2017, Bridget was appointed the ABC's first National Indigenous Affairs Correspondent, reporting on the murders of Aboriginal women in Central Australian communities, and investigated racism in Australia's health system and the escalating number of Aboriginal children being removed from their families. Last year, Bridget was a fellow with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford Universities where she researched the global pressures facing First Nations reporters in mainstream newsrooms. Bridget, together with Brooke Fryer, Suzanne Dredge and Stephanie Zillman won the 2023 Melbourne Press Club Gold Quill for their Four Corners investigation "How Many More?" which shone a light on the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women. *US researcher Casey Mock, Chief Policy and Public Affairs Officer at the Center for Humane Technology, will examine AI and deception at the 2024 JERAA Conference. Casey's address will consider how AI disturbs coverage of this year's US Presidential Election. He will discuss latest CHT research that explores how misinformation/disinformation harms people's right to freedom of speech, and freedom to think, and what journalists can do to constructively respond. Further information about other keynote speakers, panel sessions and the Early Career Researchers Day will be provided in the coming weeks. Ticketing details will also be provided shortly Learn more about JERAA by visiting its website: https://jeraa.org.au/news/ Further information: Main conference email: jeraa-2024(a)unimelb.edu.au<mailto:jeraa-2024@unimelb.edu.au> Andrew Dodd adodd(a)unimelb.edu.au<mailto:adodd@unimelb.edu.au> Caroline James-Garrod caroline.jamesgarrod(a)unimelb.edu.au<mailto:caroline.jamesgarrod@unimelb.edu.au> Silvia Montana Nino silvia.montanan(a)unimelb.edu.au<mailto:silvia.montanan@unimelb.edu.au> Sami Shah sami.shah(a)unimelb.edu.au<mailto:sami.shah@unimelb.edu.au> Louisa Lim louisa.lim(a)unimelb.edu.au<mailto:louisa.lim@unimelb.edu.au> JERAA 2024 is supported by the University of Melbourne's Centre for Advancing Journalism, Mindframe, Our Watch, Dart Asia Pacific, and Media Super.

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Grading the Graders: Global Student Perspectives on How Universities Have Reacted to Generative AI
by Olivia Inwood 06 Jul '24

06 Jul '24

Dear AoIR Members, We would like to invite you to Western Sydney University’s Annual Student Perspectives on Generative AI Webinar - free and open to all. This year we are seeking a global audience to listen to our global panel of speakers from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, USA, UK and Singapore who will discuss: * Research on how students are navigating generative AI * Student perspectives on partnerships with generative AI companies such as Arizona State University and Open AI * Student perspectives on university AI policies * Inequalities related to generative AI technologies * Intersectional Feminist approaches to mitigating bias in generative AI Title: Grading the Graders: Global Student Perspectives on How Universities Have Reacted to Generative AI Date: Friday 12th July 10am - 12pm (AEST) Register here for the zoom link: https://westernsydney.libcal.com/event/5632681 Dr Olivia Inwood (she/her) | Academic Literacy Coordinator Library Academic & Research Services Kingswood Campus located on Darug Country Email: o.inwood(a)westernsydney.edu.au https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6678-888X westernsydney.edu.au Western Sydney University

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CfP, Special Issue, AI and Sovereignty
by Rafael Do Nascimento Grohmann 05 Jul '24

05 Jul '24

Colleagues, Liinc em Revista - a Brazilian, open access and trilingual journal (English, Spanish and Portuguese), announces call for papers for a special issue on AI and Sovereignty. Call for Papers, Special Issue, AI and Sovereignty Guest editors: Marco Schneider, Sergio Amadeu and Rafael Grohmann This special issue of LIINC em Revista journal will address the intersection between Artificial Intelligence (AI) and sovereignty, exploring how the various dimensions of sovereignty are impacted and redefined by AI, and how AI brings new challenges and implications for sovereignty. The special issue aims to address the various perspectives of sovereignty, understood here in its multiple dimensions – national, political, epistemological, technological, digital, data – and its new contours in this scenario of advancement of artificial intelligence, raising crucial questions about control, autonomy and power. AI, as a political, social and technological object, involves the creation, mediation and appropriation of systems and data, profoundly affecting models of governance, technological autonomy and epistemological independence. In a context where AI becomes ubiquitous in spaces of colonized sociality and impacts territories of resistance, there are tensions and challenges related to sovereignty in the diverse spheres, involving States, individuals and social movements, with profound implications for global governance, economy and human rights. The special issue "AI and Sovereignty" announces call for papers with a special focus on the following topics: - National Sovereignty and Artificial Intelligence: How is the adoption of AI by nation-states influencing their autonomy and control over technologies? - National Sovereignty, Artificial Intelligence and the Democratic Rule of Law: How is the constitutional foundation of countries being undermined by the lack of regulation of digital platforms and AI? - Political Sovereignty and AI Governance: What are the challenges and opportunities for democratic governance in a world increasingly dominated by AI technologies? - Epistemological Sovereignty and AI: How is AI redefining the production and validation of knowledge, and how does this affect different epistemic communities? - Technological Sovereignty and Digital Governance: How can nations achieve technological sovereignty in a scenario dominated by global Big Tech companies? - Data Sovereignty, Privacy and Democracy: What are the implications of massive data collection by AI systems for individual and collective sovereignty? - Digital Sovereignty, AI and Human Rights: How is AI impacting digital rights and freedom of expression in the context of digital sovereignty? - AI and Economic Sovereignty: What impacts is AI having on local and global economies, and how does this affect the economic sovereignty of states? - AI, Sovereignty and Culture: How is AI influencing the preservation and promotion of local and indigenous cultures, and how does this relate to cultural sovereignty? - Sovereignty, AI and Education: What are the implications of training models applied in Education and their biases organized by Big Tech companies based on the experiences of rich countries? - Sovereignty, AI and Religions: How are AI configurations impacting diversity, tolerance and freedom of belief and the sovereignty of national, regional and local rights of religious expression in its plurality of gestures, rituals and beliefs? - Sovereignty, AI and the Anthropocene: How has environmental disinformation been promoting imbalance in social relations and causing disasters in the sovereign governance of the environment in educational, cultural, epistemological, economic, technological, legal and political dimensions? How are the environmental impacts of AI related to sovereignty? - Sovereignty, AI and Social Movements: How have social movements demanded technological sovereignty and AI governance from communities points of view? What does popular digital sovereignty mean? - Sovereignty, Dependency and AI: How can global data production - including the role of human labor - intensify the growing dependency - and lack of sovereignty - of countries in the Global South? - Sovereignty, AI and Labor: How have working people demanded technological sovereignty from technologies governed by the working class? What does this sovereignty mean and how does it relate to autonomy? - Discourses on Sovereignty and AI: The word sovereignty is multifaceted and can have different meanings, with different ideological positions. What are the current discourses on sovereignty and AI? What paths do they point to? - Sovereignty, AI and Disinformation: Crossing all other topics, in what ways does the use of AI in disinformation practices compromise the educational, cultural, epistemological, economic, technological, legal and political sovereignty of nations? This journal invites researchers to submit articles that address these issues from a critical and interdisciplinary perspective, contributing to a deeper understanding of the complex relationships between artificial intelligence and sovereignty. TIMELINE July 31, 2024: abstract submission (250-400 words). Send this abstract to liinc(a)ibict.br September 20, 2024: full article submission https://revista.ibict.br/liinc/announcement/view/110 -- dr. Rafael Grohmann Assistant Professor of Media Studies Department of Arts, Culture and Media<https://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/acm/rafael-grohmann> Faculty of Information<https://ischool.utoronto.ca/profile/rafael-grohmann/> University of Toronto Leader, DigiLabour<https://digilabour.com.br/> Founding Editor, Platforms & Society<https://journals.sagepub.com/home/PNS> Principal Investigator, Worker-Owned Intersectional Platforms (WOIP)<https://digilabour.com.br/worker-owned-intersectional-platforms-woip/> Researcher, Fairwork<https://fair.work/> <https://fair.work/> International Experts Coordinator, Platform Work Inclusion Living Lab<https://pwill.eu/>

