- Workshop
History of Technology Showcase
Examine representations of automata, mechanical devices, computational objects, humanoid robotic sentience, cryptography, and more, in relation to gender, labor, multilingualism, and environmentalism.
This event has already occurred
Hosted by: Research Data & Digital Scholarship, SIMS, and Kislak Center
Study a curated selection of historical collections and rare book manuscripts from the Kislak Center for Special Collections that explore the intersection of material archaeology, computational visuality, and natural knowledge in the pre-modern world. Examine representations of automata, mechanical devices, computational objects, humanoid robotic sentience, cryptography, and more, in relation to gender, labor, multilingualism, and environmentalism. Discover how cultures across the Afro-Eurasian and Mediterranean spheres envisioned complex forms of natural knowledge through schematic illustrations and diagrams.
Learning Objectives
- How do our current discussions about AI appear in historical contexts?
- How multilingual is AI?
- Where does all the training data for an LLM come from?
- What is the connection between material objects and computation?
Prerequisites:
- You are welcome to contextualize yourself on the History of AI as a technology and a hype cycle with the Empire of AI Chapter 4 “Dreams of Modernity”
- Familiarity with Libguide focused on AI / ML and Best Practices encouraged.
Software required:
No device/software installation required.
About the Facilitators:
- Jaj Karajgikar (she/her) is the Applied Data Science Librarian for the UPenn community.
- Dot Porter (she/her) is the SIMS Curator of Digital Humanities.
Image credits: Shady Sharify / https://betterimagesofai.org / https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/