About Us

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a common term for an emerging set of computer technologies that affect individuals, communities, societies, and the environment at an increasing scale. Although the phrase “AI” was coined in the 1950s, the field of research to which it refers has undergone multiple transformations and “winters.” Moreover, until recently, “AI” was familiar to the general public largely as a theme for science fiction.

“AI” returned to public discussion in the 2010s when a number of innovations in “deep learning” became possible, largely because of the availability of massive stores of human-generated data on the internet and through networked devices. At around the same time, these technologies began to power widespread applications including voice assistants, recommendation systems, and grammar checks. When technologists speak of deep learning (DL), which is a type of machine learning (ML), the learning in question denotes a computer model’s ability to “optimize” for useful predictions while “training” on data (a process that involves adjusting the weights in an elaborate set of statistical calculations). The “learning” is deep because of the multiple computational layers in the very large models that DL involves. Because AI researchers have used this anthropomorphic language for many decades, today’s DL and ML  models are often said to “understand,” “learn,” “reason,” “experience,” and “think.” Although most technologists recognize that products like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Microsoft’s Copilot are built on disembodied statistical models that do not “understand, “learn,” or “experience” the way that people do, this confusing vocabulary pervades the hype surrounding this resource-intensive technology at the expense of public understanding. Teaching critical AI literacies in the current landscape begins with helping students to distinguish between the functionalities of actually existing technologies, and the fictional “AI” on view in popular media such as Blade Runner (1982), Ex Machina (2014), or Westworld (2016-2022).

Critical AI @ Rutgers is an interdisciplinary initiative, organized and led through a steering committee with support from the Center for Cultural Analysis and the Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science. To learn more about our past and upcoming events, click here.  

For links to the recordings of our 2024 DESIGN JUSTICE AI Global Humanities Institute at University of Pretoria, click here.

To learn more about our new journal, Critical AI, published with Duke University Press, see Duke’s website and our blog.

AFFILIATIONS

Rutgers Center for Cultural Analysis
https://cca.rutgers.edu/

Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science
https://ruccs.rutgers.edu/