Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data analytics and Automated Decision Making (ADM) are increasingly being used for surveillance, targeting, and autonomous drone warfare, in addition to proliferating misinformation on social media during war and conflicts. Conversely, these technologies are also leveraged for investigation of human rights violations as done by members of Forensic Architecture and Bellingcat. How should researchers, scholars, government actors and civil society engage and act critically to highlight, investigate, and prevent the use of AI-based systems in perpetuating human rights violations and warfare and devise critical policies and practices that mitigate harms to society today?

This symposium brings critical perspectives from AI researchers, social scientists, investigative journalists, and scholars in International Humanitarian Law (IHL), human rights, Members of Parliament, and NGOs dealing with these concerns. We will examine these aspects in the context of ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, among others globally, from the role of AI for spreading misinformation in war, to autonomous warfare, and investigative journalism to uncover human rights violations. The symposium will also insert the question of technology into its larger social and political context, particularly examining aspects such as the geopolitics of technology, securitisation of the nation state-system, and the role of corporate interests in technologized warfare. Our aim is to encourage inter-disciplinary and critical theorizing on such topics, while developing an action agenda for future research and pragmatic societal outcomes.

In addition to talks and panels, the event will showcase experimental digital media works by artists critically engaging contestations in AI technologies and society, curated by Matti Niinimäki, Department of Art and Media, Aalto University.

The event will be live-streamed on YouTube. Please register to attend or for the link. @contestations.ai