Abstract: 

Alongside the continued deployment of AI technologies in our world, there is growing concern about what might be getting overlooked in the process. Human experience remains richer than what can be codified within any AI or data technologies at our disposal. How do we hold on to and nurture the creative, inventive qualities of the human mind even as we design machines that can support and extend our thinking? Even more important, what can we do to reduce social inequity and not amplify it as we choose which problems to solve and how to tackle them? To build and work with these AI technologies for the benefit of human and planetary flourishing, our individual and collective capacities for compassion and imagination must be nurtured alongside technical know-how. This presentation uses these questions as a launchpad for a set of key operating principles for keeping the human in our technology design as we design and deploy machines that can support and extend our thinking.

Bio: 

As a data and information ethicist, Theresa uses creative, compassionate and contemplative practices to help communities build better digital and data futures. Building consensus through gaining and maintaining a community's trust and implementing good practice to advance socially-just data policies is embedded in her work. Her award-winning work as an educator and researcher engages with the ever-evolving relationship between people and emerging technologies when working with data and making decisions. A social informaticist with a PhD in Information Science, she served as inaugural Director of the Master of Data Science & Innovation program at UTS from 2014-2018, leading development of a uniquely transdisciplinary and human-centred curriculum that continues to prepare graduates for the demands of the data science fields. Now working as a freelance consultant, Theresa contributes to government, industry and NGO efforts advancing socially-just data policies, building processes for gaining and maintaining a community's trust in data/AI use. She recently joined the Standards Australia Data Sharing Committee (IT-027-06 and JTC 1/SC 32/WG 6). Theresa also contributes to international initiatives related to data sharing via the International Science Council’s Committee on Data and as a Sydney Ambassador for Stanford’s Women in Data Science Network.