[SIGCIS-Members] {SoHistInfo} October 10 Kevin Driscoll - "Small AI: Amateur participation in artificial intelligence of the 1980s"

[Camille Paloque-Bergès]

Dear colleagues,

This message is to inform you of the resumption of our seminar on the
socio-history of computing, organized by the HT2S laboratory at CNAM
(Paris), with two inaugural sessions in English.

October 8th 2025 15h-17h - Kevin Driscoll, University of Virginia - Small
AI: Amateur participation in artificial intelligence of the 1980s

October 13th 2025 15h-17h - Lennart Vincent Schmidt et Michael Homberg,
Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam - Digital Inequalities.
Divides, Hierarchies, and Boundaries in Germany

Inscriptions:
https://framaforms.org/inscription-seminaire-de-socio-histoire-de-linformatique-1757664332

Informations on our seminar: https://sohistinfo.github.io/

Localisation: 2 rue Conté 75003 Paris et en visio

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Next session's summary:

Small AI: Amateur participation in artificial intelligence of the 1980s

Kevin Driscoll is the author of The Modem World (2022), co-author of
Minitel: Welcome to the Internet, and head of et Minitel Research Lab, USA
with Julien Mailland. He is associate professor in Media studies at the
University of Virginia.

Today, artificial intelligence systems are portrayed as massive, remote,
costly, and obscure. But there is nothing natural or inevitable about these
characteristics. This talk will consider how microcomputer enthusiasts made
sense of the 1980s artificial intelligence boom (and bust) through an
exploration of hobbyist print media of the period. Beginning in the
mid-1970s, an international literature of how-to books, magazine articles,
and “type-in” programs promised to teach new computer owners the
fundamental principles of AI through hands-on engagement with BASIC code.
Recovering and re-running these materials with the help of software
emulation reveals a different set of beliefs about technology and expertise
than those that have come to dominate today’s AI discourse. Glimpses of a
“micro” AI invite us to imagine an alternative future in which AI is
imminent, affordable, accessible, and comprehensible to expert and
non-expert computer users alike.

-- 
Institutional email address : camille.paloque_berges at cnam.fr
*Laboratory for the History of Techno-Sciences (HT2S), Conservatoire
national des arts et métiers, 2 rue Conté, 75003 Paris, France
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