Who Owns the Future? From Artificial Intelligence to Abundant Imagination

From automated decision systems in healthcare, policing, education and more, technologies have the potential to deepen discrimination while appearing neutral and even benevolent when compared to harmful practices of a previous era. In this talk, Ruha Benjamin takes a transdisciplinary approach to public scholarship, inviting us into the world of biased bots, altruistic algorithms, and their many entanglements, and providing conceptual tools to decode tech predictions with historical and sociological insight. When it comes to AI, Benjamin shifts our focus from the dystopian and utopian narratives we are sold, to a sober reckoning with the way these tools are already a part of our lives. Whereas dystopias are the stuff of nightmares, and utopias the stuff of dreams… ustopias are what we create together when we are wide awake.

Dr. Ruha Benjamin is the Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, founding director of the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab, and an award-winning author. She is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Fellowship in 2024.

Dr. Benjamin's new book, Imagination: A Manifesto, will be available for purchase and signing from 6-6:30 p.m.

This lecture is made possible by the William C. Ferguson fund and is co-sponsored by the Department of English and the Department of Sociology.