When the humanities and AI are brought together, it is usually under the rubric of “ethical AI,” in which ethics is outsourced to the humanities. To move away from this increasingly bankrupt formulation and to help build a relationship based on the similarities between these two areas, this talk explores how fundamental concepts and axioms within critical theory and natural language processing intersect: from the notion that value stems from difference to the mapping of latent and manifest spaces. By moving from these similarities–not differences–we can begin to understand the limitations of existing generative AI models and why their insights seem to offer critical theorists deja vu.
Please note: Due to a travel issue, this is now a hybrid event and Wendy Chun will be joining us virtually. We will still convene in the Scheuer Room, but you may also join the lecture virtually at this link (link).
Dr. Wendy Hui Kyong Chun is Canada 150 Research Chair in New Media and Director of the Digital Democracies Institute at Simon Fraser University. She has studied both Systems Design Engineering and English Literature, which she combines and mutates in her research on digital media. She is author many books, including: Control and Freedom: Power and Paranoia in the Age of Fiber Optics (MIT, 2006), Programmed Visions: Software and Memory (MIT 2011), Updating to Remain the Same: Habitual New Media (MIT 2016), and Discriminating Data: Correlation, Neighborhoods, and the New Politics of Recognition (MIT 2021).
Presented by the Aydelotte Foundation at Swarthmore College in conjunction with the 2025-26 faculty/staff seminar, Just Tech: Accessible Sustainable Futures.
This event is free and to the public.
Directions to Swarthmore College (link)
Accessibility information for Kohlberg Hall (link)
For more information about this event contact aydelotte@swarthmore.edu.
