Mapping AI: How to understand artificial intelligence on a global scale

Generative AI systems are at the heart of a profound transformation in the way we create, access and define knowledge. Massive data mining on the Internet, as well as in libraries and archives, raises pressing questions about who can build private AI models from public data. At the same time, AI systems are transforming the planet over the long term, often invisibly, becoming one of the largest planetary architectures ever built by our species and requiring huge amounts of energy, water, data and manpower to operate.

This conversation explores the dual nature of generative AI: cultural transformation and material force. It includes a visual exploration of Kate Crawford's recent work with Vladan Joler, Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Power and Technology since 1500, which places AI systems in the historical lineage of the empires of the last five centuries.

Moderated by Christian Joschke and Audrey Illouz.

Kate Crawford is a leading international researcher on the social implications of artificial intelligence. She is a Research Professor at USC Annenberg in Los Angeles, a Senior Research Fellow at MSR in New York, an Honorary Professor at the University of Sydney and the first Visiting Fellow of the Chair in AI and Justice at the École normale supérieure in Paris. 
Her latest book, Atlas of AI (Yale, 2021), won the Society for the History of Technology's Sally Hacker Prize, the ASSI&T Award for Best Book in Information Science, and was named one of the Best Books of 2021 by New Scientist and the Financial Times. 
During her twenty years of research, she has also produced creative collaborations and innovative visual investigations. Her “Anatomy of an AI System” project with Vladan Joler is part of the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the V&A in London. It received the Design of the Year award in 2019 and was included in the Design Museum London's Design of the Decades list. Her collaboration with artist Trevor Paglen, Excavating AI, won her the Ayrton Award from the British Society for the History of Science. She has advised policymakers at the United Nations, the White House and the European Parliament, and currently leads the Knowing Machines project, an international research collaboration investigating the foundations of machine learning.

She is on the TIME100 list of the most influential personalities in the world of AI. His latest exhibition, Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power 1500-2025, opened in Milan in November 2023 and won the European Commission’s Grand Prize for Art and Technology.

Photo credit: © Cat Muscat