[Air-L] So.Hist-Info : a new seminar (French and English)

[Camille Paloque-Bergès]

 Dear Colleagues,
This message is to inform you of the first session in the 2024-2025
academic year of the Socio-History of Informatics seminar
<https://sohistinfo.github.io/>, a research seminar organized at the HT2S
research center of the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers in Paris
<https://technique-societe.cnam.fr/histoire-des-technosciences-en-societe-ht2s--913760.kjsp>.
The goal of this seminar is to explore new narratives in the long-term
history of computing, with a focus on how computing intertwines with
social, economic, political, and cultural issues. Every two months, we will
invite a researcher in history and/or anthropology and sociology (with a
historical or diachronic perspective) of computing to present their work.
Website link : https://sohistinfo.github.io/english/
The first session will take place online and at CNAM in Paris on Monday,
October 14, 2024, from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM with Ksenia Ermoshina (Centre
Internet et Société, CNRS) - *A "Sovereign Intelligence"? Infrastructures,
Representations, and Geopolitics of Russian AI: A Comparative Approach*.
Registration form:
https://framaforms.org/inscription-seminaire-de-socio-histoire-de-linformatique-1725366317
*Summary of the presentation:* *As part of the ANR CulturIA project, this
investigation focuses on the contemporary history of artificial
intelligence and its socio-cultural aspects, particularly within the
Russian-speaking world and its international relations. Marked by the war
against Ukraine and economic sanctions, the field has undergone a
restructuring both in terms of infrastructure and in terms of discourse and
representations. The collective research, conducted in collaboration with
Boris Melnichenko, follows Russians who create or use AI in exile as well
as engineers working for large companies in Russia. In line with the spirit
of Science and Technology Studies (STS), it remains attentive to code and
infrastructure and describes the significant restructurings of
technological projects in the context of a major geopolitical crisis. By
comparing Russian machine learning and AI projects with similar initiatives
from the United States and China, this research asks: can we speak of a
“Russian AI”? Are there distinctive characteristics that define the ways of
developing and discussing AI specific to Russia, despite the inevitable
borrowing, influences, and transnational exchanges that shape this field?*
*Future sessions:*

   - December 16, 2024, from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM - Barbara Hof - University
   of Lausanne
   - February 10, 2025, from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM - Cédric Neumann - CNAM,
   HT2S
   - April 1, 2025 - Marie-José Durand-Richard - CNRS-Paris 7 Denis
   Diderot, SPHERE
   - April 14, 2025, from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM - Jaroslav Švelch - Charles
   University (Prague)
   - June 16, 2025, from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM - Michael Homberg - University
   of Cologne

The summary of each presentation will be communicated later.
Each session will be held in a hybrid format at the Conservatoire National
des Arts et Métiers, 2 rue Conté, 75003 Paris, in room 30-1-18 (Building
30, 1st basement level, Room 18). To facilitate the organization of the
sessions, please register via this form:
https://framaforms.org/inscription-seminaire-de-socio-histoire-de-linformatique-1725366317
A connection link (Big Blue Button) will be sent after registration to
allow remote participation in each session.
This research seminar will focus on the history of computing not for its
own sake within the well-defined framework of the omnipotent computer and
its pervasive environments, but through the study of situations where
computing plays a pivotal role in the articulation of
science-technology-society relations. In this way, the seminar aims to shed
light on a socio-history of computing over the long term and in spaces
expanded geographically as well as socially, culturally, politically, and
economically. You can find a more detailed presentation of our approach
(with the program of planned sessions) on the seminar website:
https://sohistinfo.github.io/
Looking forward to seeing you there. Best regards,
Mathilde Fichen (PhD student, HT2S), Adrien Tournier (PhD student, HT2S),
and Camille Paloque-Bergès (Researcher, HT2S) for the seminar organization.
-- 
Institutional email address : camille.paloque_berges at cnam.fr
*Laboratory for the History of Techno-Sciences (HT2S), Conservatoire
national des arts et métiers, 2 rue Conté, 75003 Paris, France