EthicAI=BLACKBOX
3-day creative workshop
9-11 May 2024, Goethe-institut Sofia, Bulgaria
Organised by DA LAB Foundation
Training school in the frame of Toolkit of Care (TOC) is aimed at exploring AI bias & diversity with focus on Art & Science, Feminist, and Bottom-up approach. The workshop leaders are from the BlackBoxAI team of the EthicAI=LABS - a regional project by six Goethe-instituts in SouthEast Europe (2021-22). The BlackBoxAI team is composed of five female professionals working in different technology related fields, who researched the topic of gender bias and how it leads to women (self-)exclusion from technology.
The BlackBoxAI team will present and discuss with the workshop participants different aspects of AI bias & diversity, like natural language processing and algorithmic facial recognition biases, beauty standards, gender stereotypes, and women’s access to the STEM work field.
The workshop agenda will provide participants with basic knowledge of this process and some practical tips, methodology and tools for implementing a multidisciplinary research project.
At the next level of the training the participants will form a team and conduct their own research with the mentorship of Mihaela Constantinescu and Marinos Koutsomichalis and the assistance of the BlackBoxAI team. At the end the teams will make a presentation on their idea and receive feedback and useful information on the next steps (how to apply for grants, what is the most appropriate form for the project - academic, research, open-source project, corporate project etc.)
Criteria
The open call is directed to young professionals and students, aged 18 and above.
● Philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists and other specialists in humanities;
● IT specialists, programmers, data scientists, web developers;
● Artists, curators, cultural workers, culturologists;
● Writers, journalists, activists, community leaders and any other emerging specialists interested and having experience and professional interest in artificial intelligence.
The participants should be collaborative, open to new perspectives on controversial topics, and proactive drivers of multi sided conversations. The participants in this project are driven by curiosity, and should be able to independently research new topics and explore opportunities for local partnerships. The participants are expected to share their expertise with peers and proactively research the thematic framework of the project; share and discuss insights and learnings
The workshop is free of charge and selected workshop participants are expected to attend strictly the 3-day program.
The local organizer together with the workshop leaders and mentors will select up to 12 participants.
Working language: English
In order to Apply:
Send your CV and motivational letter to Galina Dimitrova, coordinator of DA LAB Foundation: <dalabfoundation@gmail.com>.
The subject of your email should be: [Submission - YOURNAME -EthicAI=BLACKBOX, Sofia]
Submission deadline: 28th April 2024, 8 pm
TIMELINE
28th April, 8 pm: Application deadline for the open call
2nd May, 4 pm: Announcing participants
9th May, 5-7 pm: Day 1 of the workshop: Introduction of the topic, short presentation of leaders, mentors, participants
10th May, 10-6 pm: Day 2 of the workshop: Case study BlackBoxAI project, brainstorming of ideas, team formation
11th May, 10-6 pm: Day 3 of the workshop: Toolkit, work in groups, teams’ presentations, feedback
Workshop leaders
BLACKBOX team: Anastasia Nefeli Vidaki, Lida Zacharopoulou, Mihaela Dobreva, Tea Rukavina, and Vivian Stamou
Anastasia Nefeli Vidaki was born and raised in Athens. She completed her bachelor studies in Law in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. During her studies, she spent a semester at the University of Cologne and carried through an internship at the Permanent Representation of Greece to the EU. Shehas obtained a MsC on Law and ICT at the University of Piraeus and a LLM on Sociology of Law, Science and Technology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Her thesis focused on the digitalisation of justice on a legal and ethical level and on the use of facial recognition technologies and their impact on the notion of faciality respectively. She is a lawyer, fond of new technologies and ethics and the administrator of a website on world art. She has fulfilled the Bluebook traineeship at the Justice and Consumers Directorate of the European Commission and she is currently a PhD candidate and Researcher at the Cyber & Data Security Lab of the Faculty of Law and Criminology, VUB.
Lida Zaharopoulou is a data analytics engineer and creative coder from Athens, Greece. She completed her studies in Computer Science at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and worked for a year at CERN as a software developer. She continued her academic pursuits with a Master's degree in Cognitive Systems and Interactive Media at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. Currently, she is a postgraduate student of Digital Arts at the Athens School of Fine Arts, while working in the field of data analytics.
