Registration
Accommodation Information for AI & Disability Justice Symposium Participants
We are pleased to announce that we have reserved a block of rooms for symposium participants at the Executive Learning Centre at the Schulich School of Business, York University. The rooms are at a preferential rate of CAD 186 per night + 13%HST tax (room only) based on single occupancy. Double occupancy fee is $20.
To reserve your room at this preferential rate:
Please make your reservation by October 15th, 2024. After this date, any unused rooms will be released back into the hotel's general inventory.
When making your reservation, please provide:
We look forward to seeing you at the symposium!
To reserve your room at this preferential rate:
- Email: [email protected]
- or Phone: 416-650-8300
- Block ID: 763361
- Block Name: AI & Disability Justice Symposium
Please make your reservation by October 15th, 2024. After this date, any unused rooms will be released back into the hotel's general inventory.
When making your reservation, please provide:
- Your name
- Arrival and departure dates
- Credit card information (number and expiry date)
- Email address
- Phone number
We look forward to seeing you at the symposium!
The First AI & Disability Justice Symposium
Call for Abstracts
Towards an Accessible Inclusive Artificial Intelligence (AI2)
Funded by SSHRC Knowledge Synthesis project
Symposium Dates: November 14-15, 2024
Location: York University, Toronto
Call for Abstract closing date: July 20, 2024
Funded by SSHRC Knowledge Synthesis project
Symposium Dates: November 14-15, 2024
Location: York University, Toronto
Call for Abstract closing date: July 20, 2024
Symposium Planning Committee:
Dr. Christo El Morr, Dr. Yahya El-Lahib, Dr. Rachel Gorman; Maimuna Khan, Sabine Fernandes, Sarah Taleghani, Habiba Rahman.
BackgroundIn recent years, we have been witnessing an increased reliance on Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies without any consideration of their impacts on many marginalized social groups, including people with disabilities. AI systems have been promoted as efficient, effective, and productive computing systems that have the potential to advance many areas (e.g., health, education, economy) and support human everyday realities. Yet, many scholars have cautioned against how AI systems have been utilized to maintain dominant power dynamics and relations and call out their role in shaping socio-political, economic, and broader global dynamics of injustice. Given these contentious realities and recognizing the need to understand the nuances that continue to promote AI as a tool for advancing humanity, this multidisciplinary symposium is an opportunity to bring together experts in various fields of studies with members from the disability communities to discuss the nuanced realities of AI beyond techno-fixation on biases and technical advancements.
The symposium seeks submissions on several themes that center a space of dialogue among contributors that bridge the siloed nature of AI engineers and computation systems to discuss the potential of creating a disability justice framework to foster a system of AI accountability beyond tech fixes. This is an important moment as we witness rapidly advancing AI systems and the necessity to develop policies and guidelines for broader protection and accountability.
The scarcity of research tackling AI biases, the prevalence of the medical model, and the absence of a disability justice approach are key challenges that need to be centered beyond the techno-specific focus of AI design, priorities, and marketing. For example, issues such as data colonialism and medical colonialism are at the center of how AI biases materialize to facilitate the operation, normalization, and exaltation of ableist AI systems that systematically erase disabled people and their experiences. As such, a much-needed disability justice framework to address ableism within or through AI requires attention to data injustice, medical colonialism, and the exclusion, violence, and erasure that shape the everyday experience of people with disabilities.
Symposium Focus and Themes
Given the current global climate that manifests in the over-reliance on AI systems and the AI impacts on education, public health, state policies, AI use in wars and conflicts, and recognizing the need for more oversight and guidelines on AI development and use, we welcome papers that center the voices and experiences of the disability community. We especially welcome submissions that generate new dialogues on AI and disability.
Themes and topics may include but are not limited to:
Email your submission to: [email protected]
Abstracts must be no more than 300 words maximum excluding title, authors names, and affiliations.
Submission Formats:
We welcome a diverse range of submissions including paper presentations, poster presentations, workshops, and creative artistic outputs. Abstracts should center on one or two key themes and summarize the authors’ positions, arguments, or claims on their chosen theme. Abstracts cannot be based on work that has already been published or presented on in other conferences.
A round table session will be facilitated once a day to debrief presentations and highlight the key areas of learning, potential for transdisciplinary collaborations, and development of future research directions and focus. Please note that the organizers of the symposium are working on an edited book centering the key themes in this abstract. If your abstract is accepted, you will be invited to submit a full manuscript of 2500-3000 words, which will be published as a book chapter.
Please note that all speakers are expected to fund their travel and accommodation expenses and pay their registration fees (CAD $150); students’ and disability community members’ registration fees will be waived. Due to limited space and to ensure that submissions from outside Canada are prioritized, the symposium will run in a hybrid format and accommodate a limited number of virtual sessions.
