Reclaiming AI Futures: Call for Contributions and Provocations

Reclaiming AI Futures: Call for Contributions and Provocations

The spectre of artificial intelligence looms large over us. According to the prevalent visions sold to us today, Artificial Intelligence will save us from ourselves – cut out humanity and let technology provide for our futures, mediating our interactions and our relationships with mathematical precision and computerised equanimity: 100 Smart Cities, 'built from the Internet up,' which recognise only the disciplined and data-annotated urban resident. Machines which prophesied on dishonesty and criminality and place us in an information straitjacket from which there is no escape. Technologies will mine data from the depths of our bodies and our environment, and, in turn, displace us from both. What do these futures hold in store for us? Who do these visions of AI futures serve? How do we resist, reimagine and reclaim our technological futures? To paraphrase Ruha Benjamin, how do we imagine and craft the worlds we cannot live without, just as we dismantle the ones we cannot live within?

This is a call for contributions and provocations of art and activism, to reimagine a vision of AI futures which can dismantle and blind the normative gazes of AI's present and can reclaim a technological future of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity.

We are accepting pitches for short pieces of writing, graphic and visual media and/or sound to be published as a short, one-off digital zine exploring AI futures in India. This could take the form of a visual artwork, an essay, a work of speculative fiction, an interactive game or a short video. Seven selected works will get an honorarium of INR 20,000 and their work will be published as part of Mozilla fellow Divij Joshi's project, the 'AI Observatory'. 

Please email your pitches to divij@mozillafoundation.org as a single document (odt., .doc, .pdf). The pitch should contain the following:

• The name and affiliations of the contributors. 
• A brief description of the intended contribution, specifically indicating how it reflects on the theme of 'Reclaiming AI Futures'.
• A description of the material used for creating the work, including the format / standard in which it is to be displayed online and the technical requirements of hosting the work online.

Note: The final work should be available in a standard which can be comfortably viewed online on commonly available mobile web-browsers. The size of the final work should be no more than 30MB. 

Timeline: The last date for submission of pitches is November 25, 2020. Accepted pitches will be informed by November 30. Final contributions must be received by December 30.

Terms of Use: Contributors agree to grant a non-exclusive, perpetual and royalty-free license to the licensor, Divij Joshi, to copy, use, display, perform, publish and share the work. 

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