Implications of Technology
University of San Jorge (Venue in the city centre) Calle San Voto, 6-8 50003 Zaragoza, Spain
How and Where Do Images of an AI Become Significant in Societies? View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Andreas Schelske
Artificial Intelligence (AI) currently generates a syntax of images in order to display visual communication in an appellative way by means of algorithmic aesthetics. This computer-assisted image production raises the question: how and where do images of an AI become meaningful to viewers in societies? Images of an AI are not only viewed and interpreted, but they integrate into complex, hybrid as well as digital networks. These networks of image communication use both human actors and intelligent image machines to generate information, to cooperate, and to develop syntactic forms by means of co-creation. In the age of their digital producibility, images occur in such masses that at best an AI can comprehensively order, store or process them. Thus, an AI often processes images that neither for individuals nor for societies were, are, or will become significant. If, however, an AI had generated all technically possible images, then societies could at best attach significance to them in isolated cases. Furthermore, although an AI analyzes individual contexts of use, the principally open meaning of images obstructs the attribution of what images subjectively mean to their recipients. Hence, the following study shows: What are the opportunities and risks of visual communication by means of images when an AI is involved?
Interrogating ‘Street Photography’ as a Cultural Practice, a Visual Data Source, and a Sociological Research Strategy
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Luc Pauwels
Visual sociologists and street photographers share the fascination with the everyday. Looking and making pictures as a way to interrogate the complexities of contemporary life forms clearly surpasses disciplinary boundaries. Street photographers try to trade in the ‘real’ by presenting it in unseen and unexpected, sometimes absurd and surreal or magic-realist forms, leaving the spectator with much to think about. Street Photography in many ways epitomizes the core of photography: its unique relation to time and space, its unsurpassed capacity to serendipitously capture fleeting aspects of urban life. In this paper I first introduce ‘street photography’ as distinct set of practices and as a ‘genre’ up for debate. The term ‘street photography’ leans towards the documentary tradition but seems to celebrate the unplanned, the random encounter, and the absence of explicit themes and intentions. Following these introductory observation I consider street photography both as a particular sociological source of ‘found’ data and as a potential research strategy. In what specific ways do street photographs provide sociologists with useful data on urban society? Could the street photography approach also be used by the researcher in a more active way to ‘opportunistically’ sample life in the city and produce both mimetic and expressive records of society? How can the results of such approach be used as visual data in a scholarly article or as part of a visual essay?
Featured Difficulties Copyright Images Must Face Due to New Technologies: The Interaction Between Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Claudia Ribeiro Pereira Nunes, Rafael Ribeiro Gonçalves
The copyright treaty establishes possibles to protect the rights of unpublished, claim of paternity, indication of the name in any use, integrity of the work (which makes it possible to oppose any modification, or the practice of an act that, in any way, may damage it or affect the author's reputation or honour), change of the work (before or after use), withdrawal of the work from circulation or suspension of any form of already authorized use when the circulation or use implies an affront to its reputation and image. In this context, this study focuses on studying the two images created by AI systems with minimal or even no human participation to verify the possibility of a machine being the author of creation. The study focuses on studying two cases: (i) The French collective art group "Obvios" heads a project whose slogan is: "Creativity is not just for humans" (Pinheiro, 2020); (ii) Researchers at the University of Konstanz, in Germany, made a robot and named it e-David, to which they assigned the task of painting (E-David, 2019). The exploratory methodological approach, the hypothetical-deductive method, and the case study technique are intended to elucidate the research core, which deals with the interaction between artificial intelligence and intellectual property. The outcomes indicate that it will be necessary to understand what could be the most appropriate form of legal protection, given that the rules on copyright always contemplate human activity, as copyright is a right of a very personal nature.
