HUMAN+ Towards expertise in enhanced human/technology experience

ended

Rapid developments in information technology in the past three decades have opened up new, unfamiliar frontiers in all areas of society: culture and media, politics and security, health and wellbeing. Big data and machine learning are transforming our experience of social interaction, identity, governance, entertainment, journalism, privacy, and, through artificial intelligence (AI), what it means to be human. There are increasing calls for human-centric approaches to critical questions concerning this rapid expansion of adaptive technologies and their impact on the nature and future of humanity. Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, will address this need through HUMAN+, which will connect computer science researchers with arts and humanities researchers and enterprise to forge a human-centric approach to technological development. HUMAN+ will recruit 18 experienced researchers over 2 calls, each for a duration of two years. It will invite research proposals addressing one of two broad strands: (a) questions that consider technological developments from the humanistic perspective (b) proposals to develop technology with insights informed by the arts and humanities. Through multidisciplinary supervision, industry participation by way of workshops and mandatory secondments, HUMAN+ fellows will gain inter-sectoral experience contributing to their capacity to tackle societal challenges relating to the areas outlined above. Non-academic partners involved in the programme include Nokia Bell Labs, Accenture Human Insight Lab, EPIC- the Irish Emigration Museum, Fidelity and Ancestry.com. As part of the fellows’ training, HUMAN+ will participate in a ‘Future Lab’ which will bring the fellows together to test, learn, invent and build solutions in response to problems set by our industry leader partners. HUMAN+ is jointly developed by the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts & Humanities Research Institute and ADAPT, Science Foundation Ireland Centre for Digital Content Innovation.,