Important Key dates:
Abstract (300 words) Submission Deadline: July 20, 2024
Notification of Submission Result: July 30th, 2024
First manuscript draft (2500-3000 words without references): September 15, 2024
Manuscript review: September 30, 2024
Fully revised and resubmitted Manuscript: October 30th, 2024
Dr. Christo El Morr, Dr. Yahya El-Lahib, Dr. Rachel Gorman; Maimuna Khan, Sabine Fernandes, Sarah Taleghani, Habiba Rahman.
BackgroundIn recent years, we have been witnessing an increased reliance on Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies without any consideration of their impacts on many marginalized social groups, including people with disabilities. AI systems have been promoted as efficient, effective, and productive computing systems that have the potential to advance many areas (e.g., health, education, economy) and support human everyday realities. Yet, many scholars have cautioned against how AI systems have been utilized to maintain dominant power dynamics and relations and call out their role in shaping socio-political, economic, and broader global dynamics of injustice. Given these contentious realities and recognizing the need to understand the nuances that continue to promote AI as a tool for advancing humanity, this multidisciplinary symposium is an opportunity to bring together experts in various fields of studies with members from the disability communities to discuss the nuanced realities of AI beyond techno-fixation on biases and technical advancements.
The symposium seeks submissions on several themes that center a space of dialogue among contributors that bridge the siloed nature of AI engineers and computation systems to discuss the potential of creating a disability justice framework to foster a system of AI accountability beyond tech fixes. This is an important moment as we witness rapidly advancing AI systems and the necessity to develop policies and guidelines for broader protection and accountability.
The scarcity of research tackling AI biases, the prevalence of the medical model, and the absence of a disability justice approach are key challenges that need to be centered beyond the techno-specific focus of AI design, priorities, and marketing. For example, issues such as data colonialism and medical colonialism are at the center of how AI biases materialize to facilitate the operation, normalization, and exaltation of ableist AI systems that systematically erase disabled people and their experiences. As such, a much-needed disability justice framework to address ableism within or through AI requires attention to data injustice, medical colonialism, and the exclusion, violence, and erasure that shape the everyday experience of people with disabilities.
Symposium Focus and Themes
Given the current global climate that manifests in the over-reliance on AI systems and the AI impacts on education, public health, state policies, AI use in wars and conflicts, and recognizing the need for more oversight and guidelines on AI development and use, we welcome papers that center the voices and experiences of the disability community. We especially welcome submissions that generate new dialogues on AI and disability.
Themes and topics may include but are not limited to:
- AI and Disability: Towards a Transdisciplinary Approach
- Reframing Disability in the AI Age
- Understanding the Landscape: AI Applications, benefits/Impacts on Disability
- Access and Participation: Breaking Down Barriers with AI
- Beyond Rehabilitation & Assistive Devices: Disability Empowerment and AI
- Algorithmic Bias and Disability: Unmasking Discrimination in AI systems
- Data Justice and Co-design: Towards and Inclusive AI Development
- Towards Ethical and Accountable AI development
- Principles for Disability Justice Framework for AI
- Centering Disabled Voices in AI discourses
- AI beyond Humans: Rethinking Disability in an Augmented World
- AI beyond Tech-Fixations: From Biase to AI accountability
- Disability, Creativity, and AI: Creative Disability input and AI
- AI and the maintenance of Medical Colonialism
- Towards a decolonial AI and Machine learning
- Towards a Disability Justice oriented AI
Email your submission to: [email protected]
Abstracts must be no more than 300 words maximum excluding title, authors names, and affiliations.
Submission Formats:
We welcome a diverse range of submissions including paper presentations, poster presentations, workshops, and creative artistic outputs. Abstracts should center on one or two key themes and summarize the authors’ positions, arguments, or claims on their chosen theme. Abstracts cannot be based on work that has already been published or presented on in other conferences.
A round table session will be facilitated once a day to debrief presentations and highlight the key areas of learning, potential for transdisciplinary collaborations, and development of future research directions and focus. Please note that the organizers of the symposium are working on an edited book centering the key themes in this abstract. If your abstract is accepted, you will be invited to submit a full manuscript of 2500-3000 words, which will be published as a book chapter.
Please note that all speakers are expected to fund their travel and accommodation expenses and pay their registration fees (CAD $150); students’ and disability community members’ registration fees will be waived. Due to limited space and to ensure that submissions from outside Canada are prioritized, the symposium will run in a hybrid format and accommodate a limited number of virtual sessions.
Important Key dates:
Abstract (300 words) Submission Deadline: July 20, 2024
Notification of Submission Result: July 30th, 2024
First manuscript draft (2500-3000 words without references): September 15, 2024
Manuscript review: September 30, 2024
Fully revised and resubmitted Manuscript: October 30th, 2024