Contestations.AI: Transdisciplinary Symposium on AI, Human Rights and Warfare

An unexpectedly moving event, that brought together extraordinary international and interdisciplinary experts, captivated the audiences and opened up a new space for critical deliberations on the role of AI in human rights and warfare. The atmospheric sunlit space of the theatre was energized by vibrant conversations and excitement among everyone who attended throughout the day.

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. The symposium addressed how one should engage and act critically to highlight, investigate, and prevent the use of AI-based systems in perpetuating human rights violations and warfare and devise crucial policies and practices that mitigate harms to society today. The symposium brought together critical perspectives from AI researchers, social scientists, investigative journalists, filmmakers, artists, and scholars in International Humanitarian Law (IHL), human rights, Members of Parliament, and NGOs dealing with these concerns. The aim was to encourage inter-disciplinary and critical theorizing on such topics, while developing an action agenda for future research and pragmatic societal outcomes.

The keynotes talks and panels touched on themes including Critical perspectives on AI, Big Data and Autonomous Weapons, International Humanitarian Law, Disinformation and Counter Media Narratives in Warfare, as well as EU and Global Implications for Responsible AI. Over 35 international experts from diverse disciplinary backgrounds and practices were invited to address these concerns through talks, panels and media presentations. The speakers included Prof. Lauren Gould and Jessica Dorsey, researchers in the Conflict Studies program and the Realities of Algorithmic Warfare (RAW) project at Utrecht University, Ingmar Weber, Alexander von Humboldt Professor in AI at Saarland University, Prof. Mike Ananny, USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at University of Southern California, Yuliia Dukach, Data Journalist and Head of Disinfomonitoring Team at Texty.org.ua Ukrainian Data Journalism Agency, Miapetra Kumpula-Natri, Member of Parliament (Finland), Joonas Leppänen, Senior Lead at Sitra Innovation, and Teivo Teivainen, Professor of World Politics, University of Helsinki.

The symposium was co-organized by Nitin Sawhney (Aalto University), Antti Tarvainen (University of Helsinki), and Salla Maaria Laaksonen (University of Helsinki). In addition to talks and panels, the event showcased experimental works of media artists critically engaging contestations in AI technologies and society, curated by Matti Niinimäki, Department of Art and Media, Aalto University. It was supported in-part by the Finnish Institute in the Middle East, Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (HIIT), Finnish Center for Artificial Intelligence (FCAI), and AaltoAI.

Symposium website with the program and recorded video sessions: https://Contestations.AI .

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ContestationsAI/videos