About the event

On June 12th we were delighted to host a lecture by  by Prof. Noa Garcia (University of Osaka), visiting scholar at DVS.

the event was co-organized with the Community AI, Society and Culture, part of the
UZH Digital Society Initiative

Abstract

Critical Foundations of Visual Systems introduces a research agenda to invert the default assumptions of computer vision: rather than optimizing accuracy first and addressing potential harm later, we start from the premise that computer vision systems should not cause harm, and pursue fundamental technical research within that constraint. We will present three datasets for computer vision for art—semantic understanding, question answering, and instance recognition—all fundamental computer vision applications applied to the domain of art and culture. After that, we will discuss the weaponization of computer vision, uncovering the invisible ties between the field and its downstream military and surveillance applications, and arguing that changing these outcomes requires changing the defaults of the field itself.