{"id":13665,"date":"2024-06-27T06:39:26","date_gmt":"2024-06-27T11:39:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=13665"},"modified":"2024-06-27T06:39:29","modified_gmt":"2024-06-27T11:39:29","slug":"symbiocene-talk-ai-other-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2024\/06\/27\/symbiocene-talk-ai-other-things\/","title":{"rendered":"Symbiocene talk, AI, &amp; other things"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>This blog has been a bit quiet as I transition to my new position as <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2023\/11\/22\/woodsworth-chair-three-challenges\/\">Woodsworth Chair<\/a> in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfu.ca\/globalhumanities\/human-dir\/faculty\/a-ivakhiv.html\">Global Humanities<\/a> at Simon Fraser University. I&#8217;ll be sharing more about that soon. In the meantime, I can share links to a few recent talks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last year&#8217;s Free Cultural Spaces symposium \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/amsterdamalternative.nl\/articles\/14226\/10th-futurological-symposium-2023-on-free-cultural-spaces-towards-the-symbiocene\">Towards the\u00a0Symbiocene<\/a>,\u201d held in Amsterdam\u2019s Club Paradiso and at the \u201cfree cultural space\u201d of\u00a0Ruigoord, Netherlands, has just made available some symposium highlights on YouTube. My talk, \u201cEco-Trauma &amp; Beyond: Ways of Becoming Earthbound,\u201d can be watched <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=cy1jOirmpTc&amp;t=312s\">here<\/a> or below (first video). The talk was a part of a series featuring Glenn Albrecht, philosopher and\u00a0theorist of the <a href=\"https:\/\/humansandnature.org\/exiting-the-anthropocene-and-entering-the-symbiocene\/\">Symbiocene<\/a>\u00a0(&#8220;era of mutually beneficial relationships between humans and everything else&#8221;), critical political geographer Erik\u00a0Swyngedouw, and philosopher Lisa\u00a0Doeland, and we shared a panel moderated by Indira van \u2018t\u00a0Klooster, which you can also watch below (second video).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s &#8220;Eco-Trauma &amp; Beyond: Ways of Becoming Earthbound&#8221;:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cy1jOirmpTc?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>And the Symbiocene panel:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9zO5Su72ytk?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>For more on the symposium, see my\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2023\/07\/27\/symbioceneruigoord-nl\/\">post about it from last year<\/a>. The Symposium&#8217;s Free Cultural Spaces Declaration can be read on page 12 of <a href=\"https:\/\/amsterdamalternative.nl\/downloads\/12813_aakrant049-spreads.pdf\">this issue of <em>Amsterdam Alternative<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My Vermont Humanities talk from last month, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vermonthumanities.org\/event\/environmental-humanities-101-critical-studies-for-feverish-times\/\">Environmental Humanities 101: Critical Studies for Feverish Times,&#8221;<\/a> can be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vermonthumanities.org\/event\/environmental-humanities-101-critical-studies-for-feverish-times\/\">watched here<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=fj8vcq9V_bo\">here<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC11182501\/\">here&#8217;s<\/a> an open-access article I&#8217;ve just published with colleague Rachelle Gould and two computer scientists. It&#8217;s the first time I&#8217;ve co-written something with AI researchers. The article, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC11182501\/\">Nature is resource, playground, and gift: What artificial intelligence reveals about human\u2013Nature relationships<\/a>,&#8221; is not groundbreaking, but its bridging between environmental humanities themes and the possibilities of big-data research is somewhat novel. Here&#8217;s the abstract:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>This paper demonstrates how artificial-intelligence language analysis can inform understanding of human\u2013nature relationships and other social phenomena. We demonstrate three techniques by investigating relationships within the popular word2vec word embedding, which is trained on a sample from over 50,000 worldwide news sources. Our first technique investigates what theory-generated analogies are most similar to nature:people. The resource:user analogy is most similar, followed by the playground:child and gift:receiver analogies. Our second technique explores whether nature-related words are affiliated with words that denote race, class, or gender. Nature words tend slightly toward associations with femininity and wealth. Our third technique demonstrates how the relationship between nature and wellbeing compares to other concepts\u2019 relationships to wellbeing\u2014e.g., spirituality\u2013wellbeing, social relations\u2013wellbeing. Nature is more semantically connected to wellbeing than money, social relations, and multiple other wellbeing correlates. Findings are consistent with previous social science and humanities research on human-nature relationships, but do not duplicate them exactly; our results thus offer insight into dominant trends and prevalence of associations. Our analysis also offers a model for using word embeddings to investigate a wide variety of topics. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>I remain skeptical of AI, but that&#8217;s largely because of the &#8220;wild west&#8221; style in which it&#8217;s being developed (which is echoing the development of social media over the past two decades) and because the amount of energy and data it requires to continue developing is so voluminous. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Other updates can be found on my <a href=\"https:\/\/site.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/\">UVM web page<\/a>, which will continue to be updated as I remain affiliated with that university.