The Backroads of Artificial Intelligence

This event was held on Thursday 30 May 2019

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is seen as both a solution to intractable problems and a major challenge to social, political and economic life.

Through a depiction of three global ‘scenes’, Professor Duncan McDuie-Ra follows the uptake of AI along its backroads, exploring the mobilities of technology, its promises, and its missing geographies; and the people and places enmeshed along the way. From San Francisco’s technology hub, to Delhi’s AI strategy #AIforAll, and with surveillance and control in India’s far-eastern frontier state of Manipur, join us for an expert insight into the world of AI and its impact on emergent social and political challenges.

About the Speaker

Duncan McDuie-Ra is Professor of Urban Sociology at the University of Newcastle. With a particular focus on South Asia, his current research focuses on 'emerging urban forms': towns, cities and industrial zones undergoing rapid growth or slated for new interventions, especially digital and networked infrastructure. His most recent sole-authored books include Northeast Migrants in Delhi: Race, Refuge and Retail (Amsterdam University Press, 2012), Debating Race in Contemporary India (Palgrave MacMillan, 2015) and Borderland City in New India: Frontier to Gateway (Amsterdam University Press, 2016).

The lecture recording is now available to stream here on soundcloud.