Project description
A human-centric approach to technological development
Recent advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning have raised profound questions about the impact of new technologies on the future of modern society. The more immersive and engaging technology becomes, the more our relationship with technology and what it means to be human is coming under scrutiny. As society applies technology to recover from global events that trigger a paradigm shift in human thinking and behaviour, such as Covid-19, it becomes clear that the fundamental issues we face today cannot be solved by one discipline, industry or approach alone. Therefore, the EU-funded Human Plus fellowship programme will bring together researchers from computer science, arts and humanities, as well as enterprise representatives. Together, they will develop human-centric approaches to technological design and innovation, placing the human experience at the fore.
Objective
Rapid developments in information technology in the past three decades have opened up new, unfamiliar frontiers in all areas of society: culture and media, politics and security, health and wellbeing. Big data and machine learning are transforming our experience of social interaction, identity, governance, entertainment, journalism, privacy, and, through artificial intelligence (AI), what it means to be human. There are increasing calls for human-centric approaches to critical questions concerning this rapid expansion of adaptive technologies and their impact on the nature and future of humanity. Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, will address this need through HUMAN+, which will connect computer science researchers with arts and humanities researchers and enterprise to forge a human-centric approach to technological development. HUMAN+ will recruit 18 experienced researchers over 2 calls, each for a duration of two years. It will invite research proposals addressing one of two broad strands:
(a) questions that consider technological developments from the humanistic perspective
(b) proposals to develop technology with insights informed by the arts and humanities.
Through multidisciplinary supervision, industry participation by way of workshops and mandatory secondments, HUMAN+ fellows will gain inter-sectoral experience contributing to their capacity to tackle societal challenges relating to the areas outlined above. Non-academic partners involved in the programme include Nokia Bell Labs, Accenture Human Insight Lab, EPIC- the Irish Emigration Museum, Fidelity and Ancestry.com. As part of the fellows’ training, HUMAN+ will participate in a ‘Future Lab’ which will bring the fellows together to test, learn, invent and build solutions in response to problems set by our industry leader partners. HUMAN+ is jointly developed by the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts & Humanities Research Institute and ADAPT, Science Foundation Ireland Centre for Digital Content Innovation.,
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Programme(s)
Coordinator
D02 CX56 DUBLIN 2
Ireland