Logo: to the web site of Uppsala University

Although optimization and dematerialization through digitalization are regarded as key drivers of sustainable development, these practices often entail and rely on technological acceleration that produces rebound effects that may offset some of their sustainability-related benefits. In the EU and beyond, (circular economy) policies aim to mitigate environmental strain (waste, resource scarcity, energy consumption) from the production and consumption of technological devices by decoupling economic and technological growth from environmental harm. Several of these mention repair as a key practice. Drawing on Hartmut Rosa, we have in a previous publication concluded that while repair practices can function as a form of inertia (resistance to acceleration), contemporary policies that aim to promote repair for circular economy purposes rather assume and rely on technological acceleration. While such policies might promote more sustainable use of technological devices, they do not counteract the social side-effects of acceleration, namely alienation, understood as a distortion to our way of relating to the world, characterized by a feeling of being “out of sync.” Using Rosa’s concept of resonance, we developed a theoretical framework for understanding how repair can counteract alienation and produce resonant relations with other human beings and things. In this paper, we aim to utilize said framework to analyze empirical material gathered from interviews and participatory observation at Repair Cafés in Sweden to explore how such spaces can foster resonance amidst acceleration. The study focuses on the axes of resonance that emerge in such spaces, and how Repair Cafés can be designed to promote resonant relations.

This chapter is a scholarly play in four acts. It is inspired by a series of discussions between three legal researchers (Van Dijk, Epstein and De Vries) and a cultural theorist (Goriunova), about proposals to grant legal personhood to two types of non-human entities: nature and artificial intelligence. We queried whether doing so would help meet challenges such as environmental catastrophes and co-existence with opaque and unpredictable AI systems. In Act I (Divergences) Law and Critical Theory present their respective positions, but fail to gain any understanding of each other. Law defends a neutral legal pragmatism, while critical theory debunks all claims to neutrality. Act II and Act III present two fictional narratives: one plays out in a courtroom where a man is suspected of the murder of a river (Act II) and the other features an AI-system addressing the European Parliament (Act III). By discussing these counterfactual narratives in Act IV (Convergences), Law and Critical Theory are, at least partially, able to see how there could be cross-fertilization between their respective positions: one has to take into consideration how legal personhood operates both inside the court room as well as how it impacts the world outside; and one can travel towards an “enlarged pragmatism” that focuses on the possibilities of masks, fiction and play in expressing different voices, perspectives and ontologies.

To which extent do public agencies have to be transparent about algorithmic profiling tools used to combat social welfare fraud and to which extent can they reject transparency requests based on the argument that citizens might ‘game the system’ (GTS)? Or, to phrase the same question in constitutional terms: to which extent is algorithmic Leviathan to be constrained by various transparency rights? In this article I propose a model of communicating vessels of transparency rights, where the Rule of Law (RoL) acts as a common denominator – or connecting tube. I discuss transparency rights following from administrative law (right to a reasoned decision and party access), the rights for meaningful information from the GDPR and AI Act, regulatory oversight and freedom of information (FOI) law. First, I juxtapose individually oriented transparency rights (right to a reasoned decision, party access, right to meaningful information) with those directed towards the public at large (oversight and FOI). Second, I discuss what FOI law requires from public agencies in terms of transparency, by discussing a Danish, Swedish and Dutch case where journalists requested FOI access to fraud combatting algorithms. While each of these jurisdictions has a possibility for secrecy based on the need to prevent GTS, the reach of this secrecy differs depending on which approach is followed in terms of assessing harm: pure harm (Denmark), harm with a presumption of publicity or secrecy (Sweden) or a balance of interests (The Netherlands). Different conceptualizations of harm can impact on the functioning of these communicating vessels of transparency. Third, I show how the communicating vessel model can help to strengthen algorithmic transparency, and to avoid that the transparency ambitions of the AI Act get lost in complexity.

Technological advancements in deep learning for speech and voice have contributed to a recent expansion in applications for voice cloning, synthesis and generation. Invisibilised stakeholders in this expansion are numerous absent bodies, whose voices and voice data have been integral to the development and refinement of these speech technologies. This position paper probes current working practices for voice and speech in machine learning and AI, in which the bodies of voices are "invisibilised". We examine the facts and concerns about the voice-Body in applications of AI-voice technology. We do this through probing the wider connections between voice data and Schaefferian listening; speculating on the consequences of missing Bodies in AI-Voice; and by examining how vocalists and artists working with synthetic Bodies and AI-voices are 'bringing the Body back' in their own practices. We contribute with a series of considerations for how practitioners and researchers may help to 'bring the Body back' into AI-voice technologies.

Artificially generated informational outputs of generative ML models are called synthetic. Synthetic data is output that has analytic value for research or AI-model creation. Synthetic media is informational output that is consumed as content. Synthetic data are believed to be a promising solution to overcoming privacy, data scarcity and bias concerns. The value of synthetic data in relation to these problems depends on the context. Synthetic media come in three categories: lawful, ‘lawful but awful,’ and illegal. Synthetic content can be regulated in legal or technical ways, or through human content verification.

When juxtaposed with my own research the more recent writings of Serge Gutwirth are in their content and themes both familiar and radically surprising. I illustrate this with two legal questions from my own recent work. First, if granting legal personhood to non-humans, more specifically AI systems and natural entities (rivers, trees, etc.), makes any sense. Secondly, how to conceptually and legally analyze what is happening now that the EU is in the process of creating sectoral Common European Data Spaces plus general infrastructures to facilitate data-sharing in the EU. With regard to both legal questions, juxtaposing them with Serge’s recent writings on legal personality and the commons has challenged me to think more profoundly. Before I dive into these legal questions of personhood (section 2) and European sectoral common data spaces (section 4), I first give some basic socio-philosophical pointers about how multiplicity can be brought together under a common denominator in a semiotic togetherness (section 1) and how sometimes a particular “physical” togetherness is required to avoid overuse of resources, that is, a self-organization called “commoning” (section 3). The legal and the socio-philosophical are then related: in section 2 I relate semiotic togetherness to legal personhood, in section 4 I explore the potential relations between commoning and the European data spaces. Finally, in section 5, all parts come together in the question if there are data commons that both build on a specific form of “physical” self-organized togetherness (that is, commoning), as well as on the semiotic togetherness of legal personhood.