Artificial intelligence (AI) is hard to see – but it’s already being built into the infrastructure of our core institutions, from education, business, healthcare, hiring, to the work of government itself. 

But what actually is “artificial intelligence,” particularly when it’s deployed in our homes and workplaces? Encased in sleek consumer products like the Amazon Echo, we rarely consider the vast underlying network of data collection, exploitation of human labor, and physical resource extraction. All have enormous implications for society and the environment. 

Dr Kate Crawford of the AI Now Institute, and co-creator of Anatomy of an AI System, will deliver the annual Wallace Wurth Lecture on the wider system of extraction that makes artificial intelligence systems work. AI systems are already radically changing the way businesses, governments, and individuals interact with one another. Addressing the far-reaching consequences of AI – social, environmental, economic, and political – is increasingly urgent.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is hard to see – but it’s already being built into the infrastructure of our core institutions, from education, business, healthcare, hiring, to the work of government itself. But what actually is “artificial intelligence,” particularly when it’s deployed in our homes and workplaces? Encased in sleek consumer products like the Amazon Echo, we rarely consider the vast underlying network of data collection, exploitation of human labor, and physical resource extraction. All have enormous implications for society and the environment. Dr Kate Crawford of the AI Now Institute, and co-creator of Anatomy of an AI System, will deliver the annual Wallace Wurth Lecture on the wider system of extraction that makes artificial intelligence systems work. AI systems are already radically changing the way businesses, governments, and individuals interact with one another. Addressing the far-reaching consequences of AI – social, environmental, economic, and political – is increasingly urgent.

An initiative of UNSW Sydney, the Centre for Ideas is a thought-provoking program of events and digital content from the globe's leading thinkers, authors and artists.

An initiative of UNSW Sydney, the Centre for Ideas is a thought-provoking program of events and digital content from the globe's leading thinkers, authors and artists.

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