Over 120 researchers from the WASP-HS program gathered at Stockholm University on February 5-7 for the Winter Conference 2025, focusing on the multifaceted impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) on humanity and society. The conference featured workshops, panel sessions, poster sessions, and multiple networking opportunities.
“The WASP-HS Winter Conference serves as a vital forum for researchers within the WASP-HS program and beyond to convene and share insights on the profound effects of AI on our society. This gathering fosters a collaborative environment where we can collectively explore and understand the social implications and situated entanglements AI is catalyzing,” says Ericka Johnson, WASP-HS Graduate School Director and Professor of Gender and Society at Linköping University.
Career Development and Networking
The three-day event was instrumental in providing early career researchers with opportunities to receive valuable feedback and explore new career paths. Mo von Bychelberg, affiliated WASP-HS PhD student at Uppsala University, highlighted the significance of the conference for emerging scholars.
“The WASP-HS Winter Conference is crucial, providing an opportunity for researchers to receive critical feedback from peers with diverse backgrounds. The supportive environment makes it less pressured and fosters meaningful connections, making it easier to engage with both fellow PhD students and more experienced researchers,” Mo remarks.
First Ever WASP-HS Annual Exchange
One of the highlights of the conference was the inaugural WASP-HS Annual Exchange, an open event fostering dialogue between international researchers and WASP-HS PhD students. This year’s exchange, moderated by Hannah Pelikan, Postdoc at the Department of Culture and Society, Linköping University, featured a discussion on autonomous vehicles and public data between Mark Fagan, Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, and Petter Falk, Doctor in Political Science at Karlstad University. The conversation delved into the social and power dynamics of personal autonomous vehicles and the context-dependent relationships with the data these systems use and gather.
Project Highlights
During the last day of the conference, three leading researchers presented their WASP-HS projects:
Jonas Tallberg, Professor of Political Science at Stockholm University, reported on the policy responses to AI currently being suggested, adopted and rejected by various governments and organizations, examining their implications for justice and democracy.
Kristina Höök, Professor in Interaction Design at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, spoke to using bodies, in all their complex and messy ways of being in the world, when designing robots that transcend normative and normal ways of thinking about the interaction between humans and computers.
Pontus Strimling, Associate Professor of Economics at the Institute for Futures Studies, talked about predicting the futures of tech acceptance, investigating whether their take-up and sustained use is driven by novelty, utility, or other factors.
