Technology has long been haunted by the presence of “ghosts” — echoes of the past that are summoned into our everyday rituals. Some, like online memorials, are understood and welcome. Others can be surprising, the results of lingering data, ethereal use cases, and abandoned user accounts.
With the proliferation of generative AI (and AI-based agents more generally), the presence of our ghosts will only grow. But ghosts don’t have to be malicious poltergeists. In this talk, we will explore the potential benefits of ghosts and how generative AI can enable new relationships with the past.
This talk is intentionally speculative and will be interactive. Come and learn about the ghosts of computing’s past, and imagine what our (friendly!) ghosts of the future could look like.
This event is hosted by the School of Computing and Information Systems.
A/Prof. Jed Brubaker
Associate Professor and Director of the Identity Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder
Associate Professor Jed Brubaker is a human-computer interaction scholar who studies how our identities are designed, represented and experienced through technology. He is the director of the Identity Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he has conducted research at the intersection of technology and mortality, with a specific focus on digital legacy, memorialization, and the role technology plays in how we are remembered after we die.
Brubaker is wrapping up a semester-long visit here in Melbourne where he has been doing research on AI and the afterlife. During this time he has fallen in love with magics, PTV, your theaters and galleries, and the Otways. Australian footie remains confusing.
