Scholarly Interest Groups

AI and Creative Society

The AI and Creative Society SIG will explore the social and ethical dimensions of artificial intelligence and its use in the creative industries. While there has been a significant amount of scholarship that approaches the ethics of AI from both engineering and philosophical perspectives, there is a need for scholarly research that integrates this prior work with artistic, affective, and humanistic approaches to AI. It will have both a scholarly and a public engagement element. As part of an established Institute, possible scholarly programming will include a postdoctoral position, regular interdisciplinary training sessions for graduate students, and a faculty working group dedicated to sharing works in progress and upcoming grant proposals. The goal is to foster focused research collaborations between humanists, social scientists, and technologists. Its public engagement element will engage the community (in Rochester and afar) in these questions through public-facing dissemination and experiential research activities. Public engagement activities might include a semi- annual public lecture delivered by a prominent humanist whose work explores the social and ethical dimensions of AI (e.g. Ruha Benjamin, Debra Satz), podcasts, and AR/VR experiential exhibits supported by the public humanities infrastructure of the IPHCS.

Environmental Futures

As Earth’s climate changes, environmental hazards such as wildfires, air and ocean pollution, landslides, flooding, and erosion are increasing in both prevalence and severity with palpable effects for societies around the globe. Thus it is vital to encourage communication and collaboration among the general public and scholars who study climate-related hazards and their effects on society. The Environmental Futures SIG will foster collaboration and connections among environmentally-oriented faculty, students, and the public, blending scholarship and public engagement. Research-focused efforts will include an environmental studies lecture series, faculty working group, and a postdoc in Environmental Justice with co-mentors in science and humanities. Public engagement, blending seamlessly with scholarship, will occur locally and at large in the form of video essays and local lectures, citizen science campaigns in which the public help collect data (for example, local residents could have been involved in collecting air quality data during the Canadian wildfire smoke events this year) and local case studies of environmental hazards (e.g., flooding, soil quality, lakefront erosion).

Social Justice

The group will bring together faculty and students across the University who are committed to addressing systemic inequalities that cut along lines of race, gender, and class. As recognized in the Strategic Plan, building “Just and Equitable Societies” is an existing strength at the University of Rochester. The scholarly interest group would facilitate sharing ideas, challenges, and best practices among researchers already engaged in this kind of work from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds. The group would also foster opportunities for new projects and collaborations. Of crucial importance will be ongoing discussion of ways to address obstacles to socially-engaged research and writing, such as the rise of misinformation and the erosion of trust in social and political institutions.