Center for the Future of AI, Mind & Society

Sensing and Surveillance Initiative, FAU's Center for the Future of AI, Mind & Society

Autonomous weapons systems, artificial intelligence (AI)-based personal assistants like Siri and Alexa and biosensors on digital devices — these technologies involve explicit, subtle or even concealed surveillance and sensing capabilities. Technologically mediated sensing can be traced through histories of representation, from geographical surveys and the development of radar to medical technologies like the X-ray, and to aesthetic practices such as photography and even painting. However, through contemporary AI-driven technologies, sensing and surveillance practices generate increasingly complex and shifting ways of representing and knowing the world, tracking phenomena from the life signs that make up the human body, to the ways humans and automobiles navigate city streets, and even geophysical shifts in the Earth's surfaces. Such technologies raise significant questions about the ways humans understand and live their daily lives and how the impacts of these technologies are geographically, socially and politically dispersed. For instance, how does consumer-driven data collection feed into and augment technologies of state surveillance? How might technologies that produce feelings of security for some produce conditions of insecurity and harm for others? And how do humans living with these technologies use them to fuel creative practices, new ways of connecting with each other and the world, and to political ends? The Sensing and Surveillance research initiative within the FAU's Center for the Future of AI, Mind & Society will explore the social impacts of AI-driven surveillance and sensing technologies through both public engagement and cutting-edge research. This initiative brings together scholars, scientists, activists and artists (see team) to address pressing questions surrounding surveillance and sensing technologies, in order to expand the public and academic dialogue about how humans live with and in relation to AI-driven technologization.

Sensing and Surveillance Initiative Members

Daniel Bolojan, School of Architecture, FAU Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters

Nico Cassanetti, instructor of English in the FAU Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters

Katherine Fehr Chandler, Ph.D., assistant professor at Georgetown University

Chad Forbes, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology in the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science and FAU's Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute.

Madeline García, graduate student in the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters

Daniel Gonzalez, Ph.D., Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Carol Gould, Ph.D., philosophy, FAU Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters

Jason Hallstrom, Ph.D., FAU College of Engineering and Computer Science and executive director of FAU's Institute for Sensing and Embedded Network Systems Engineering.

Derrick Huang, Ph.D., College of Business, FAU

Hari Kalva, Ph.D., FAU College of Engineering and Computer Science

Oge Marques, Ph.D., FAU College of Engineering and Computer Science

Andrea Miller, Ph.D., School of Communication and Multimedia Studies, FAU Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters

Nicole Morse, Ph.D., School of Communication and Multimedia Studies, FAU Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters

Mehrdad Nojoumian, Ph.D., Privacy, Security and Trust in Autonomy Lab, FAU College of Engineering and Computer Science

Chris Robé, Ph.D., School of Communication and Multimedia Studies, FAU Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters

Dawn Rothe, Ph.D., FAU College of Social Work and Criminal Justice

Susan Schneider, Ph.D., philosophy, FAU Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, and FAU's Center for the Future of AI, Mind & Society

Gerald Sim, Ph.D., School of Communication and Multimedia Studies, FAU Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters

Anthony Stagliano, Ph.D., English, FAU Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters

Mark Tunick, Ph.D., political science, FAU Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College