Mihaela Dobreva, holds BA and MA degree in Scenography from National Academy of Arts Sofia. Currently she is a PhD candidate in the Digital arts department of NAA and she works as full-time assistant professor in the Scenography department, where she is teaching the Computer graphics and animation courses. Mihaela Dobreva is the co-founder and current director of the artistic collective SAPROMAT (together with Boris Daltchev). Her fields of interest vary in a wide spectrum including digital arts, creative coding, CAD programs. From 2020 she is program manager for 180 degrees festival for innovative arts.
Tea Rukavina is a Data Scientist based in Paris. She works on the development of machine learning applications for solving different industrial problems ranging from decision-making in engineering and management, to process optimisation and predictive maintenance. She has earned her PhD in Computational Mechanics in 2018 as a joint doctorate between the
University of Technology of Compiègne (France) and University of Rijeka (Croatia). As a member of the Women & AI workgroup of the Cercle InterElles, she has been able to explore different facets of bias in artificial intelligence, including gender bias.
Vivian Stamou is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Archimedes Unit and as a Research Assistant at the Institute of Language and Speech Processing (ILSP), Athena Research Center. She holds a Ph.D. in Computational Psycholinguistics from the Department of Philology of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Her doctoral research focused on depression detection for the Modern Greek language, which was supported by a scholarship from the State Scholarship Foundation. Prior to her doctoral studies, Vivian pursued postgraduate education at the University of Stuttgart’s Institute for Natural Language Processing (IMS), completing the MSc program in Computational Linguistics. As part of her current activities, she also serves as a lecturer of postgraduate courses provided by the MSc ‘Language Technology’.
Workshop Mentors:
Mihaela Constantinescu is a lecturer in the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Bucharest, and Executive Director of the Research Center in Applied Ethics (CCEA). She has published on topics related to virtue ethics, business ethics, and AI ethics, focusing her research on the normative interplay between the concepts of moral responsibility and moral agency in relation to individuals, organizations, and AI.
Marinos Koutsomichalis is an artist, scholar, and creative technologist. He is broadly interested in the materiality of self-generative systems, (post-)digital objecthood, sound, image, data, electronic circuitry, perception, selfhood, landscapes/environments, and media/technologies. He is a Lecturer in Creative Multimedia at the Cyprus University of Technology (Limassol, CY), where he co-directs the Media Arts and Design Research Lab.
This Activity is part of the COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology)-funded Action: TOOLKIT OF CARE (TOC), CA21102
Who can apply?
Practitioners/researchers of any nationality or place of residency affiliated with an academic or other legal entity in one of these countries: Albania, Algeria, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, the Faroe Islands, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Kosovo, Latvia, Lebanon, Libya, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Republic of Moldova, Montenegro, Morocco, Republic of North Macedonia, Netherlands, Norway, Palestine, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine (government controlled areas), United Kingdom, as well as in one of the EU Member States Outermost Regions (French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte, Reunion Island and Saint-Martin, Azores and Madeira, and the Canary Islands)
*Examples of such an affiliation (non-exhaustive list): work contract, enrolment in a PhD or Post-Doctoral programme, voluntary service in a NGO, emeritus professorship, etc
The selected participants will need to cover their own travel and living expenses in Sofia.
*TOC is an international project led by an interdisciplinary group of creative practitioners, academics, researchers and arts organizations that specialize in creative technologies and that have considerable experience in the production and dissemination of this kind of knowledge across Europe and internationally, who have come together to form a “critical network of care”. The network will collaborate to share their collective expertise and technical knowledge employed in creative ways to develop knowledge and methodologies of care. The main aim is to produce a well formulated and integrated TOOLKIT OF CARE comprising articles, prototypes, audiovisual documentation, technical manuals, theoretical analysis, and data. It will act as a model of how to successfully share knowledge and expertise across different geographical regions and social groups.
**COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) is a funding agency for research and innovation networks. Our Actions help connect research initiatives across Europe and enable scientists to grow their ideas by sharing them with their peers. This boosts their research, career and innovation.
https://www.cost.eu/