UiB AI #22 The 4Ps of AI: Power, Politics, People, Profits
What powers today's AI—and who pays the price? UiB AI #22 brings together artists and academics to confront the hidden politics, power structures, and human costs behind AI's rapid rise, asking how higher education can help imagine futures beyond the industry's current trajectory.
This UiB AI #22 seminar, organised by the Faculty of Fine Art, Music, Design, is about questioning and reflecting on the seemingly invisible yet substantial elements in the current AI narrative and practices—the power, politics, people, and profits of AI.
What is "powering" the current AI development and who benefits from it? Who has a say in the deployment of AI technologies, and who/what is bearing the cost? What happens to our epistemic agency when AI is outsourced in artistic and scientific knowledge production? How can democracy be upheld in a world where factual truth is not shared and witnessed by the public, but synthesised and defined by AI?
By gathering voices from the artistic and academic fields, the seminar will share diverse approaches on how design, storytelling, digital journalism, and artist-led grassroots activism illuminate and respond to the challenges and consequences posed by AI.
The goal of the seminar is to create a much-needed space for critical reflection, friction, and discussion about the current AI development steered by AI industry. How can we in higher education contribute to imagining alternative futures of AI different from its current trajectory?
UiB AI #22 will was streamed and the recording is available through this link (external link).
This seminar's programme was partly conceived in connection to, and supported by, an artistic research project Interfacing Democratic Futures - GenAI, Design, Truth (2025-). It was also supported by the Nordic AI Hub.