Friday, 16 December
EMERGE 2022: International Conference on Digital Society Now

08:50-09.00 Opening Words

9:00-9:45 Keynote Lecture: News and Political Information in the Digital Society – The Role of Human and Algorithmic Feedback Loops

10:00-11:00 Panel Discussion: Democracy & Technology: Bringing Deliberation to the Mass Public

Ceri Davies, Centre for Deliberative Research, NatCen
Suzanne Hall, Policy Institute, King’s College London
Alice Siu, Deliberative Democracy Lab, Stanford University
Irena Fiket, IFDT, University of Belgrade, moderator

11:00-11:30 Coffee break

Parallel scientific Sessions, Dorcol Platz, Room 1/2

11:30–12:45 AI and Society / Online Political Communication
12:45–13:45 Standing Buffet
13:45–15:00 Digital Democracy / Techno-Narratives
15:00–15:15 Coffee Break
15:15–16:30 Cyber order / Postdigital Art and Culture
16:30–16:45 Coffee Break
16:45–18:00 AI in Practice / New Realities

See Detailed Conference Agenda

19:00-21:00 Conference Dinner
Smokvica Restaurant (45a Gospodar Jovanova St.)

Saturday, 17 December
EMERGE 2022: Forum on the Future of AI driven Humanity

08:50-09:00 Opening Words

09:00-09:45 Keynote Lecture: Echo Chambers and Polarization in Online Social Media

10:00-10:45 Echo Chambers as a Threat to Democracy

11:00-11:10 Presentation: What on Earth is Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence? A Quick Tour of ML, AI and Data Science

11:10 -11:30 Presentation: Understanding MetaHumans as a Virtual Identity Standard

11:45-12:30 How can We Build Ethical AI? Experiences from the Work Group and Beyond

13:00-13:10 Presentation: Data HighWay for Researchers

13:10 -13:20 Presentation: Computational Social Sciences and Digital Skills (For Development?)

13:30-14:15 The Prospects of Metaverse

14:15-15:00 Standing Buffet

19:00-20:30 Conference Dinner
Smokvica Restaurant (45a Gospodar Jovanova St.)

21:00 Exhibition & Party (N.eon Gallery, 10 Crnogorska St., Belgrade)
AI-Generated Art: Is a Swarm of Bees Happy? Should We Create a Future for Humans or Machines? [Artworks, Catalogue]

Sunday, 18 December
EMERGE 2022: Forum on the Future of AI driven Humanity

10:00-10:45 Keynote lecture: The End of Privacy

11:00-11:10 Presentation: The AI Institute of Serbia

13:10-13.20 Presentation: Digital Transformation of Agriculture Using AI and Robotics

11:20-11.30
Video Addresses:
Teresa Ribeiro, The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media
Jan Braathu, Head of the OSCE Mission to Serbia

Brankica Jankovic, The Commissioner for Protection of Equality, Republic of Serbia

Signing of the Belgrade Digital Freedom Plegde

12:00-12:45 Human Rights and Democracy in the Digital Sphere

13:00-13:10 Presentation: How Telegram is contributing to disinformation related to the war in Ukraine

Walid Al-Saqaf, Södertörn University

13:10-13:20 Presentation: New Technologies and Forced Migration

13:30-14:15 Winners and Losers in the Brave New World of Digitalized Work

Aleksandra Kanjuo Mrčela, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Social Sciences
Andrej Kohont, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Social Sciences
Miroljub Ignjatović, University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Social Sciences
Tej Gonza, University of Ljubljana
Branka Anđelković, Public Policy Research Center, moderator

14:15 – 15:00 Conference Closing and Standing Buffet

EMERGE is an annual event organised by the Digital Society Lab of the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade. Its goal is to connect actors from the tech industry, policy makers, and academic researchers in discussing the social and economic impact of emerging technologies. EMERGE 2022 will consist of the EMERGE Forum on The Future of AI driven Humanity and the International Scientific Conference on Digital Society Now. It will take place in Belgrade, Serbia and online, 16–18 December.

We invite scholars from diverse fields to evaluate the risks, benefits, and potential outcomes of emerging technologies and to critically examine the ways these technologies affect and shape societies. We welcome submissions examining different aspects of emerging technologies from the perspective of specific disciplines as well as interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and multidisciplinary approaches to the topic.

Emerging technologies have brought about ground-breaking changes to societies across the globe. Leading global regulators are struggling to keep up with technological development and impose new rules and regulations. Our choices and habits, personal freedoms, human rights, and power relations are being fundamentally transformed through our constant interaction with and reliance on technology. The development of autonomous vehicles, military drones, and other types of AI systems opens up significant questions in the domains of ethics and law.

In interacting with media such as news content, ads, and search engine results, citizens are exposed to algorithmic decisions by AI-based recommendation systems on an individual level and are subjected to echo chambers, misinformation, and personal data misuse by big tech and third parties. Freedom of speech and regulation of social media have been the battlefields of leading global tech corporations.

New markets are constantly being opened by the creative industry sector propelled by the evolution of digital technologies. This has become a sector of strategic importance. New apps are being developed on multiple platforms, offering additional functionalities and transforming the needs and habits of digital consumers. The fusion of creativity, art, advertising, and start-up culture has become a driving force of creative economy growth across the world.

Immersive virtual spaces are being introduced under the umbrella term Metaverse designated as an open and shared sum of all virtual reality spaces (worlds). The shift to the virtual realm has been significantly accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and military conflicts around the world. Major corporations are investing billions to create a new market that will transport our daily activities, such as shopping, work, leisure, entertainment, and socialization, into the virtual realm.

Beyond its use in cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology has promising potential in handling misinformation and fake news and therefore could serve the purpose of regaining trust in online news media. At the same time, blockchain technology has a very significant environmental impact, it is vulnerable to cyberattacks, and any information stored on it (including, for example, child pornography) cannot be corrected or erased.

The fast pace of technological development is followed by the development of posthumanist concepts, shedding light on implants, cognitive enhancement, bio-hacking, and other emergent technologies. EMERGE 2022 seeks both specific and broad perspectives on current technological advancements. As Nick Montfort wrote in his exploration of the concept of the future, our goal should be consciously trying to contribute to future-making rather than anticipating and predicting the future.

The topics of EMERGE 2022

  • AI technology (the ethics and implications of machine learning algorithms, the impact of AI on the future of societies, quantum computing, non-human agency)
  • The question of creativity in digital society (creative industries, the future of art and culture, machine creativity)
  • Virtual and augmented reality from philosophical and theoretical perspectives (tool or media, real virtuality, ubiquitous technologies, pervasive content)
  • Journalism and emerging technologies (citizen journalism, fake news and post-truth discourse, blockchain, AI automated fact checking)
  • Users and emerging technologies (digital citizens, privacy, activism, democratic processes, the digital divide, addictions, data monetisation, the impact of health tech, autonomous vehicles and IoT)
  • Metaverse (cognitive load, the Brain-Computer Interface, interoperability, NFTs, digital twins)
  • Cyber order (hybrid warfare, cyber security, surveillance and biometrics, Internet governance, digital capitalism)  
  • The societal impact of blockchain (NFTs, the ecological impact of blockchain tech, cryptocurrencies, security)
  • The new normal or a new vision for society (the Covid-19 pandemic, human rights, Universal basic income technologies, attention economy, the (anti)sociality of social media, space technology, posthumanism)
  • Techno-narratives (postdigital, science fiction as social reality, dystopia, film/literature/art, futurism, human – nonhuman relations)
  • Posthumanism (trans/post/meta-humanism, post-nature, non-human cultures and communities, religious context, anthropocene)