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Search engine research / RAT Community Meeting 2024, 27th September, Hamburg, Germany
by Lewandowski, Dirk 05 Jul '24

05 Jul '24

We invite all researchers interested in search engine data analysis to the next RAT Community Meeting! The RAT Community Meeting series brings together researchers interested in collecting and analyzing search engine data. The interactive meeting provides information on new features of the RAT software, hands-on tutorials explaining how to use RAT for your research projects, showcase presentations covering search engine studies from areas such as health and politics, an interactive poster session, and lots of room for discussion and networking during breaks and at the conference dinner. ########## When? Friday, 27th September 2024, 9 a.m. – 6 p.m. (+ conference dinner) Where? Hamburg, Germany Please note that this is an in-person event which will not be streamed. ########## The full agenda can be found here: https://searchstudies.org/event/rat-community-meeting-2024/ The Result Assessment Tool (RAT) is a modular and flexible research software that allows the design and conduct of studies using search engine data. With RAT, researchers can easily define a list of queries. The tool then automatically queries selected search engines, collects the results, and presents them in a structured format for further processing. RAT efficiently collects result URLs, full text, and screenshots. In research studies, researchers run automatic analysis and classification or let jurors evaluate results on whatever criteria they are interested in. RAT is free to use through a web interface. It is fully open source, so researchers can run their installations or modify the software to fit their needs. More information on the RAT software can be found here: https://searchstudies.org/rat Like to contribute? We have a call for studies: https://searchstudies.org/call-for-studies-using-our-rat-software/ -- Prof. Dr. Dirk Lewandowski Interim professor (Data Science), University of Duisburg-Essen Professor (Information Research & Information Retrieval), Hamburg University of Applied Sciences T +49 40 428 75-3621 dirk.lewandowski(a)haw-hamburg.de HOCHSCHULE FÜR ANGEWANDTE WISSENSCHAFTEN HAMBURG Fakultät Design, Media und Information Department of Information, Media and Communication Finkenau 35 / 22081 Hamburg / Germany http://www.searchstudies.org/dirk http://uni-due.de/datascience/

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The Gab project. Scraping & analysing the far-right platform Gab.com
by Schaefer, M.T. (Mirko) 05 Jul '24

05 Jul '24

Dear list, A few years ago, Data School<https://dataschool.nl/en/> started to investigate the far-right platform Gab. In order to do so, our team scraped all messages posted to the platform. Tim de Winkel<https://www.internationalhu.com/research/researchers/tim-de-winkel> wrote his PhD thesis<https://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/430642> on fringe platforms, and Gab was an apt case study. The project was rather complex and can serve as an example of how to capture data from fringe platforms (no documented API's), how to tackle the legal and ethical issues involved, and how to apply digital methods for analysis. We developed a range of different inquiries for understanding a platform's dynamics, infrastructure, economics and ideology. This overview article summarizes the project and discusses the technical, legal and ethical, and the epistemological challenges. The article appeared in the recent edition of the open access Journal for Right-Wing Studies<https://jrws.berkeley.edu/>: De Winkel, Tim, Ludo Gorzeman, Sofie de Wilde de Ligny, Thomas ten Heuvel, Melissa Blekkenhorst, Sander Prins, and Mirko Tobias Schäfer. "The Gab Project: The Methodological, Epistemological, and Legal Challenges of Studying the Platformized Far-Right." Journal of Right-Wing Studies 2, no. 1 (2024). https://escholarship.org/content/qt8k51x134/qt8k51x134.pdf?t=sfzp36 Best wishes, mirko

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"SOCIALS DON’T SOCIALISE IN FIELDS"
by Joly MacFie 04 Jul '24

