In this talk Dan McQuillan will argue that having a responsible approach to AI means decomputing. To start with, decomputing means less computing; in particular, less of the hyperscale infrastructures which underpin generative AI and whose datacentres are sprouting like mushrooms across the globe.

But decomputing goes beyond concern for environmental impacts to challenge the commitment of the wider AI apparatus to extractivism and scale. AI as we know it exploits sources of data and labour as well as natural resources like energy, water and minerals. Meanwhile its claims to superior intelligence rest on the continually expanding size of its models and datasets. Decomputing draws on both decolonialism and degrowth, arguing for an approach to AI based on the need for social justice and a just transition.

All too often, AI acts as a reductive diversion from complex social and environmental questions, so decomputing seeks alternatives that are relational, collective and truly response-able, because they can respond to the complexities of lived experience.

Bio

Dr Dan McQuillan, Lecturer in Creative and Social Computing at Goldsmiths, University of London

After a Ph.D in Experimental Particle Physics, Dan worked with people learning disabilities & mental health issues, created websites with asylum seekers, ran social tech camps in Kyrgyzstan and Sarajevo and worked for Amnesty International and the NHS. He recently authored ‘Resisting AI – An Anti-fascist Approach to Artificial Intelligence’.

Running Order

16.00 – Welcome by Bronwyn Jones

16.10 – Talk by Dan McQuillan

16.40 – Q&A

17.00 – End

In-person: Inspace, 1 Crichton St, Newington, Edinburgh EH8 9AB
Online: Zoom

Please note limited seats are available at Inspace for in-person audiences, so please book tickets in advance. For those joining online please visit the online event page for the Zoom joining link and password.

For inquiries about accessibility, please contact the DI team at designinformatics@ed.ac.uk or visit the Access webpage for more information about the venue: https://inspace.ed.ac.uk/venue-access/