12 July 2022

Science Week with the ANU School of Cybernetics: The Library and AI

Science Week with the ANU School of Cybernetics: The Library and AI

Science Week with the ANU School of Cybernetics: The Library and AI (National Library of Australia)

The library – as an idea, a place, and a cybernetic system – has always been an investment in, and a vision about, the future. Recently the National Library of Australia and the ANU School of Cybernetics conducted a thought experiment: If library indexing has informed the structure of search on the internet, how might the library inform new ways of connecting these large caches of information to generate meaning?

Custodians and Midwives is the outcome of their reimagining of the library as a cybernetic system – one that has produced and been produced by relationships between technological, ecological, and cultural forces.

In a discussion facilitated by the Director-General of the National Library of Australia, Dr Marie-Louise Ayers FAHA, Professor Alexandra Zafiroglu from the ANU School of Cybernetics will be examining the processes, structures, networks, and relationships that make a library and imagines how we might build AI-enabled systems to help generate meaning out of vast datasets.

This event is free to attend but bookings are essential.

For those unable to make it to Canberra for the panel discussion, it will be livestreamed online via the Library’s Facebook page. No bookings are required to watch the online stream.

Cybernetic thinking for a new world is presented by the ANU School of Cybernetics in partnership with the National Library of Australia.

About Professor Alexandra Zafiroglu:
Alexandra Zafiroglu is a Professor of Cybernetics at the School of Cybernetics at the Australian National University and a Fellow of the ANU Futures scheme. She has also authored multiple publications, presented at academic, regional and industry conferences and is a member of the American Anthropological Association and the Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Community. Currently, she is interested in the role that social scientists play in exercising ethics, accountability, and data rights in the deployment of commercial cyber-physical systems.

Cybernetic thinking for a new world:
This series of cybernetic musings marks National Science Week 2022 and is co-presented by the ANU School of Cybernetics.

Join us during National Science Week this August to discover how repurposing cybernetics for the 21st century might help us better understand our present moment in all its complexity, helping us think differently, ask critical questions, make meaningful change and shape the futures we want to see.

The details

What: Science Week with the ANU School of Cybernetics: The Library and AI
When: Tuesday, 16 August 2022, 6 pm to 7 pm
Where: The National Library of Australia and livestreamed on the Library’s Facebook page.
Cost: Free. Bookings essential. No bookings are required to watch the online stream.

Daily Digest

Want the best Canberra news delivered daily? Every day we package the most popular Riotact stories and send them straight to your inbox. Sign-up now for trusted local news that will never be behind a paywall.

By submitting your email address you are agreeing to Region Group's terms and conditions and privacy policy.