2025 marks an inflection point in our technological landscape, driven by seismic shifts in AI innovation.
Who’s Afraid of AI? Arts, Science, and the Futures of Intelligence is a week-long inquiry into the implications and future directions of AI for our creative and collective imaginings, and the many possible futures of intelligence. The complexity of these immediate future calls for interdisciplinary dialogue, bringing together artists, AI researchers, and humanities scholars.
In this volatile domain, the question of who envisions our futures is vital. Artists explore with complexity and humanity, while the humanities reveal the histories of intelligence and the often-overlooked ways knowledge and decision-making have been shaped. By placing these voices in dialogue with AI researchers and technologists, Who’s Afraid of AI? examines the social dimensions of technology, questions tech solutionism from a social-impact perspective, and challenges profit-driven AI with innovation guided by public values.
Mind the World
Thursday, October 23, 2025
Suzanne Kite – Director, The Wihanble S’a Center for Indigenous AI
James DiCarlo – Director, MIT Quest for Intelligence
N. Katherine Hayles – James B. Duke Distinguished Professor Emerita of Literature
Moderator: Matt Ratto – Associate Dean, Research and Professor in the Faculty of Information, U of T
What are the merits and limits of artificial intelligence within the larger debate on embodiment? This session brings together an artist who has given AI a physical dimension, a neuroscientist who reckons with the biological neural networks inspiring AI, and a humanist knowledgeable of the longer history in which the human has tried to decouple itself from its bodily needs and wants.
Staging AI
Thursday, October 23, 2025
Kay Voges – Artistic Director, Schauspiel Köln
Roland Schimmelpfennig – Playwright and Director, Berlin
Hito Steyerl – Artist, Filmmaker and Writer, Berlin
Moderator: Brendan Healy, Artistic Director of Canadian Stage
How is AI changing the arts? To answer this question, we bring together theatre directors and artists who have made AI the main driving plot of their stories and those who opted to keep technology secondary in their productions.
Recognizing ‘Noise’
Thursday, October 23, 2025
Marco Donnarumma – Artist, Inventor, Theorist, Berlin
Jutta Treviranus – Director, OCAD University, Inclusive Design Research Centre
Eryk Salvaggio – Media Artist and Tech Policy Press Fellow, Rochester
Moderator: Avery Slater – Associate professor of English at the University of Toronto
Life with AI
Thursday, October 24, 2025
Jeanette Winterson – Author, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Great Britain
Leif Weatherby – Professor of German and Director of Digital Theory Lab at New York University
Jennifer Nagel – Professor, Philosophy, University of Toronto Mississauga
Moderator: Nora Young – senior technology reporter with CBC News
Social history & Possible Futures
Thursday, October 24, 2025
Memo Akten – Artist working with Code, Data and AI, UC San Diego
Beth Coleman – Professor, Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology, U of T
Matteo Pasquinelli – Professor, Philosophy and Cultural Heritage Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia
Moderator: Karina Vold – assistant professor at the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, U of T
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