AI as Disinformation Engine:
Exploring the Deep Fake/State

Instructor: Tony Yanick Date & Time: Saturdays June 12, 19, 26, July 10 14:00 to 16:30 ET

Enroll – 200 USD

DESCRIPTION: In less than half a decade the world has witnessed the rise of the synthetic media: the deepfake, near human-level generation of text, image/video, speech, and music generation. Last year reached a critical mass of generational apophenia and growing fears of deceptive fictions: techno-aesthetic fakery as a political tool. Is AI remaking the world (without us)?

This will be the paradigm we will approach in nondisciplinary manner: part Computational Epistemology, part Computer Science, and a practical lab component in which we will experiment with state-of-the-art models in operation. The course does not require any specific background, all disciplines are welcome as this technology is pervasive and its influence complex.

The format of this course will be separated into seminar/lab/debriefing groups. Much of the course will be in a group discussion online with the instructor and invited experts. The seminar sessions aim to provide the proper context of each coding lab session. The reading for the course will be diverse: from reading computer science articles, exploring audio-visual archives, as well as technical documentation and developer tutorials. Each reading will prepare you for the labs where we collectively break into the black-boxes of machine learning models. The debriefing sections include writing responses, sharing with the group, and contributing to collective documentation. ‘Lab’ sessions will be offered. The skillsets of each participant will determine the pace of these sessions and what we can accomplish. We will provide the basic knowledge of training model-based machine learning (model architecture, custom datasets, fine-tuning hyper-parameters). The focus will be on more recent approaches like Generative Adversarial Networks (Deep Dream / GAN) and Reinforcement Learning (OpenAI / World Models) will be the focus. We encourage the participation of those with no coding experience. A genuine interest in the technology is the only requirement. There will be step-by-step tutorials to get everyone through. Coders also welcome (difficulty adjustable). Synthetic media is an emerging challenge at speed and scale. It seeps into all of our lives; literacy and agency are (if not, will be) imperative and they will meta-theoretically construct the core tenants of the paths as we foray into the world of generative aesthetics.

IMAGE: Wired Magazine, 2019

To see The New Centre Refund Policy CLICK HERE.

Enroll – 200 USD