What do you do if you enter into a room in which the conversation about something important—to you as a human being and as a scholar—has already begun? And what do you do when central debates about powerful technology have started somewhere else than where your knowledge and experience are based?
With these questions I began my lightning talk at the WASP-HS AI for Humanity and Society 2024 conference Creating Shared AI Futures. With the talk I set out by referring to a lived experience among many of us who conduct research on AI from a humanities and social sciences perspective: those irking encounters we often have with an AI discourse dominated by entrepreneurial and STEM perspectives (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). The aim was to suggest what to do about it.
I believe that this type of experience is shared by many within the WASP-HS community and beyond: to know that essential knowledge is missing, since limited understandings of being human or of society are purported within the discourse. And to feel that there is a mountain to climb in order to make a difference. It’s very easy to feel bypassed from the start, and that you lack the means, the voice or power to turn the proceedings around.
So, what do you do? My answer is: You secure the research funding and you insist on asking “irritating” questions in the years to come.
Where is the body and relationality in AI—and when turned into data in biometrics or other advanced models, what happens to the phenomenological and lived experience of having a body—in ethical navigation, in vulnerability, in co-existence? Why are humans so often pitted against machines, and why is intelligence reduced to one type of intelligence (already modelled upon information processing)? What norms for being human are produced in the process? What does it mean to die in the age of digital media and automation? Why does the AI industry speak about the end times? What is at stake if we elevate AI to a deity—a creator, destroyer and savior of worlds? Why must we automate everything just because we can? How can we bring about existentially sustainable, that is livable, AI futures? And what would a more diverse AI future look like?
AI is of Concern for all Existential Beings
I argue that through such questioning you insist that AI are existential media (as I proposed in my book Existential Media: A Media Theory of the Limit Situation, Oxford University Press 2022). As such they are media technologies of limits and contingency, and they are in fact an open-ended affair. They are also all-pervasive, co-forging our existence, touching upon the profundity of life, relating to our finitude, speaking to our shared vulnerability and deep relationality. In other words, they are a concern for all citizens as existential beings—and not a “problem” for a club of brains to “solve.”
I stress that our work within the two WASP-HS projects BioMe: Existential Challenges and Ethical Imperatives of Biometric AI in Everyday Lifeworlds and AI Design Futures (with WASP-HS Guest Professor Mark Coeckelbergh) asks such questions, as they are based in the young “field” I have been involved in bringing about: existential media studies. The approach is empirically grounded yet philosophically motivated, and anchored in the humanistic tradition of existential philosophy—a tradition which is always in movement and mutating. In addition to developing alternative perspectives on digital technologies and AI, I have also worked collaboratively with CHAIR and AI Sweden, and within the outreach platform The Human Observatory for Digital Existence in order to provide an impact beyond numbers. This has taken place through the vital method of existential dialogues across traditional borders, with a broad range of stakeholders who share an interest in the existential thrust of advanced technologies. (See for example our new volume: AI och samtalet om de stora frågorna: Möten mellan existentiella och teknologiska perspektiv, ed. A. Lagerkvist, Makadam förlag, 2024)
Existential Questions are Essential for Creating Shared Futures
During my talk I also highlighted that the theme of the autumn conference Creating Shared AI Futures was in fact deeply existential. As existential philosophy will insist: crafting the future is an existential practice, an irreducible aspect of being human that belongs to all of us, and to our faculty of anticipation and imagination. So, I urged the participants to come along and interpellated them as “rebels” with a task: “let’s keep asking irritating, existential questions!”
The roundtable was crowded and discussions were spirited. It attracted those who felt it was high time to vocalize issues with the dominating AI imaginary within their respective fields, but also those who represented industry or AI development who may have felt challenged by the very setup. That affective encounter was a good thing! The takeaway for me is that these conversations and “stirrings” must go on. Discussions across traditional scientific borders and beyond fenced enclaves – that include the humanities, the social sciences, theology, artistic research, civil society, public debate, policy, engineering, STEM competencies and industry – will be pivotal for formulating feasible “roadmaps” toward livable and inclusive AI futures. AI is only a “hype” in the public debate in the media; in reality it profoundly reshapes both our societies and our existence in the world. Therefore, discourse and decisions that shape our techno-existential future, must involve us all.
More About AI as Existential Media
To read more about Amanda Lagerkvist’s WASP-HS research projects and the project members, see BioMe: Existential Challenges and Ethical Imperatives of Biometric AI in Everyday Lifeworlds and AI Design Futures.
Do not hesitate to contact Amanda Lagerkvist, Professor of Media and Communication Studies at Uppsala University and PI of the Uppsala Hub for Digital Existence, if you are interested in discussing these issues further.
