Media and Infrastructures of Artificial Intelligence: Computer Vision, Transfer Learning, and Artificial Neural Networks as Black Box

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Andreas Sudmann
• Subject Area: Theatre and Media Studies
• Term: from 2019 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 429625021

Current technologies of Artificial Intelligence (AI) are dominated by Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). The project's central research interest is to explore the ways in which media in their specific infrastructural organization are involved in the production and formation of these ANN technologies. Two perspectives are central to this research focus: First, the project aims to investigate the discourses and practices of ANN experts with regard to their understanding of media: What explicit and implicit concepts of media (e.g. in functional terms as media of work, organization, and/or communication) characterize this particular discourse? Second, the aim is to examine the industrial-scientific practice of ANN as media practice: How do media and infrastructures articulate themselves in the concrete practice of ANN research/development, not least in comparison to and in conjunction with the consolidated, official knowledge of the discourse?My specific foci are the field of computer vision and the machine learning approach of transfer learning, including their complex entanglement. Especially in the field of computer vision, it is more effective if an AI system does not have to be trained for every new task, but is able to make use of previous learning experiences (for example, recognition of similar but different objects). Complementing the perspectives on computer vision and transfer learning, the project uses the common characterization of ANN as black box as the starting-point to explore how problems of supposed opacity are negotiated in the discourse and practices of ANN research. Accordingly, the project is also interested in strategies devised to eliminate or reduce these problems of opacity, especially with regard to the role of media and their infrastructural organization. The project addresses these research questions within a conceptual framework that combines discourse analysis, media ethnography, and Actor-Network Theory (including so-called Actor-Media Theory). Above all, the project seeks to shed light on the epistemic-technical functions of different media and their infrastructural organization as configurations for the production and formation of ANN technologies, especially in terms of their praxeological dimension.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants