[ecrea] Automated Knowledge and Autonomous Publishing Infrastructures – Workshop

*Automated Knowledge and Autonomous Publishing Infrastructures – Workshop*

Digital Life Research Program

Institute for Culture and Society in collaboration with Australia-China 
Institute for Arts and Culture, Western Sydney University

2-3 November 2017

https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/ics/events/automated_knowledge_and_autonomous_publishing_infrastructures 


Venue: Parramatta City Campus, 1PSQ, Level 8, Room 12

Organizers: Liam Magee and Ned Rossiter

_Summary_

The prospect of cognition outsourced to machines is a worry for many. 
The automation of knowledge generation and AI-delivered modes of 
teaching particularly afflicts those working in the university. For many 
years academics have submitted to the political economy of publishing 
industries for the trade-offs on offer: esteem and prestige, job 
security, an outlet for intellectual expression, a basis for research 
grant applications, and perhaps some sense of community. The horizon of 
doom again raises questions of an existential kind, not least of which 
hangs off a sense of futurity without purpose.

Purposelessness finds specific form with the rising spectre of machinic, 
semi-automatic and theory-less knowledge. Examples of the 
algorithmically-sourced journal article appear in numerous forms, from 
the apparently benign reference lists curated through Google Scholar’s 
indexing to machine learning-based inferencing that stretches from 
method and findings to analysis and conclusions. Increasingly research 
can meaningfully ask itself what parts of its canonical knowledge format 
can the algorithm compute effectively? Is its automaticity itself a sign 
of the journal article’s obsolescence?

As one example, Kosinski and Wang, two social psychologists from 
Stanford, have applied machine learning, apparently with great success, 
to the identification of sexuality among photos extracted from dating 
websites.  Quite aside from the obvious dangers its conclusions imply, 
the paper itself can be described as an “augmented reality” –  one in 
which algorithms construct new links between the structure of faces and 
sexual preference, a new phantasm or simulation of the “real,” minimally 
“augmented” by contributions from human authors. It begs a return to 
Freudian and Derridean concepts of unconscious or automatic writing, 
with a terrifying new political spin. The algorithm identifies your 
sexuality, and partly writes up its own findings. For now, astute review 
can pick apart bias in its assumptions and interpretations. But the era 
of machinic knowledge production and review is also clearly underway.

The cold sword of autonomous knowledge production devoid of the 
all-too-human qualities of curiosity and doubt, elation and despair 
adheres to the proliferation of machinic imaginaries. When facial 
recognition technologies get airplay for their supposed capacity to 
identify sexuality and our intellectual capabilities, it would seem we 
have well and truly entered the augmented reality of control society. If 
reality is determined by the fallacy of machine intelligence, then what 
implications does this hold for knowledge generated out of the academy?

But might we also see this as an occasion to crystallize a politics of 
autonomy? For writers, designers, scholars and theorists, this two-day 
workshop explores how publishing infrastructures might reside at the 
core of knowledge production predicated on the logic of an autonomous 
commons. Indeed, how might we envisage something like an AI commons? 
What are the parameters through which wild theory, for instance, might 
be produced by the machine while we kick back with another glorious day 
at the beach? And, more seriously, how might an automated commons guard 
against data expropriation that increasingly defines extractivist 
economies of the tech sector and university alike? In pursuing the 
possibility of autonomous knowledge infrastructures, this workshop 
advances a politics of collaborative constitution.

*Program*

DAY 1

2 November

10.00–10.30am Welcome and Introduction

10.30–12.30pm Automating Knowledge and Invasive Apparatuses

12.30–1.30pm     Lunch

1.30–3.30pm       Open Knowledge Publishing

3.30–3.45pm       Tea/coffee

3.45–4.30pm       Summary panel

DAY 2

3 November

10.30–12.30pm Implementing New Knowledge Environments

12.30–1.30pm     Lunch

1.30–3.30pm       Knowledge Production and Autonomous Infrastructures 
(Fibreculture Publications)

3.30–3.45pm       Tea/coffee

3.45–4.30pm       Closing panel and discussion

No registration fee required.

RSVP by 30 October: https://tinyurl.com/y9pfr3bl

Panel Summaries:

_Automating Knowledge and Invasive Apparatuses_

Drawing on political traditions and practices of autonomy, this panel 
undertakes the work of translation to forge a connection with media of 
expression. We introduce the concept autonomous media as an analytical 
device and empirical condition that marks the arrival of computational 
systems able to exert a form of sovereign authority over the 
organization and management of society.

Speakers

Liam Magee, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University

Ned Rossiter, Institute for Culture and Society/School of Humanities and 
Communication Arts, WSU

_Open Knowledge and Publishing_

This panel looks at the evolving role of publishing in opening up the 
access to and creation of knowledge in various contexts. Through the 
examinations of digital publishing, open access, and literature 
translation, the presentations interrogate the dynamics of publishing in 
removing the socio-economic and intercultural barriers against the 
growth and exchange of knowledge, as well as the political economy of 
the initiatives. The panel further discusses what we mean by “open 
knowledge” in the digital globalisation of publishing today.

Speakers

Xiang Ren, Australia-China Institute for Arts and Culture, Western 
Sydney University

Lucy Montgomery, Centre for Culture and Technology (CCAT), Curtin University

Ivor Indyk, Centre for Writing and Society, Western Sydney University

_Implementing New Knowledge Environments_

The Digital Humanities Research Group is a member of the “Implementing 
New Knowledge Environments” consortium: a collaborative group of 
researchers based mainly in Canada focussed on networked open social 
scholarship (http://inke.ca/). The activities of INKE include an “open 
scholarship policy observatory”. In this panel we discuss the 
implications of INKE for the digital humanities at large, and how 
Australia can contribute a unique perspective to Canadian and global 
discussions on new modes of scholarly knowledge production.

Speakers

Rachel Hendery, Digital Humanities Research Group, Western Sydney University

Jason Ensor, Library, WSU

Hart Cohen, School of Humanities and Communication Arts/Institute for 
Culture and Society, WSU

_Knowledge Production and Autonomous Infrastructures (Fibreculture 
Publishing)_

Open access, online publishing finds itself “occupying” the “publishing” 
of old. With this, it also challenges academic and more general research 
practice. It would be great to say that this resonates with the like of 
“Occupy Wall Street”. Yet OA and online publishing are also caught up in 
what is literally a struggle over capital, institutions, and sovereign 
territories. In this session, we will give short presentations on the 
practical role of abstractions; the new research environment in which 
students face “infinite knowledge”; and the politics of 
identity/identifiers in academic practice.

Speakers

Andrew Murphie, School of the Arts & Media, Centre for Modernism Studies 
in Australia, UNSW

Mat Wall-Smith, Director of Learning, Polygon Door 
<http://polygondoor.com.au/>, Wollongong

Glen Fuller, Faculty of Arts & Design, University of Canberra


---------------
The COMMLIST
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier. Please
use it responsibly and wisely.
--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit http://commlist.org/
--
Before sending a posting request, please always read the guidelines at
http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://nicocarpentier.net
---------------