From Big Data to Robotics: at Suor Orsola a series of conferences to analyze the evolution of new technologies through the suggestions of stories, books, films.
From Big Data to robotics. From hypertext to artificial intelligence. The Department of Humanities at the Suor Orsola Benincasa University of Naples has created a series of conferences with the aim of “Understanding digital” through humanistic study tools: literature, cinema and 'stories', such as that of Google's success or that of Ted Nelson, the inventor of hypertext.
The great peculiarity of these reflections promoted by the Suor Orsola Benincasa University is undoubtedly constituted by the humanistic tools of investigation applied to the understanding of the digital revolution. To analyze Big Data (and why they are scary), the history of hypertext, the concept of cyber-democracy, the figure of the hacker, cyber-punk literature, the history of the Web (in versions 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0, as well as the Semantic Web project), the Metaverse, social media, Artificial Intelligence and its enormous implications, those literary and cinematographic works will also be taken into consideration that, by stimulating reflection, have given substance to the complex imaginary connected to the Digital among the general public. Think of novels such as Neuromancer by William Gibson, The Broken Matrix by Bruce Sterling, Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, The Circle and The Every by Dave Eggers and Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan or films such as eXistenZ by David Cronenberg, Matrix by Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski, Ex Machina by Alex Garland, Her by Spike Jonze and TV series such as Black Mirror.
“The digital revolution – highlights Stefano De Luca, president of the Master's Degree in Modern Languages for Communication and International Cooperation at Suor Orsola and scientific coordinator of the initiative – is the main transformative force of our time. Since it exploded, that is, in the second half of the nineties, when the Web popularized the use of the Internet, giving life to social networks and creating the conditions for the formation of Big Data (which, in turn, gave an extraordinary boost to Artificial Intelligence), the digital revolution has changed the face of the world and the way we relate to it”.
Here, right at Suor Orsola, where there has been for years greatFrom the focus on the integration between humanistic knowledge and the opportunities offered by new technologies (from the PhD in Humanities and Technologies to the Master's degree in Digital Humanities) the idea of a series of conferences was born to shed light on some of the essential characteristics of the digital revolution, to help better understand its devices, mechanisms, risks and opportunities. “The initiative – explains De Luca – is aimed primarily at students, in order to enrich the knowledge and level of awareness offered by the university education path. In addition to students (and teachers themselves), the initiative is aimed at citizens as a whole, in order to disseminate knowledge and awareness of processes that increasingly affect our lives. It is therefore an initiative under the banner of public engagement, aimed at offering the University's contribution to digital citizenship education".
After the May preview dedicated to Big Data (already available on demand on www.youtube.com/unisobna) the conference series will kick off on Thursday 1 June at 10.30:27 in the Pagliara Library of Suor Orsola (also streaming on Google Meet and live on social media on www.facebook.com/unisob) with the meeting dedicated to the history of hypertext. The lecturer will be cyber-culture expert Francesco Romano Fraioli. Then on 12 September with Quirino Picone, professor of Web marketing at the Suor Orsola Benincasa University, we will talk about the success story of Google and on XNUMX October with Lucilla Gatt, director of the Research Centre of European Private Law of Suor Orsola, we will discuss “Robots and love: at the frontier of lovotics” (full program of meetings on www.unisob.na.it/eventi).
“Despite the fact that Digital is one of the key concepts of our time, despite its pervasive presence and the great deal of talk about it – concludes Stefano De Luca – most people continue to have a vague, approximate and substantially inadequate knowledge of it. But knowing digital, which shapes our present and our future, is essential to use it consciously, to govern it and not be governed by it. This is why universities must also and above all promote this indispensable process of better understanding”.
Info and program: www.unisob.na.it/eventi
Article published on May 31, 2023 - 16:00 pm
