Digital cultures researcher demystifies AI

IGS teachers were treated to an eye-opening professional development session on Artificial Intelligence by Dr Marcus Carter.

A researcher at the University of Sydney, Dr Carter has an exciting background in digital cultures, especially Game Studies, completing his a PhD in the Interaction Design Lab at The University of Melbourne in 2015, studying the design and player experience of the game EVE Online.

Dr Carter has published extensively in game studies, on a range of titles such as EVE Online, DayZ, Candy Crush Saga, Warhammer 40,000 and the reality TV series Survivor.

He is previously the President of the Digital Games Research Association of Australia, and was named one of MCV Pacific’s “30 under 30” in the Australian and New Zealand games industry in 2017.

“Dr Carter helped IGS staff to navigate the state of play for AI technology, how it works and what it uses to make decisions, as well as showing staff some AI writing applications that could profoundly impact the way essays are written and fiction generated,” said Head of English and Philosophy Thom Marchbank.

“Dr Carter was honest about the possibilities as well as the pitfalls of the technology.”

“AI is not virtual. It is irreducibly material. And it is not intelligent. It requires hours and hours of tedious human labour to provide it with the data sets that it uses to make judgments,” Dr Carter said at the event.

IGS staff were left with much to think about for how this fast-moving technology can augment their teaching.

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