Info about event

Time

Monday 11 May 2026, at 11:00 - 12:00

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Location

AIAS, building 1630, room 301

Photo: Gertraud Isabel Koch, AIAS Visiting Fellow from University of Hamburg, Germany

By AIAS

Abstract

Large language models are widely used in digital applications such as for translation or content generation. However, they reproduce and perpetuate colonial traditions through the knowledge they represent and the way they model languages. The transdisciplinary project explores ways to overcome colonial trajectories in language technology. This includes re-thinking and re-designing large language models as a specific approach to language technology, developing concepts for data justice and investigating cultural economies of language data.

Short Bio

Gertraud Koch is professor of Cultural Anthropology at University of Hamburg and studies AI as a cultural fact since the 1990ies, through theoretical lenses of anthropology of technology, critical data studies, digital humanities, and design anthropology. As Vice-Chairperson of the Expert Comittee „Intangible Cultural Heritage“ of the German Commission for UNESCO, she has supported the implementation of the 2003 Convention in Germany. In the POEM project she explored collaborative and transformative research approaches in heritage making and PhD education (www.poem-horizon.eu).

What is an AIAS Seminar?

The AIAS Seminar Series is a session of seminars held by the AIAS fellows, AIAS Visiting or Tandem Fellows or by other speakers proposed by the fellows. In each seminar, a fellow will present and discuss her/his current research and work-in-progress to an interdisciplinary audience for 30 minutes, closing off with 30 minutes for questions, comments and discussion.