Sonic Acts 2019: Ramon Amaro – AI as an Act of Thought - a podcast by Sonic Acts

SONIC ACTS FESTIVAL 2019 – HEREAFTER
Ramon Amaro – AI as an Act of Thought
23 February – De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

With an introduction by Juha van 't Zelfde.

Artificial intelligence (AI) research has risen exponentially in the last decade. One of the stated goals of AI is a better understanding of the world around us. As such, an increasingly large proportion of human reality is now lived through algorithms. While our relationship with AI is undoubtedly important as a mode of knowledge production, it has far-reaching implications. Most significant is the disparity between the act of existing/existence – particularly as it relates to differential human states of being (race, gender, sexuality, etc.) – and predominant paradigms of epistemological operation. In this talk, Ramon Amaro discusses the domain of AI as an arrangement of axiomatic simplicity that, in its present form, diminishes the variant domains of psychological and physical reality. He argues for a return to the problematics of perception, as illustrated in debates between figuration and Black abstract art, to challenge the notion of an a priori analytics. Ultimately, he proposes a reorientation of the algorithmic as an ontological imperative that establishes the genesis of the human differential as an act of thought in itself.

Ramon Amaro is Lecturer in the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London, as well as in the Centre for Research Architecture where he teaches the MA special subject Conflicts & Negotiations and the BA courses Fact of Blackness and Space and Time. Previously, he was a Research Fellow in Digital Culture at Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam and a visiting tutor in Media Theory at the Royal Academy of Art (KABK), The Hague. Ramon completed his PhD in Philosophy at Goldsmiths, while holding a master’s degree in Sociological Research from the University of Essex and a BSe in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has worked as Assistant Editor for the SAGE open access journal Big Data & Society, quality design engineer for General Motors and programmes manager for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). His research interests include machine learning, design and engineering, black ontology and philosophies of being.

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