On Tuesday, 17 August 2021 at 5pm Bangkok time, Thammasat University students are cordially invited to participate in a free webinar on Technodystopia: are we heading towards ‘Blade Runner’?

Blade Runner is a 1982 science fiction film adapted from a novel by the American science fiction author Philip K. Dick.

The Thammasat University Library collection includes a book about screen adaptations of the works of Philip K. Dick as well as many studies of different types of dystopias.

The noun dystopia refers to an imaginary bad place or worst possible world.

The word derives from the letters dys of Greek origin, meaning bad, difficult, or imperfect.

The letters dys are applied in the word dystopia to provide the opposite of utopia.

The noun utopia, from the Greek meaning nowhere, was invented by the author Thomas More to describe an imaginary island featuring perfect legal, social, and political systems.

The webinar will be presented by the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Ethics (CAIDE), the University of Melbourne, Australia.

Students are invited to register for the webinar at the following link:

 https://events.unimelb.edu.au/event/11061-technodystopia-are-we-heading-towards-blade-runner

For further information or with any questions, please write to this email address:

Gabby.bush@unimelb.edu.au

As the event homepage explains,

In 1982, Blade Runner floored audiences with its technodystopian predictions of the future. Almost 30 years on, some of the projections of Blade Runner seem absurd, yet others seem eerily accurate. How successful is art and film at predicting our future? Should we pay more attention to the artists that creatively explore what might come to be?

We invite students, faculty and friends to join us, Centre for AI and Digital Ethics and the Faculty of Engineering and IT, for a screening of Blade Runner. The film will be followed by a conversation between Professor Tim Miller (CAIDE, Computer Science), Professor Jeannie Paterson (CAIDE, Law) and Dr Claudia Sandberg (Film Studies) to address questions that arise from the understanding and use of AI in their different disciplines and the power that art and film holds to foreshadow or warn us of the way technology impacts our world.

This is a chance for students interested in technology to hear from Jeannie, Tim and Claudia who teach subjects in AI, Ethics and Sci-Fi at The University of Melbourne. We’re proud to be delivering this event as part of the inaugural Innovation Week at Melbourne Connect, a multi-day festival celebrating the people, projects, and possibilities becoming reality from within the University of Melbourne’s new innovation precinct.

Presenters will include Professor Jeannie Paterson, Professor of Law at the Melbourne Law School and codirector of CAIDE, who specializes in the areas of contracts, consumer protection and consumer credit law, as well as the role of new technologies in these fields.

Also speaking will be Dr. Claudia Sandberg, a senior teaching fellow at the Faculty of Engineering and IT, the University of Melbourne, who researches the history of German cinema, transnational cinematic relations between Europe and Latin America, questions of exile and migration, and film reception.

Professor Tim Miller, codirector of CAIDE, who teaches computer science at the School of Computing and Information Systems at The University of Melbourne, will also contribute. Professor Miller researches artificial intelligence.

Among recent research authored or coauthored by Professor Miller is an examination of whether new virtual workplaces are equitable:

COVID-19 has changed the way many of us work, but our new virtual workplaces raise questions over privacy, data sharing and equity

For many Australians it has now been several weeks since we started working from home. Gone is the novelty of Zoom backgrounds and Houseparty trivia.

Many have spoken extensively about the privacy concerns associated with video conferencing platforms.

But less concern has been voiced around the issue of equity in our new virtual workplaces.

An online workplace doesn’t necessarily ensure equity between everyone.

PRIVACY CONCERNS

The almost-overnight emergence of online workplaces came with heavy concerns for privacy and data-sharing issues…

Zoom and other online platforms have created an ease of access for new ways of working, but is this access equitable?

In some cases, yes.

Differently abled communities are frustrated that the changes they have always needed are now widely implemented across the workplace. Those who needed to work from home or access audio assistance have been able to do so overnight.

Protecting people with disability during the pandemic

The community that has historically had difficulty accessing their workplaces due to physical disabilities, with mobility making up 39 per cent of discrimination complaints, can now work from home despite this previously being a barrier to employment.

But despite the benefits for some marginalised people, an online workplace doesn’t necessarily ensure equity between everyone.

The effects of ‘digital poverty’ have become more apparent with some employees and students lacking access to the internet at home, with others voicing concern that their children may not be able to access their schooling.

It’s often assumed that university students have their own laptop and a stable internet connection, but many still rely on university computer labs for their study. These labs are now closed, and universities are trying to get these students up with access.

Those who needed to work from home or access audio assistance have been able to do so overnight.

Human Rights Watch has called for greater efforts to alleviate digital poverty, saying that 46 per cent of the world isn’t connected to the internet although it is recognised as a ‘fundamental enabler of human rights.’…

During an incredibly stressful pandemic, perhaps the key to successfully working from home is changing the measure of ‘productivity’ as it isn’t business as usual.

A truly equitable solution isn’t to demand all workers have the perfect home setup, complete the same number of outputs and operate under a business-as-usual framework.

Some businesses have moved to prioritise ‘kindness and empathy’, understanding that this historic moment will be remembered and that employees will act accordingly.

COVID19 is testing the whole world over.

While it is now technologically possible to recreate our workplaces in our homes, this doesn’t mean it is equitable to do so. Or at least, it’s important to recognise that helping employees and students work from home means more than virtual meetings and blurry backgrounds.

Professor Miller and his colleagues point to an April 2020 study showing that working from home (WFH) can make people more productive, but not during a pandemic.

Remote work works best if it’s by choice and not every day.

Professor Nicholas Bloom, who teaches economics at Stanford University, extensively studies WFH policies at major Chinese travel company.

Results were that WFH made employees more productive and boosted job retention, but all of the people in the China study volunteered to WFH, and they were doing tasks that were not team-based.

In addition, they were working from home four days a week, but on the fifth day visited  the office.

By contrast, with COVID-19 there is almost no choice. Almost everyone is forced to work from home, while in the Chinese study, only half of employees chose to do it.

Those who preferred office work claimed WFH was very lonely and isolating.

Most felt that being at the office at least one day weekly or up to three connected employees to the workplace and helped with creativity, which occurs when people meet each other and become ambitious and motivated.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)