Co-Opting AI: Kids
NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge, Sloane Lab, and the Digital Technology for Democracy Lab at the University of Virginia invite you to a new discussion in the series “Co-Opting AI.” This will be a completely virtual event.
This event will explore how growing up in the age of AI is reshaping children’s experiences and consider questions around agency, creativity, participation, and digital rights.
Annabel Blake is a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney researching children and AI, and a Principal Design Researcher at Canva. Over the past decade, they have worked in Google’s Creative Lab experimenting with emerging technologies, authored award-winning children’s books, and competed internationally on the Freestyle Skiing World Cup circuit. Annabel’s practice is grounded in taking play seriously. Shaped by backgrounds in psychology, design, and extreme sports, their research explores how young people engage in risky and experimental play with emerging technologies. They are particularly interested in how elevating youth voices can orient technology teams toward designing more playful, child-centred experiences.You can follow their work via their Substack “Playful Futures” https://bigkidlab.substack.com/ where they welcome you to say hello!
Sonia Livingstone is a professor in the department of media and communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Taking a comparative, critical and contextualized approach, her research examines how the changing conditions of mediation are reshaping everyday practices and possibilities for action. Much of Livingstone’s time is concerned with Children’s Rights in the Digital Age. Livingstone is director of Digital Futures for Children, a joint LSE and 5Rights Foundation research centre. She has recently directed the Digital Futures Commission (with the 5Rights Foundation) and the Global Kids Online project (with UNICEF). She is deputy director of the UKRI-funded Nurture Network, contributes to the euCONSENT project, and leads work packages for two European H2020-funded projects: ySKILLS (Youth Skills) and CO:RE (Children Online: Research and Evidence). Founder of the EC-funded 33 country EU Kids Online research network, she is a #SaferInternet4EU Ambassador for the European Commission. She is a project lead for DIORA: Dynamic Interplay of Online Risk and Resilience in Adolescence as part of the MRC Digital Youth Programme. She blogs at www.parenting.digital and can be found on www.sonialivingstone.net.
Ashleigh Greene Wade is associate professor of digital studies, jointly appointed in media studies and African American studies. Broadly speaking, her work traverses the fields of Black girlhood studies, digital and visual media studies, Black feminist theory, and digital humanities. Wade has a PhD in women’s and gender studies from Rutgers University and is an alumna of the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American and African Studies Fellowship Program. Her work on digital Blackness appears in The Black Scholar, National Political Science Review, Women, Gender, and Families of Color, Visual Arts Research, and Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies. Wade’s forthcoming monograph, Black Girl Autopoetics: Agency and Possibility in Everyday Digital Practice (Duke University Press), explores the role of Black girls’ digital practices in documenting and preserving everyday Black life.
Mona Sloane is an Assistant Professor of Data Science and Media Studies at the University of Virginia (UVA). As a sociologist, she studies the intersection of technology and society, specifically in the context of AI design, use, and policy. She also convenes the Co-Opting AI series and serves as the editor of the Co-Opting AI book series at the University of California Press as well as the Technology Editor for Public Books. At UVA, Mona runs Sloane Lab which conducts empirical research on the implications of technology for the organization of social life. Its focus lies on AI as a social phenomenon that intersects with wider cultural, economic, material, and political conditions. The lab spearheads social science leadership in applied work on responsible AI, public scholarship, and technology policy. More here: monasloane.org.
The Co-Opting AI event series is convened by Mona Sloane. It is hosted by NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge, UVA’s Digital Technology for Democracy Lab, and Sloane Lab.