[Commlist] Workshop: Reflecting on Power and AI: The Case of GPT-3

*Workshop of the Society for Phenomenology and Media*

*Reflecting on Power and AI: The Case of GPT-3*

*/Date:/*February 18^th 2021, 09:00 – 18:45 (GMT-8), 18:00 – 19:45 (CET)

*/Location:/*Zoom, link will be provided later.

*/Speakers:/*Dr. James Steinhoff (eScience Institute at the University 
of Washington, USA), Dr. Olya Kudina (TU Delft, The Netherlands), Dr. 
Bas de Boer (University of Twente, The Netherlands)

*/Registration:/*No registration needed.

You are all cordially invited to the workshop/Reflecting on Power and 
AI: The Case of GPT-3/.

*/Description:/*

One of the latest hallmarks of current boom in Artificial Intelligence 
(AI) isGenerative Pre-Trained Transformer 3 (GPT-3), an unprecedentedly 
powerful autoregressive language model that uses deep learning to 
produce human-like texts ranging from historical fiction to functional 
code (Floridi & Chiriatti 2020). For the philosopher David Chalmers, 
GPT-3 is the most interesting and important AI system ever produced, and 
is suggested to be the first AI system displaying signs of general 
intelligence (Chalmers 2020). The possibilities presented by GPT-3 give 
rise to an array of ethical and political concerns that will be explored 
in this workshop: How to deal with potential biases GPT-3 inherited from 
training data? Can and should we use artificial language models to 
displace human workers? What role will language play in our lives when 
we know that it is often algorithmically produced? Can GPT-3 be used to 
eliminate existing inequalities, or is it likely to increase those? Last 
but not least, what can the companies behind GPT-3 do to ensure a 
responsible development and use of their product?

The goal of this workshop is to explore the abovementioned issues from 
the perspective of two different philosophical approaches that each have 
a distinct outlook on the role of technologies in contemporary society 
but have rarely been put in conversation: Marxist media theory and the 
Technological Mediation Approach (TMA). In the first case, AI is 
approached as first and foremost an/automation technology/and is thus 
situated in the context of its commercial/industrial development and 
deployment. However, the Marxist approach also entails an ontological 
dimension insofar as it insists that capital (and its technologies) 
revolve around the central directive of the increase of the “real 
abstraction” of value, which is immaterial while configuring the 
concrete world. Two very different schools of Marxist theory will be 
drawn upon: labour process theory and value-form Marxism. In the second 
case,, AI can be approached as a/mediating technology/, through which 
the primary concern becomes how it shapes the way human beings 
understand and experience themselves and the world around them. In this 
workshop, we will use the framework of TMA to analyze how technologies 
generally shape our being-in-the-world, and point to how they do so very 
differently when integrated into different practices. After having 
outlined these two different perspectives, a plenary discussion will 
take place where the relevance of each of these perspectives for 
analysing the societal impact of GPT-3 will be explored.

*/Preparation:/*

An article will be distributed approximately one week before the date on 
which the workshop will take place.

*/Schedule:/*

09:00 – 09:15 (GMT-8) / 18:00 – 18:15 (CET): General introduction and an 
introduction into GPT-3

09:15 – 09:45 (GMT-8) / 18:15 – 18:45 (CET): Marxist media theory and 
GPT-3 (James Steinhoff) – Title: TBA

09:45 – 10:15 (GMT-8) / 18:45 – 19:15 (CET): The Technological Mediation 
Approach and GPT-3 (Olya Kudina & Bas de Boer) – Title: TBA

10:15 – 10:45 (GMT-8) / 19:15 – 19:45 (CET): Discussion with audience 
about the two approaches in relation to GPT-3

*/Bios:/*

/James// Steinhoff/is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the eScience Institute at 
the University of Washington. His research interests include algorithmic 
media theory, political economy, philosophy of technology and Marxism. 
He is author of /Automation and Autonomy: Labour, Capital and Machines 
in the Artificial Intelligence Industry/ (2021, Palgrave) and co-author 
of /Inhuman Power: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of 
Capitalism/ (2019, Pluto).

//

/Bas de Boer/is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Twente, 
The Netherlands. His research interests are in the philosophy of science 
technology, (post-)phenomenology, and the philosophy of medicine. 
Recently, his monograph/How Scientific Instruments Speak: 
Postphenomenology and Technological Mediations in Neuroscientific 
Practice/(2021, Lexington) was published.

/Olya Kudina/is an Assistant Professor in the Ethics of Technology at 
Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. She explores the role 
of technology in the sense-making processes and the 
technologically-induced value change. Her research interests span across 
the intersection of (post)phenomenology, design, bioethics and AI.


*/References:/*

Chalmers, D. (2020). “GPT-3 and General 
Intelligence.”https://dailynous.com/2020/07/30/philosophers-gpt-3/#chalmers 
<https://dailynous.com/2020/07/30/philosophers-gpt-3/#chalmers>(Accessed, 18/12/2020).

Floridi, L., and M. Chiriatti. (2020). “GPT-3: Its Nature, Scope, 
Limits, and Consequences.”/Minds and Machines/30, 681-694.

*//*

*/Abstracts:/*

/TBA/




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