Digitised and Datafied Animals: Emerging Technologies and Human-Animal Entanglements

Convened by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society University of Melbourne and UNSW Nodes, the Health Focus Area and the People and Institutions Programs together with the Centre for AI and Digital Ethics, University of Melbourne and the Vitalities Lab, UNSW Sydney

This workshop invites us to investigate the ways that human and other animal relationships are forged through processes of digitisation and datafication. From the care of the companion animal in the smart home to ‘smart’ farming, the tracking and trapping of endangered and ‘pest’ wildlife, memes, GIFs and videos, zoomorphic care robots and the conflict between delivery drones and ravens for airspace, emerging technologies such as biodigital sensors, AI and automated decision-making are increasingly configuring the intertwined lives and bodies of humans and other animals.

Presentations at this workshop will engage theoretically and methodologically with human-animal entanglements in the digital world. How are human and animal health, wellbeing, privacy, data, and sense of belonging connected and disconnected? Can we talk about ‘more-than-human’ digital wellbeing or ‘digital planetary health’? How might we investigate the potentials and harms of digitised and datafied animals? And what are the implications for practice, policies and ethics in these multispecies encounters?

PROGRAM

Note: All times are shown in Australian Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT). AEDT is the time zone for Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne & Hobart.
Brisbane participants should note that this event starts at 12:00pm AEST

1.00-1.05 pm: Deborah Lupton, UNSW Sydney, and Christine Parker, University of Melbourne: Welcome

1.05-1.25 pm: Emily Wanderer, University of Pittsburgh: AI of the Tiger: Computer Vision And Wildlife Research

1.25-1.45 pm: Kendra Lee Sanders, University of Chicago: From the Quantified Self to the Quantified Cow: Tracing Wearables Across Human and Nonhuman Animals

1.45-2.05 pm: Mia Cobb, University of Melbourne: Beliefs Towards Intelligent Systems for Animal Welfare

2.05-2.25 pm: Simon Coghlan and Christine Parker, University of Melbourne: Artificial Intelligence and Animal Futures

2.25-2.40 pm: Short break

2.40-3.00 pm: Meg Rose, UNSW Sydney: Future Pets: AIBO and Affective Entanglements in Kawaii Engineering

3.00-3.20 pm: Deborah Lupton, UNSW Sydney: My Book ‘The Internet of Animals’: Main Concepts and Themes

3.20-3.40 pm: Pauline Chasseray-Peraldi, Sorbonne Université: Google AI and Cow Privacy: A Digital Ethnography of Perceptive Coexistences

3.40-4.00 pm: Adam Searle, Université de Liège and Jonathon Turnbull, University of Cambridge: The Digital Peregrine: Technonatural History as Method