India 2021
AI Narratives in India
March 11-12, 2021
This event has concluded.
Artificial intelligence is set to have an unprecedented global impact – and public perceptions will shape much of it, affecting how the technology is developed, adopted and regulated. But different cultures see AI through very different lenses: diverse religious, linguistic, philosophical, literary, and cinematic traditions have led to diverging conceptions of what intelligent machines can and should be. Many of these worldviews are currently not given the attention they deserve, both within cultures and between them. The Global AI Narratives (GAIN) research project aims to address this lack of representation through research on and dissemination of AI narratives around the world.
The Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (University of Cambridge) and the School of Arts and Sciences at Ahmedabad University are pleased to announce the Global AI Narratives project AI Narratives in India.
The virtual workshop will include four speaker panels over two days, and additional events are being planned. The panel topics will feature (1) AI in Indian Science Fiction and Imagination, (2) History and Philosophy of AI Technology in India, (3) Conceptual Perspectives on UIDAI and Aadhaar, and (4) Roundtable and Responses to AI in Science Fact-fiction in Hindi, Bengali, and Malayalam Literature. The workshop will be held on 11-12 March, 2021 between 16:30-20:00 IST (11:00-14:30 GMT) each day. Registration is open to all.
For any inquires please contact Elizabeth Seger
Programme
March 11-12, 2021
16:30-20:00 IST / 11:00-14:30 GMT
Day 1 - March 11
Panel 1: AI in Indian Science Fiction and Imagination
Is there an absence of narratives around artificial intelligence in Indian traditions, compared to the futuristic and sci-fi writing of East Asia and Anglo-America? Imagined ideas of intelligent machines, autonomous beings or robots appear to be rare in Indian culture, literature, and film. In this panel, S. B. Divya, Samit Basu, and Tanuj Solanki discuss whether this is indeed the case, and how their own work imagines artificial intelligence and the impact of technology. How is AI conceived by Indian readers and writers? What are the ways in which narratives about AI are disseminated in fiction?
Panel 2: History and Philosophy of AI Technology in India
How do different cultures and regions in India perceive the risks and benefits of AI, and what are the influences that have shaped these perceptions? This session will explore the history of narratives about AI and other forms of intelligence, and address the different contexts for these narratives in India. It will examine how these narratives continue to evolve, and what their future may look like. The panelists will also look at the impact of AI narratives on human society, in addressing and reinforcing contemporary social issues.
Day 2 - March 12
Panel 3: Conceptual Perspectives on UIDAI and Aadhaar
How was a biometric-based Identity Management system for India’s 1.3 billion population first conceptualised, designed, and developed? What constituted the invention and unrolling of the UID, and why did it happen in the way it did? This panel will be joined by some key participants in the process, and will examine the implications of Aadhaar as a technological choice. The session will explore the making of the world’s largest ever identity project and how it continues to change and redefine India.
Panel 4: Roundtable - Responses to AI and Science Fact-Fiction in Hindi, Bengali, and Malayalam Literature
India is home to multiple languages that exist in constant overlap, and are spoken by hundreds of millions of people. This session will have three authors/scholars from three Indian languages, Hindi, Bengali and Malayalam, coming together to offer insights into the trajectories of science fiction and AI narratives in their respective languages. Given the global spread and impact of AI and the proliferation of AI narratives across cultures, do traditions of science fiction writing and narrativising AI exist in different languages in India? And if yes, what state they are in today? Are such engagements shaped by literary imaginations specific to different languages? More critically, is there a relative dearth of science fiction and fictional engagements with AI in Indian languages, compared to other Asian literary cultures? If so, why? These challenging questions are worth asking if the public perception and reception of AI in India is to be examined. The uniqueness of this concluding event of the workshop will be a serious engagement with the vernaculars, such that the panelists not only speak about their languages, but in their languages as well. The session will attempt to bring together the themes and issues discussed throughout the two days and deliberate, with the participation of the audience, on the key takeaways of GAIN - India. The roundtable will be chaired by Professor Tejaswini Niranajana of Lingnan University and Ahmedabad University’s School of Arts and Sciences, who is a former head of the Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, and an award-winning translator from Kannada to English.