On 3 and 4 November, the University of Barcelona will host the new edition of the international conference Democracy4All, which will examine issues related to technological advances and their impact on democracy. On this occasion, it will put special attention to blockchain technology and artificial intelligence (AI) regarding the media, social networks and governance of societies. To attend the conference, prior registration is required.

University students can also register for the ideathon: they will have 24 hours to devise solutions to the challenges presented by the GenLayer platform, a “virtual jurisdiction” designed to mediate between different artificial intelligences. GenLayer will select the best proposal, which will be awarded.

The conference will gather academics, creators, entrepreneurs, representatives of public entities and experts in technology, economics, law and journalism, among other disciplines. Round tables and talks will address topics such as AI as an opportunity or a threat to governance and democracy, fake news, AI as a means of influencing social networks, the decentralized economy and blockchain technology, among others.

One of the participants will be the philosopher Daniel Innerarity, who will be in a round table that will focus on the management of AI innovations. The other participants of the round table will be Albert Sabater, researcher at the University of Girona and director of the Observatory of Ethics in Artificial Intelligence of Catalonia; Oriol Pujol, UB researcher expert in machine learning algorithms, and Cecilia Rikap, from the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose at University College London, who has studied the concentration of assets in large digital companies and created the concept of intellectual monopolies.

Website www.democracy4all.barcelona.

Another round table will be dedicated to content generation through AI and deepfakes. One of the participants will be the Turkish artist Ferdi Alici, internationally renowned for his spectacular creations made with artificial intelligence, and who has worked in collaboration with entities such as the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and NASA.

Sergi Sagàs, founder of the company Hyperreal, will also be at this table; Núria Ferran, lecturer at the UB’s Faculty of Information and Audiovisual Media, expert in artificial intelligence and the use of data in society, and Germán León, professor at the Elisava design school and expert in computer vision and human-technology interaction.

The conference will be held at the UB’s Institute for Lifelong Learning (IL3). The conference language will be English, but it will be supported by SCRIBAL, an automatic English-Catalan-Spanish subtitle tool developed by the research and teaching staff from the UB’s Faculty of Philosophy and Communication.

 

The conference will be also streamed live on UBtv: sessions on 3 November and 4 November.

This piece of news was originally published on the website of the University of Barcelona, coordinator of the CHARM-EU Alliance.