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This blog has been a bit quiet as I transition to my new position as Woodsworth Chair in Global Humanities at Simon Fraser University. I&#8217;ll be sharing more about that soon. In the meantime, I can share links to a few recent talks. Last year&#8217;s Free Cultural Spaces symposium \u201cTowards the\u00a0Symbiocene,\u201d held in Amsterdam\u2019s Club [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[688615,689701],"tags":[628626,628627,710297,711155,711075,711156,350225,711157],"class_list":["post-13665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthropo_scene","category-media_ecology","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-big-data","tag-free-cultural-space","tag-glenn-albrecht","tag-human-nature-relationships","tag-symbiocene","tag-towards-the-symbiocene"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-3yp","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13275,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2023\/07\/27\/symbioceneruigoord-nl\/","url_meta":{"origin":13665,"position":0},"title":"Symbiocene@Ruigoord.NL","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"July 27, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Two things to consider before your morning coffee. 1) We are living through a Holocene collapse event,* when the nearly 12,000 year old regime of relative climate stability, the \"comfort zone\" for most of what we know as human civilization, is beginning to tear to shreds. (Here's just one of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Anthropocene&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Anthropocene","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/anthropo_scene\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2023\/07\/Albrecht-at-Ruigoord-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2023\/07\/Albrecht-at-Ruigoord-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2023\/07\/Albrecht-at-Ruigoord-scaled.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2023\/07\/Albrecht-at-Ruigoord-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2023\/07\/Albrecht-at-Ruigoord-scaled.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2023\/07\/Albrecht-at-Ruigoord-scaled.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3090,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/03\/23\/iland-slow-networks-symposium\/","url_meta":{"origin":13665,"position":1},"title":"iLAND Slow Networks symposium","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"March 23, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I'll be in New York City this weekend to participate in the iLAND Symposium at the New School, at the invitation of iLAND founder and Artistic Director Jennifer Monson.\u00a0 iLAND is the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature and Dance, and this year's symposium, which runs through Friday evening and all\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Eco-culture&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Eco-culture","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecoculture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9678,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2018\/05\/25\/welcome-to-the-feverish-world-cfp\/","url_meta":{"origin":13665,"position":2},"title":"Welcome to the Feverish World (CFP)","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"May 25, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Please circulate widely... FEVERISH WORLD 2018-2068:\u00a0ARTS & SCIENCES OF COLLECTIVE SURVIVAL\u00a0 A Symposium and Convergence in Burlington, Vermont, October 20-22, 2018 Fifty years after the widespread international protests of 1968 challenged institutional norms, and some sixty years after C. P. Snow lamented the gap between academia\u2019s \u201ctwo cultures,\u201d those of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Academe&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6007,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2012\/06\/07\/nature-the-popular-imagination-keynote\/","url_meta":{"origin":13665,"position":3},"title":"Nature &amp; the Popular Imagination keynote","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"June 7, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's the abstract for the keynote I will be giving at Nature and the Popular Imagination in Malibu this August. It builds on my recent talk at Bucks College, but without the nod to pop-cultural interest in Avatar. THE AGE OF THE WORLD MOTION PICTURE starring the Cinematic Earth, with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Eco-culture&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Eco-culture","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecoculture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8017,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2015\/02\/08\/ontology-across-the-disciplines-reading-group\/","url_meta":{"origin":13665,"position":4},"title":"&#8220;Ontology Across the Disciplines&#8221; reading group","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"February 8, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm participating in a reading group here at the University of Vermont entitled \"Ontology Across the Disciplines.\" (More than just participating... I've been gently arm-twisted by the organizers, anthropologists Parker Van Valkenberg and Ben Eastman, into chairing the discussions. Thanks, guys ;-) ) Since I know there are folks out\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Philosophy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5820,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2012\/05\/04\/nt-3-grusin-why-nonhuman-now\/","url_meta":{"origin":13665,"position":5},"title":"NT3: Grusin &#8220;Why nonhuman now?&#8221;","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"May 4, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Day 2 at The Nonhuman Turn. Richard Grusin: Why Nonhuman? Why Now? The CFP for this conference elicited lively comments and concerns on Facebook walls (Ken Wark's and Alex Galloway's): expression of \"turn fatigue\" (:-) [ai: my first proposal was about just that], and a concern that this would ipso\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Academe&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13665"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13668,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13665\/revisions\/13668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}