Study a curated selection of historical collections and rare book manuscripts from the Kislak Center for Special Collections that explore the intersection of material archaeology, computational visuality, and natural knowledge in the pre-modern world. Examine representations of automata, mechanical devices, computational objects, humanoid robotic sentience, cryptography, and more, in relation to gender, labor, multilingualism, and environmentalism. Discover how cultures across the Afro-Eurasian and Mediterranean spheres envisioned complex forms of natural knowledge through schematic illustrations and diagrams.
Location: Kislak Center Vitale II, Van Pelt-Dietrich Center Library, Room 623
Schedule
10 AM: History of AI as a Technology Talk by Kerry McAuliffe
“AI” as a term captures the public imagination, and ire, precisely through its non-specificity–leaving powerful companies to shape its meaning through branded technologies. This lecture will trace some of the core historical genealogies that intersect to form the technologies and fictions we call “AI" to find its multiple meanings, by using archival objects on display (including Jacquard loom patterns, science fiction editions, and early PC hardware).
10:30AM: Manuscript Showcase by Dot Porter
11 AM: Data Gathering Discussion & Weaving Exercise by Jaj Karajgikar
Learning Objectives
• How do our current discussions about AI appear in historical contexts?
• How multilingual is AI?
• Where does all the training data for an LLM come from?
• What is the connection between material objects and computation?
Prerequisites:
You are welcome to contextualize yourself on the History of AI as a technology and a hype cycle with the Empire of AI Chapter 4 “Dreams of Modernity”
Familiarity with Libguide focused on AI / ML and Best Practices encouraged.
Software required:
No Device / Software Installation Required.
About the Facilitators:
-
Kerry McAuliffe is a PhD candidate in English and Media Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, with MAs in Digital Humanities and Digital Culture and Society from King’s College London. Her dissertation asks how “memory” becomes external, material, and technical, through scientific and cultural shifts in nineteenth-century Britain in the wake of the abolition of the slave trade. She focuses especially on Charles Babbage and early computation, and currently on histories of AI technologies and AI’s effect on education.
-
Jaj Karajgikar: library.upenn.edu/staff/jajwalya-karajgikar
-
Dot Porter: https://www.library.upenn.edu/staff/dot-porter
Image credits: Shady Sharify / https://betterimagesofai.org / https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
