About the event
This lecture examines the critical role of “Big AI,” the structural convergence of AI and major technology conglomerates, in driving AI’s development and deployment.
We examine how Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are transforming AI into a platform-based model through their cloud infrastructure, investments, and partnerships. This lecture will demonstrate how these companies are “convening" diverse actors to build out their visions of AI and create AI ecosystems across social, cultural, and economic sectors.
We explore the consequences of this “Big AI” model through specific examples, including the platformization and role of AI in education, the military, and arts and culture, featuring Big Tech's “AI for good” programs in cultural heritage. This analysis highlights how Big Tech's control over AI infrastructure influences diverse sectors and raises critical questions about the power dynamics and societal implications of AI’s future.
The event is free and open to everyone. Welcome.
Speaker Bio
Anne Helmond is Associate Professor of Media, Data & Society at Utrecht University. She is co-director (with Prof. José van Dijck) of the focus area ‘Governing the Digital Society,’ examining the processes of platformization, algorithmization, and datafication from an empirical and historical perspective. Her work emphasizes the material and programmable (data) infrastructures that underpin these processes.