Automatic Pilot, Netherlands, 1930. Spaarnestad Collection
8-9 June 2017
There are still some places available for this workshop. Register here if interested.
This workshop will explore anxiety about the atrophy of human
skills through the automation of complex cognitive skills such as navigation, control of
aircraft or vehicles. It will also examine cases where the delegation of human tasks
to machines directly become a source of anxiety, instability or concern. Examples
include high-frequency trading and the so-called ‘creepy line’ (Google) where
algorithms or machine learning may display an uncanny or disturbing level of
personal surveillance or insight. The workshop will also look at the
extension of this problem into academic analysis itself, that is, the automation of
research methods through digital humanities.
Contributions include:
Louise Amoore, The Attentiveness of Machines
James Ash, Automation, In-attention and the Accident: phases and the ethics of autonomous vehicles
Yves Citton, Exo-attention: Threats and Benefits
Beatrice Fazi, Distraction Machines? Machine Learning and the Conditions for Attention
Andrew Prescott, The Roots of Our Anxiety?
Evelyn Ruppert, The Anxious Practitioner: inhabiting automation
Rebecca Wright, Tracking Automation Anxiety in the Mass Observation Archive