04 Jul '24

I thought aoir's might like this para, pulled from a story analyzing a downturn in the UK music festival industry. A promising research avenue? =================== https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/weve-got-to-rethink-music-festivals/ *ISSUE 4: CULTURE – SOCIALS DON’T SOCIALISE IN FIELDS* An increasingly common response from those who went to festivals in the past but chose not to this year is that ‘they didn’t think they had friends to go with’. Ouch! I’m not equipped to unpack this one but I’ll try to help you do so by pointing out two things. First, social media may result in what Amazon’s *Katie Vitolins* <https://www.linkedin.com/in/katieschlosser/>referred to as a ‘*claustrophobia of abundance*’. They may have hundreds (or thousands) of friends online, but that doesn’t translate into human interaction in festival fields. Second, remember the target market for many of this year’s festivals – school leavers (18-19 years) and graduates (21-23 years) — these age buckets were caught in the awful cross-fire of the 2020 pandemic. Healing that wound may still be a work in progress. *“FANS WITH TATTOOS OF THEIR FAVOURITE BAND OR THOSE ABLE TO RECITE LYRICS WORD-FOR-WORD… HAS WAY MORE MEANING THAN ANY DATA DASHBOARD.”* Putting angst about future generations aside, another consideration is that the internet, which I’ve long argued can scale just about anything other than intimacy. Promoters must have a wry smile when labels debate the definition of ‘superfan’. Looking for superfan signals in a pro rata pool of streaming data is meaningless. Marty Diamond, a legendary booking agent, once told me that the only data point he trusts is comments-per-views ratio. Lots of views with no comments translates to a lot of ‘meh,’ but lesser views accompanied by a higher ratio means a lot of engaged fans. For promoters, not only do they have the issues of price and scarcity to juggle, but they can also visibly count those fans with tattoos of their favourite band or those able to recite lyrics word-for-word. That has way more meaning than any data dashboard. ==================== -- -------------------------------------- Joly MacFie +12185659365 -------------------------------------- -

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Two four-year postdocs on Narrative and GenAI
by Jill Walker Rettberg 04 Jul '24

04 Jul '24

The Center for Digital Narrative at the University of Bergen in Norway invites applications to two four-year postdoctoral positions in Narrative Theory and Generative AI, one focused on Scandinavian narratives and the other on narratives from a non-Western culture (for example India). The application deadline is 1 August 2024. The salary is NOK 624 500 per year (about €55,000 or USD 59,000), and membership in the Norwegian welfare system. We are looking for somebody with a PhD in literary studies, media studies or similar who has expertise in narratology or other approaches to analysing and theorising narratives. The two positions will be part of an ERC Advanced Grant research team on the project AI STORIES: Narrative Archetypes for Artificial Intelligence. Links to full job ads: - Scandinavian focus: https://www.jobbnorge.no/en/available-jobs/job/264677/postdoctoral-research… - Non-Western focus: https://www.jobbnorge.no/en/available-jobs/job/264694/postdoctoral-research… The Center for Digital Narrative: http://uib.no/en/cdn AI STORIES: Narrative Archetypes for Artificial Intelligence is an ERC Advanced Grant led by Professor Jill Walker Rettberg.The project will explore and test the hypothesis that deep narrative structures in the datasets that are used to train generative AI models are replicated and perhaps exaggerated in the output of generative AI, and that this could lead to culturally specific narrative biases. Work tasks: - Work in a research team to develop narrative theory that synthesizes and expands on existing research to directly address narrativity in generative AI. This includes developing a thorough literature review of relevant narrative theories and building upon this to develop new theoretical frameworks. - Researching specific traits in non-Western narrative traditions from a culture where English is an official or commonly used language, such as India or Nigeria, and working with the project team to develop evaluation criteria for experiments to assess narrative biases in the output of generative AI that is trained on such narratives. - Publish scientific articles, as well as presenting research at scientific conferences and to the general public, the technology industry, politicians, and other relevant parties. - Co-author a scholarly monograph on narratology and AI with Jill Walker Rettberg and the other postdoctoral research fellow at the project. - Contribute to planning project workshops and take the lead on organising specific events. For more information, email jill.walker.rettberg(a)uib.no<mailto:jill.walker.rettberg@uib.no> Jill Walker Rettberg Professor, Co-Director Center for Digital Narrative<http://uib.no/en/cdn> Leader of Machine Vision in Everyday Life<https://www.uib.no/en/machinevision/> (ERC-CoG) and AI STORIES<https://www.uib.no/en/cdn/169806/erc-wants-see-what-shapes-stories-ai-tells…> (ERC-AdG) University of Bergen https://www.uib.no/en/persons/Jill.Walker.Rettberg

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