Since the late eighteenth century, the changing ‘machinery question’ has continued to spark deep social divisions and to stimulate new fields of imaginative thinking, creative speculation, and social and cultural enquiry (including political economy, cybernetics, STS, AI ethics, critical data studies, and digital ethnography).
Recent advances in artificial intelligence have generated new interests, methods, problems, and capabilities across an array of humanities and creative arts disciplines. These have complicated conventional narratives of technological transformation, enabling a deeper understanding of the possibilities and hazards of automation, and the complexities of human-machine relations.
Our 54th Annual Academy Symposium will explore some of the most exciting work underway on these issues across the humanities with related institutions and industry fields, in Australia and elsewhere.
Topics will include:
- Virtual autopsies and automated morgues,
- The automation of cultural production and cultural taste,
- Human accountability for the actions of machines,
- The ‘explanatory imperative’
- Questions of Indigenous data sovereignty
- Digital human rights.
Details
When
16 & 17 November 2023
Where
Kaleide RMIT Union Theatre, Melbourne
> Location and accomodation details
Program
Further speakers and session details to be announced soon.
Registrations open
Our Symposium is open to all – bringing together a large cross-section of Fellows, scholars, early-career researchers and representatives from government, education, peak bodies, industry, media and the community.
Convenors
31 May 2023
Jean is Associate Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S) where she is the co-leader of the Data program, and convenor of the QUT node.
31 May 2023
Julian is Director of the ADM+S Centre and a Distinguished Professor in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University.
Program
We’re delighted to bring you a full programme of panels, talks and events.
16-17 November 2023
Drop by for a chat with Viv, an artificially intelligent (AI) character, co-created with women living with dementia. Viv is an authority on the experience of dementia diagnosis and living with hallucinations.
17 November 2023
Dr Erica Thompson will be one of our keynote speakers.
16 November 2023
From the study of Greco-Roman antiquity to fiction and virtual autopsies, join a panel to explore how automation is seeping into life and death.
17 November 2023
In this session, three eminent scholars offer a range of historically-informed reflections upon the relationship between human and machine intelligence.
16 November 2023
Join our keynote conversation to delve into the topic of the 54th Annual Academy Symposium – Between humans & machines: exploring the pasts and futures of automation.
15 November 2023
In this year’s Academy Lecture Academy President, Emeritus Professor Lesley Head FASSA FAHA explores how the human should be conceptualised in an Anthropocene world.
Speakers
We’re delighted to announce the following speakers for our program. Subscribe to receive Symposium updates.
16 November 2023
Malavika is the Executive Director of the Digital Asia Hub, an independent, non-profit internet and society research think tank based out of Hong Kong with a regional focus.
16 November 2023
Marc is an Associate Professor in Law, and an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow at La Trobe University.
16-17 November 2023
Erica is an Associate Professor of Modelling for Decision Making at the University College London’s Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy.
17 November 2023
Marnie Hughes-Warrington AO is Standing Acting Vice Chancellor and Deputy Vice Chancellor Research and Enterprise at the University of South Australia
16 November 2023
Lyndon is an Aboriginal man of Alyawarr descent from the Barkly Tableland region of the Northern Territory and the Principal Research Fellow Digital Inclusion and Engagement in Indigenous Communities with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society RMIT University.
16 November 2023
Elizabeth in an Associate Professor in Cultural Studies at the University of Queensland and the founder and convenor of the Australasian Health and Medical Humanities Network.
Event information
Location
The Symposium will be held in Melbourne, Australia > Learn how to get to our venues
Accommodation
As an attendee of the Symposium you have access to accommodation discounts > Learn more
Filming and Photography
By registering and attending the 54th Symposium and associated events you will be requested to acknowledge that photography, video and audio recordings of the event may occur and give permission that you may appear in such footage or images and that the Academy of the Humanities may use this in promoting its activities. If you do not wish to be filmed, please contact the Academy events@humanities.org.au in advance of the event.
COVID-19
All participants attending the Symposium and associated events must comply with the COVID-19 safety rules outlined by the venues, RMIT and State Library of Victoria.
Accessibility
All of our venues have accessible options > Learn more
