Ontario Tech University: Creative AI?

Join us for our spring speakers forum hosted by Digital Life Institute and Trustworthy AI Lab!

Historically, creativity has been judged according to its impact and ways that people moved other people’s thinking, challenged longstanding beliefs, or transformed a field. Artificial Intelligence has raised sensationalized debates concerning not only the question over its ability to create, but whether it can harm society. Do we trust AI? Can AI systems really be creative? Do we risk human creativity as we adopt AI? Will our communities be sustainable? The goal of this event is to highlight three points of view concerning artificial intelligence and creativity.

Location: Ontario Tech University, Room: SHA 024
Address: 2000 Simcoe Street North, Oshawa
This event is free & open to the public.

[email protected]

Speakers:

Dr. Peter Lewis holds a Canada Research Chair in Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence, at Ontario Tech University. He is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Business and Information Technology and Director of the Trustworthy AI Lab. He is a member of the AI Implications cluster of the Digital Life Institute. His research advances both foundational and applied aspects of trustworthy, reflective, and socially intelligent systems. Drawing on extensive experience applying AI commercially, he is interested in where AI meets society, and how to help that relationship work well. His research is concerned with how to conceive of and build AI systems that meet this challenge. He is Associate Editor of IEEE Technology & Society Magazine (TSM) and ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems (TAAS), a board member of the International Society for Artificial Life (ISAL).

Dr. Délon Omrow is a Professor and Sessional Instructor and Postdoctoral Fellow at Centennial College and Ontario Tech University, respectively. He also an artist and an academic who studies AI and creativity. He is a three-time Canadian Latin Grammy nominee, a two-time Oshawa Music Award winner and has been featured on CBC Music’s SearchLight 2023 Top 100 List for his single “Peace & Love”. Following his experiences as an artist, one aspect of his research explores AI and the music industry and how artists are using it in creative practices. He is a member of the Sustainability, Equity, and Digital Culture cluster of the Digital Life Institute.

Dr. Isabel Pedersen is the Director of the Digital Life Institute and she leads the AI and Implications cluster at the Institute, Ontario Tech University. She studies the myriad ways that AI is entangled with culture. She explores how AI is used to augment human creativity through embodied technologies in ways that advance human experiences. At the same time, she studies the ethical, political, and cultural challenges that artificial intelligence has instigated through its emergence and, increasingly, its mass adoption. She recently released a book on the topic, Augmentation technologies and artificial intelligence in technical and professional communication: Designing ethical futures (Ann Hill Duin and Isabel Pedersen, 2023, Routledge).