June 27, 2024

Online/Melbourne (Australia)

Deadline: May 13, 2024

We are excited to invite you to the workshop ”Generative AI as a method in social sciences”.  We appreciate help in circulating the call with colleagues working on the topic.

Workshop descriptions and questions

In this half-day hybrid workshop, we focus on exploring different ways of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and how it could be used as a method in social scientific research, and what ethical and practical considerations are implied. 

We invite researchers working on the topic to submit an abstract (maximum 300 words) by May 13 to miguel.gomezhernandez@monash.edu. The notifications on acceptance will be sent out on May 27. The methodological papers on the use of GenAI in research can present research ideas, ongoing projects, or research findings.

In exploring the practical examples of methods and methodologies involving GenAI we would expect the proposal to state a clear contribution, for example by accounting for at least one of the following questions:

• How does the use of GenAI in research methods shift the ways we can research and the qualities of the knowledge we can generate? What are the benefits of this? 
  
• What are the ethical considerations of engaging with GenAI as a research method? 
  
• How do we unpack what is and is not meaningful to understand in the datasets and classifications when using GenAI as a research method?
  
• How should researchers address the political economies of the construction of AI systems when using GenAI as a research method?
  
• How might the wider planetary consequences of using GenAI as a research method frame our research practices and methods? 
  
• How can critical researchers engage in decolonising GenAI systems when using them as a method? How can we resist the hegemonic and often naturalised narratives of the AI industry and provide alternatives that frame the use of these technologies as a research method?
  
• How can GenAI be applied as a research method in research projects whose objective is to generate a radical reimagining of AI's technological development and role in society?
  

Workshopping dynamic:  

We will have two sessions with presentations (10 minutes each) and 20 minutes of Q&A. The second session is dedicated to online presenters. Please prepare your presentations being mindful of the time and the readability of the content. After an afternoon tea and coffee break, in our last session, we will divide the participants in groups and ask them to agree on 3 key insights from the previous presentations and prepare a short showcase arguing for them. This group exercise will enable us to move forward planning future collaborations and discussions.

Key information

Date: 27/6, 1.00 pm - 6 pm AEST

  *  Hybrid: online and in Melbourne (Australia) 

  *  Location: Building 97, RMIT University, 106-108 Victoria St, Carlton VIC 3053

  *  CFP Deadline: May 13

  *  Notification of acceptance: May 27

If you have any questions, please contact miguel.gomezhernandez@monash.edu

The workshop is  organised in collaboration with Emerging Technologies Lab, Monash node of ADM+S, and research project Imagining Sustainable Digital Futures (Aalto University, Finland).