HCC16

HCC16 – Humans, Technological Innovations and Artificial Intelligence: Opportunities and Consequences

Venue: Dusit Thani Laguna, Phuket, Thailand

Time: 8th-10th September 2024

Programme: DOWNLOAD HERE

Call for paper: DOWNLOAD HERE

Accepted papers and proceedings: AVAILABLE HERE

About HCC

Fifty years ago, the first Human Choice and Computers Conference (HCC) was organised, chaired by IFIP’s President Heinz Zemanek, with the proceedings edited by Mumford and Sackman. An overarching theme of that first conference was a concern over the way the participants felt people were being forced to use computers in dehumanizing ways. They argued that sociotechnical problems must be solved in ways that foreground the interests workers and communities and that, ultimately, human needs must take precedence over technological and economic considerations. Those concerns have never really left us and indeed are close to the theme of the 16th HCC.In recent months, we have seen the meteoric rise of Generative Artificial Intelligence (generally known as AI) tools like ChatGPT, ChatSonic, LaMDA, Neeva AI, DragonFly, etc.

As we claim to move towards a more human-centric Industry 5.0, these, and other, technological innovations are challenging many of the existing relationships and choices that exist between humans and computers. The challenges have been documented extensively in the popular press, but also in academia. The challenges exist at the juncture of human needs on the one hand, and technological and economic considerations on the other. While the technology may have changed, the events of 50 years ago still seem very fresh.

Some scholars and pundits are profoundly negative in their evaluations of AI technologies, suggesting that these tools will upend many aspects of the status quo in any domain where human creativity dominates, notably education, journalism, research, governance, and of course crime. Others, perhaps those with a Machiavellian inclination, are quick to see the advantages associated with the new technology and argue that developments and innovations of this kind cannot simply be stopped by fiat. Indeed, although they may have the potential to eliminate creative work, they are themselves the products of creative and fertile imaginations. Unsurprisingly, new tools (themselves premised on AI) that are claimed to detect AI-created materials have also emerged, perhaps initiating a ‘war’ between the two sides. What we can expect is that just as the new technology may solve some problems, it may exacerbate others. For instance, as we noted in the call for papers for the previous HCC15 conference, the encroaching influence, of machine learning based systems, that can embed the biases inherent in the data they have learnt from, threatens to entrench the societal problems of the past, rather than redress them. A wide range of ethical issues are certainly associated with the new technology, which we suggest will prove to offer a cornucopia of new research opportunities.

WG Calls

WG9.4 – The Implications of Information and Digital Technologies for Development: After COVID-19: Digital Development Approaches to Post-Pandemic Issues

Workshop Chair: Silvia Masiero

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a plethora of new needs, encompassing the domain of health infrastructures and those of emergency assistance, social protection and socio-economic development measures. Digital approaches have been largely leveraged in COVID-19 responses, creating solutions that cover all such domains: COVID-19 tracking has been delegated to digital systems that have raised advocacy, but also concerns of privacy and data governance related to mobile-based apps (Taylor et al., 2020). In the post-pandemic world, digital technologies emerge as double-edged: capable of reinforcing injustices and inequalities (Dencik et al., 2022), but also to create approaches to foster socio-economic development by acting on drivers of injustice and strengthening solidarity and resistance. Against this backdrop, this track invites papers that deal with digital approaches to issues emerging in and beyond post-pandemic scenario. We are especially interested in issues that pertain to the domain of socio-economic development, and their configurations in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. We invite submissions on topics that include, but are not limited to:

• Digital health infrastructures in the aftermath of COVID-19
• Post-pandemic social protection systems in developing countries
• Datafied social policies in the Global South
• Algorithmic justice in relation to emergency assistance
• Digital social protection after COVID-19
• Digital inequalities and injustice in the post-pandemic global scenario

References: Dencik, L., Hintz, A., Redden, J., & Treré, E. (2022). Data justice. London: Sage. Taylor, L., Sharma, G., Martin, A., and Jameson, S. (2020). What does the COVID-19 response mean for data justice? In Taylor, L., Sharma, G., Martin, A., and Jameson, S. (Eds.), Data Justice and COVID-19: Global Perspectives, London: Meatspace Press, pp. 8-18.

