Human-Centered AI Transformations
The Twenty-Second International Conference on Technology, Knowledge, and Society invites educators, researchers, technologists, and policymakers to explore the changing role of digital computational technologies as defining forces in our personal, professional, and public spheres. Building on the long view of technological epochs, we invite critical reflections on the original utopian aspirations for digital tools—aspirations that promised broader participation, democratized knowledge, and flourishing bottom-up communities. We ask: how have these hopes held up, especially in light of new pressures to harness big data, artificial intelligence, and the internet of things? Similarly, we consider shifts in the cultural and epistemic production of “knowledge societies,” examining how digital infrastructures have simultaneously decentralized and intensified power in classrooms, workplaces, and everyday life. Our inquiry extends to the ethical and social dimensions of these ongoing transformations, probing the ways in which emerging technologies reconfigure norms, values, and global interconnections.
This year’s annual focus, Human-Centered AI Transformations, spotlights AI as a transformative but also deeply human endeavor. We welcome proposals that rethink AI not as a replacement for human expertise, but as a collaborative partner in meaning-making, teaching, learning, and knowledge-sharing. How might AI-powered tools personalize education, expand inclusivity, and foster new forms of participatory culture without succumbing to bias or widening social inequities? What does it look like to design AI systems that honor local contexts, uphold ethical values, and nurture ecological sustainability?
Through diverse interdisciplinary perspectives, we seek to imagine futures in which AI augments human potential rather than automating it away. We invite papers, panels, workshops, and creative presentations that critically engage these themes, offering fresh insights into the interplay of technology, knowledge, and society, and forging pathways toward more equitable, human-centered technological epochs.