Preview: AMI Research Awards 2023
Update 9/5: Applications are now closed. Decisions for the 2023 application will be announced via email in September 2023. Please check back in 2024 for details on future application cycles.
At Google, we believe the arts & social sciences can inform new ways of thinking about and working with artificial intelligence. Our Artists + Machine Intelligence (AMI) Research Awards support higher education faculty pursuing arts and social science research related to machine learning (ML) and its implications on society with funding up to $20,000 USD.
Starting today, we welcome proposals across three priority research areas:
- Visual culture and media literacy
- Methods and strategies for foresighting
- Cultures shaping agency and AI
Visual culture and media literacy
Visual media vitally connects with audiences and shapes public engagement around AI technologies. We seek proposals that explore visual framing of AI in media (and how these representations function across media landscapes) and that develop new visual metaphors and libraries for use by media, non-profits, and educators. Proposals that consider non-visual strategies for productive public discourse on AI may also be considered.
Methods and strategies for foresighting
Known also as speculative design, scenario planning, or simply, imagining the future, foresighting allows individuals, companies and organizations to envision and explore alternative socio-technical futures, identify potential risks and opportunities, and build consensus around the future of emerging technologies. We’re interested in proposals from the humanities and social sciences who are advancing this method that might inspire new applications in technology research organizations.
Cultures shaping agency and AI
Agency, defined broadly as the ability to form intentions, to act on those intentions, and to monitor one’s own actions, is one of multiple factors important to the responsible and ethical deployment of AI technologies. We’re interested in proposals that seek to understand how culture influences assumptions around agency and how such definitions impact the design and development of AI. What harms occur when the concept of agency is defined through specific cultural lenses, and then deployed and experienced within different global cultural contexts? What benefits might emerge from more expansive cultural definitions? What new or expanded definitions of (or relationships with) agency might facilitate solving the world’s humanitarian and environmental challenges?
Questions? Email questions to artwithmi@google.com. We will provide you with a timely answer or set up a time to talk, if necessary.
