Experimental Humanities Distinguished Lecture Series: Alexa Alice Joubin, "AI and the Joy of Estrangement"

Register

The Second Annual Experimental Humanities Distinguished Lecture Series will feature Dr. Alexa Alice Joubin, Director of the Digital Humanities Institute and Professor of English, Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Theatre, International Affairs, and East Asian Languages and Literatures at George Washington University.

About this year's Distinguished Lecture: AI and the Joy of Estrangement
Generative AI is marketed as a tool to reduce friction, though it is known to produce monotonous slop. It estranges language and labor, making education and work joylessly transactional. However, estrangement can be a cognitive and affective intervention to re-center intellectual joy. Recognizing the joy of estrangement can reframe human relationship with technology. Instead of asking how AI can streamline a task, users might ask how it scaffolds the question for deeper explorations of heterogeneity and ambiguity. Instead of removing friction, thinkers can highlight the texture of pressure points. Drawing on cultural and critical AI studies, this lecture calls for re-centering joy of discovery in the context of higher education.

Humanity and Technology | Website | View More Events

Contact the organizers