Worlds of AI
Worlds of Artificial Intelligence (Worlds of AI) is a research platform hosted by the Department of Informatics and Media at Uppsala University. Our mission is to advance new knowledge about the development and use of various artificial intelligence technologies, for human and social good.
Novel understandings of AI
Worlds of AI engages researchers across various disciplines including Information Systems, Human Computer Interaction, Media and Communication Studies, Software Engineering, Economics, Philosophy, and others, in order to develop novel understandings of AI and its use.
A vital AI research environment
Our competences within this platform – spanning algorithmic and technical, systemic and institutional, social and economic, interactional, critical and existential dimensions of the development of artificial intelligence – are uniquely suited to synergistically produce a vital environment for tackling, analysing and intervening in the vast and crucial developments, across the transecting worlds of AI.
Comprehensive understanding of AI development and use
Our research nodes – Existential Media, Embodied Machine Learning, and AI Value – interact with each other by exchanging knowledge and experiences and targeting complex phenomena with different complementary perspectives in order to provide a more comprehensive understanding of human, social and technical worlds of AI development and use. All this to provide guidance for a human use of the most advanced technologies of human kind: AI.
AI research nodes
To this end, Worlds of AI is organised into distinct and independent research AI nodes, where each node is a research team focusing a well-defined theme of AI, its uses, meanings and implications.
The Existential Media node
The Existential Media node studies automation of the human lifeworld and of the natural environment, in the form of two projects.
The BioMe project is rooted in existential media studies and studies how people are living with automation today, and in particular biometric artificial intelligence such as face recognition, voice recognition and sensory data capture. The project is funded within the national WASP-HS program.
The Mediated Planet project is hosted by KTH (Royal Institute of Technology) and studies the datafication of the environment – in terms of critical needs and existential stakes – in the age of ecological crisis, in order to promote policy initiatives for implementing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Funding provided by WASP-HS and Formas.
The Embodied Machine Learning node
The node for Embodied Machine Learning investigates how machine learning can support the personalisation of embodied services and technologies.
An example of the approach is a current research project combining research into open-ended tools for instructed physical training, with approaches to interactive machine learning to support personalised physiotherapeutically training. The goal is to empower both physiotherapists and patients to take control over their tools, and adapt them to suit their specific needs and the practices at hand. Of central concern is to present devices that allow for fluent adaptation and human control of the personalisation process, maintaining the fluent concept of what is considered a ‘correct’ exercise execution in physiotherapy.
Funding provided by The Swedish Research Council.
The AI Value node
The AI Value node focuses on answering the core question of how the use of AI technologies may give rise to value creation. This question is motivated by the empirical observations that similar applications of AI technologies are utilized by different organisations – business and governmental – and yet give rise to radically different value creations.
In some authorities, organisations and firms, the use of AI technologies generates significant value in terms of increased efficiency and quality, while in others the use of AI may produce negative effects such as operational disruptions and customer complaints. Studies conducted within the AI Value node seeks therefore to unearth the factors that condition value creation arising from the uses of AI technologies.
To this end, we conduct currently two research projects:
Funding provided by the Swedish National Research School for Management and Information Technologies, the Uppsala University AI4Research initiative and the Department of Informatics and Media at Uppsala University.
Research fellows at Worlds of AI
Worlds of AI - contact
If you have question about the Worlds of AI research platform at the Department of Informatics and Media, please contact Amanda Lagerkvist.