A Centre for Drones and Culture seminar talk (hybrid: in-person and online)
Prof Anthony Downey, Birmingham School of Art, Birmingham City University
About the talk
The underlying principle of prediction is foundational to the operative logic of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Prediction, or “anticipatory defence”, is likewise central to the military rationale of pre-emption. This talk will explore the extent to which the fatal interlocking of martial paradigms of pre-emption and automated models of prognostication needs to be scrutinised, not least when we consider the pervasive use of AI in unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and lethal autonomous weapons (LAWs). Through defining the deterministic intentionality and systematic biases of algorithms, we can recognize and establish the degree to which individuals and communities are exposed to the fact of imminent death and injury based on a projected calculus of “threat”. If the present-day prosecution of global conflict is predicated upon and calibrated by these algorithmic rationalizations of “threat”, we need to pose an urgent question: What is the future of death in an algorithmic age and who—or, more precisely, what—will get to decide its biopolitical and legal definitions?
About the speaker
Anthony Downey is Professor of Visual Culture in the Middle East and North Africa (Birmingham City University). He sits on the editorial boards of Third Text, Digital War, and Memory, Mind & Media, respectively, and is the series editor for Research/Practice (2019–ongoing). Recent and forthcoming publications include Neocolonial Visions: Algorithmic Violence and Unmanned Aerial Systems (2024), Trevor Paglen: Adversarially Evolved Hallucinations (2024); and Shona Illingworth: Topologies of Air (2022). He recently co-edited a special double issue of Digital War (vol. 5, no.1-2, January 2024), which outlines the legal, political, social, and psychological case for a proposed human right that will protect individuals and communities from aerial bombardment. Downey is the recipient of a series of Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) awards, including four-year multi-disciplinary project that focuses on cultural practice and educational provision for children with disabilities in Lebanon, the occupied Palestinian territories, and Jordan (2021-2025).
(Image: ATPD (2024), courtesy of the speaker)