Luke Stark
University of Western Ontario
Animation and Artificial Intelligence
Abstract
Animation increasingly defines the cultural contours of the twenty-first century and is broadly used across many forms of digital media. More than just cartooning, puppetry, or CGI, animation is a paradigm involving the projection of qualities perceived as human such as power, agency, will, and personality outside of the self and onto objects in the the environment. In this talk, I argue ChatGPT and similar interactive AI systems, both powered by Large Language Models (LLMs) and not, can be best understood as animated entities. Characteristics of animation—including reliance on stereotypes, obfuscation of human labor, and manipulation of an audience's emotions—can help us both analyze and respond appropriately to interactive AI technologies and the hyperbolic claims of their promoters.
About
Luke Stark is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at Western University in London, Canada. He is also an CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar in the Future Flourishing Program. Luke has previously been a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Fairness, Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics (FATE) Group at Microsoft Research; a Postdoctoral Fellow in Sociology at Dartmouth College; a Fellow and Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University; a fellow of the Center for Technology, Society, and Policy at the University of California Berkeley; and the inaugural Scholar-in-Residence at the University of Toronto’s Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society. Luke received his PhD from the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University in 2016, and holds an Honours BA and MA in History from the University of Toronto.