The research group on artificial intelligence and media philosophy KIM (from German: Künstliche Intelligenz und Medienphilosophie) was founded at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design in June 2018 with the purpose to study the impact of AI on society, culture and the arts and to foster the field of critical AI studies. Its mission also embraces the study of alternative epistemologies and pedagogies beyond the technologies for the automation of labour and knowledge.
While it has emerged as a hegemonic paradigm for the automation of complex cognitive tasks (from self-driving vehicles to text translation, from music composition to market forecasting), a critical, ethical and socially-engaged approach to AI has been often missing in university curricula. In the face of the rapid rise of AI industries, the humanities and critical theory should take on the role of exploring the limits of these technologies and questioning urgently their growing influence on the normalisation of knowledge production and collective behaviour.
The KIM logo has been designed by students Barbara Acevedo Strange and Simon Knebl using machine learning analysis of traditional fonts.