Talk

Technology and Power 002

Alia Al Ghussain and Matt Mahmoudi, hosted by Jaya Klara Brekke

Date and Time:: Wednesday 12 Nov, 6:30–8pm

How is artificial intelligence shaping the way we understand – and govern – the world? In the second installment of Technology and Power, researcher and strategist Jaya Klara Brekke will host a conversation in which Alia Al Ghussain and Matt Mahmoudi explore the political and ethical stakes of AI. Together, they will examine the ideologies driving the AI industry forward, how algorithms are structured, and the ways in which AI amplifies systems of discrimination and surveillance – with the genocide in Gaza as the most extreme and devastating manifestation of these dynamics.

Alia Al Ghussain is a Researcher and Advisor on technology and human rights at Amnesty International with a focus on Big Tech Accountability, working primarily on algorithmic amplification and online hate.

Matt Mahmoudi is an Assistant Professor in Digital Humanities at the University of Cambridge, and a Researcher/Advisor on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights at Amnesty International. At Amnesty, he has led research and advocacy work on AI-driven surveillance from the NYPD’s surveillance machine to Automated Apartheid in the occupied Palestinian territory. Mahmoudi’s research focus is on red-lining and resistance in digital cities and the ‘smart’ reproduction of racial capitalism.

Jaya Klara Brekke works on power and technology in theory and practice. In theory, she writes and speaks on decentralised organisational models, the political economies of emerging tech, and their entanglement with changes in sovereignty, culture and agency. In practice, she is Chief Strategy Officer at Nym, a decentralised privacy platform to enable digital integrity as a fundamental right. In this capacity, her aim is to blockade the mass surveillance business model that fuels the current centralisation of power via crypto and AI. She is an occasional advisor to the European Commission and was awarded a PhD from Durham University for her thesis: ‘Disassembling the Trust Machine, three cuts on the political matter of blockchain’.

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Algorithmic Visions: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Warfare
Anthony Downey
- Screening room
Temple OST
Lawrence Lek
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Slop Making Sense
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Technology and Power 002

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