DataX and NNAI Livescu Introduce Everyday AI Seminar Series
DataX has partnered with the Livescu Initiative on Neuro, Narrative & AI (NNAI) to launch Everyday AI, a new seminar series designed to support faculty, students, and researchers navigating the complex field of AI. The first event in November drew an exuberant crowd and set the stage for ongoing interdisciplinary engagement across campus.
UCLA is home to many faculty-led centers and projects that reside at the intersection of data, ethics, and traditional disciplines. DataX exists in part to connect these initiatives—to create new conversations and enrich the quality of learning and research by making visible the wide range of approaches and perspectives in UCLA’s data-centric community. The more we learn from each other, the more expansive and effective our impact on society can be.
As a facilitator of interdisciplinary activity, DataX welcomes partnerships with efforts like NNAI at UCLA. NNAI is a multiyear seminar, symposium, and research-generation initiative focused on the intersections of human and other-than-human thinking. Led by Professor Christopher Kelty and supported by the Livescu Foundation, NNAI is housed within the Institute for Society and Genetics (ISG) and the Division of Life Sciences.
Ultimately a project about “thinking about thinking,” NNAI began when Simona Livescu (Ph.D. ’13) expressed interest in ISG’s work and supported humanities-led approaches to “change the conversation” about artificial intelligence, neuroenhancement, consciousness, and related issues. “The ultimate goal is to promote humanities-led research that brings scholars across disciplines into conversation with each other,” said Kelty, “and pushes forward questions in fields like the history and philosophy of AI or neuroscience, political theory of AI, and the intersection of literature, poetry, art, or performance with AI and neuroscience.”
Everyday AI
Designed for people who are fumbling with AI as well as those who have effortlessly integrated it into their lives, Everyday AI enables small groups to share experiences, demonstrate tools, and discuss—and, perhaps, even solve—pressing problems about the myriad uses of AI across campus.
“The first event was an extraordinary success,” said DataX Director Chris Johanson. “It gave faculty and graduate students a neutral space to discuss actual AI workflows, share concerns, and develop a plan of action,” he said.
Johanson, who is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Classics, believes that the event also served as a model for DataX collaboration and affiliation. “Chris Kelty and NNAI have developed programming that cuts across campus and disciplinary boundaries,” he added. “For faculty and programs like this, DataX is constructed to serve as a force multiplier.”
The shared focus on interdisciplinarity makes NNAI and DataX natural collaborators and allies in strengthening UCLA’s research ecosystem. “I am hopeful that the cross-campus remit of DataX gives us a way to make interesting, provocative, or surprising connections between different faculty or students doing research in these areas,” said Kelty.
