Talk about The Algorithms that we live by: using case studies to understand artificial 
intelligence

Yesterday I had the privilege to talk at the AI-days at Umeå university. The talk was based on conversations with Jonny Holmström and Informatics. In the preparation for the talk it struck me how important this topic is for extreme contexts too. We are all too familiar with the fact that AI is transforming society as we know it since it is sneaking into every aspect of our lives (even those that we do not realize). But, more importantly, for extreme contexts it is highly relevant because AI is the basis for i.e. weather predictions (when a black marker is not involved), influencing voters and creating an increased polarization in society – to name but two examples.

The point of the talk is that there is little new and exciting about AI. It has been around for ages. But, it is indeed influencing our behaviors and we need to understand how. To be able to do this we need to start where we always should start: Humans and human behavior. One way is to have more nitty-gritty detailed case studies (and context sensitive methodologies).