critical infrastructure lab

Artificial Intelligence relies on data. Currently, we see a “bigger is better” mentality in both AI research and AI business models. This leads to ever more complex AI systems and massive data sets. But are they sustainable? Currently, the ensuing environmental, social and economic harms are ignored both by established data governance regimes and regulatory approaches such as the DSA/DMA, Data Act or AI Act. We have yet to find data governance approaches that adequately respond to the unsustainability of extractivist AI data collection and data processing and their underlying technical infrastructures. In this panel, we will discuss the global harms of AI systems and shortcomings of established data governance approaches, as well as new ideas for regulations geared towards more sustainable data governance and AI policies in an age where Artificial Intelligence is becoming a general-purpose technology.

the global harms of powering ai – towards a sustainable future of data use and governance @computers, privacy, and data protection (cpdp). View the panel here.

exhibit at the amsterdam public library (centre location), november 2022 – february 2023.

together with weise7 we organized an exhibit called ‘antennas and us’ in the amsterdam public library to show the invisible workings of telecommunications networks, and beamforming in particular. the exhibition runs from november 2022 until march 2023.

also shown at the exhibition are the low tech guides against high tech surveillance created by fieke jansen in collaboration with design collective idiotēs. use these low tech guides to become a digital explorer in your own city. see your neighborhood in a new light while exploring issues around facial recognition, thermal imaging, and wi-fi tracking.

The work was subsequently exhibited in Berlin in October 2023.

The possible establishment of a sovereign internet in Russia, European initiatives on ‘Digital Sovereignty’, and the conflict between China and the United States over Huawei equipment are rekindling the discussion on splinternets and the limits to global interconnectivity. This is an online event and is co-organized by Giganet.

Can the internet, the original network of networks, resist the contemporary strain, or was it built to accommodate these differences? In this talk three expert scholars on this topic, Daniel Lambach, Francesca Musiani and Fernanda Rosa, will give their views on the politics of global connection, its limitations, its future, and its discontent. Their talks will be discussed by one of the founders and prominent researchers of the fields of internet governance, Milton Mueller.

recording: politics of (dis)connection

recording: infrastructural distortion and possession

podcast about our infrastructure walk in berlin