WG9.5 Our Digital Lives: New forms of connectivity through digital innovation

Workshop Co-Chairs: Brad McKenna, Hameed Chughtai, Kathrin Bednar T

echnological innovations and, more recently, AI have enabled new forms of connectivity in our work and private lives. We are interested in studies (including work-in-progress) exploring any aspect of ‘Our Digital Lives’ following our Working Group’s general theme. Example topics include (but are not limited to):

• Digital work in its social context
• Digital health
• Digital education
• Digital labour
• Digital games
• Digital visitor economies (e.g., tourism, hospitality, events)
• Digital social movements and online communities
• New forms of social media
• New forms of digital reality such as augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed reality, extended reality
• New digital technologies such as Generative AI, Metaverse, and Blockchain
• New technologies for human enhancement

Submissions are welcomed that offer fresh theoretical or empirical insights into how digital innovations have transformed the way we work, communicate, and play together

WG9.7 The History of Computing: How can the history of computing shed light on the current development and future directions of generative artificial intelligence?

Workshop Chair: Chris Leslie

Researchers established the field of artificial intelligence in the 1950s, with famous milestones like the Turing Test and the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence. That being said, earlier cultural representations of artificial intelligence were widespread, such as Čapek’s 1921 play R.U.R. Working Group 9.7 will sponsor a track of papers that examine the most important historical developments related to today’s use of AI. In addition, Working Group 9.7 is also organizing a separate Histories of Computing in Asia Workshop, which will run concurrently with HCC16. More information about this workshop is available at http://ifipwg97.org/about/

WG9.8 – Gender, Diversity and ICT: Feministic approaches to AI

Workshop Chairs: Sisse Finken, Johanna Sefyrin, Marisa D’Mello

Like other technologies, AI is also a platform for discursive struggles. We invite papers that address problematizations of AI from a feministic approach or other theoretical perspectives that explore how multiple axes of identity such as race, gender, age etc., intersect, and influence our interaction with and impact of AI. Approaches could, for instance, be feminist and other theoretically grounded concerns related to algorithmic justice, bias and extractivism, overly optimistic imaginaries of AI, and the kinds of problems they are expected to “solve” as well as the futures they are imagined to contribute to.  Within this sustainability issues related to AI, AI related to decay and repair, GAI in teaching and higher education, work and AI, AI as constituted by complex relations of human and non-human/more-than-human bodies 

Registration

The early-bird conference registration deadline for the discounted rates is extended from 18 July to 25 July 2024. The registration fees include the following, respective of the dates:

8 September 2024: Welcome reception with cocktail food and drinks

9 September 2024: All conference sessions, Morning coffee break, Lunch, Afternoon coffee break, Gala dinner

10 September 2024: All conference sessions, Morning coffee break, Lunch, Afternoon coffee break

A link and instructions to book accommodation with the Dusit Thani hotel can be found HERE

Conference Registration Rates

• HCC16 Registration fee – Academics – Developed countries: £350
• HCC16 Registration fee – Academics – Online rate: £120
• HCC16 Registration fee – Academics – Developing countries: £300
• HCC16 Registration fee – Locals and PhDs: £280
• HCC16 Registration fee – Industry participants: £370
• HCC16 Daily rate – 8 September 2023 – Reception: £90
• HCC16 Daily rate – 9 September 2023 – 1st conference day: £220
• HCC16 Daily rate – 10 September 2024 – 2nd conference day: £180

Venue

Book your accommodation directly with the hotel before the 20th of July 2024 by completing the form below. This process is managed by the hotel, offering you the opportunity to benefit from their exclusive discounted rates shown in the form. Visa and Mastercard payments are possible and you can follow up with hotel for more information after the reservation is confirmed. The organisers of the conference are not responsible for your accommodation and airport transfer bookings, and we are only providing the information.

Location

Conference Venue: Dusit Thani Laguna Phuket