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Please join the University of Minnesota Anthropology Department for the Inaugural William Beeman Lecture:"What is a Variable?"
Dr. Graham M. Jones
September 23, 4 pm
Abstract: As anthropologists increasingly sound the alarm about the dangers generative AI poses to cultural sovereignty, deliberative freedom, and structural equity (among other human goods), we are faced with a stark choice: exit or voice, in Hirschman’s terms. Cognizant of dangers posed by AI and confounded by the problem of interpreting how generative models work, many computer scientists are eager to collaborate with anthropologists, whom they rightly view as experts able to analyze the sociocultural dimensions of human-computer interaction. However, having defined itself as the disciplinary bulwark against the practice and value of quantification, sociocultural anthropology is at pains to provide computer science with what it needs to meaningfully reform its design practices: operationalizable variables. Linguistic anthropology developed along a different trajectory, establishing methods for data collection and analysis that reveal the dynamic interaction between sociocultural and linguistic-semiotic variables. In this paper, I use the celebrated work of William O. Beeman to exemplify linguistic anthropology’s approach to working with variables. Then reflecting on my own collaborations with AI researchers as a kind of “observant participation,” I describe how that approach can enable productive engagements with computer science’s variable-based ontology, offering anthropologists a voice in the development of generative AI.
Join in person in the 1210 Heller Hall (271 S 19th Ave), or virtually on Zoom. Lecture will be followed by a short reception.
Please register in advance of the event at https://z.umn.edu/BeemanLecture by September 13.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis,MN,United States
