The roll-out of Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to accelerate, despite multiple concerns about the claims of developers (e.g. “AI hype”, “AI snake-oil” etc.), the reliability of AI products, the non-consensual use, even theft, of intellectual and artistic property, the plundering of the common cultural heritage of humanity for private corporate profit and state control, and the social, political and environmental impacts of AI use.

For critical surveillance studies scholars, there are multiple question from the theoretical through the empirical to the political, from the historical through the contemporary to the futurological. For example: Is AI always involved with or founded on surveillance? Is AI-based surveillance just a development of existing surveillance societies, or potentially a much bigger societal transformation? What are the surveillance features, relations and consequences of particular AI systems, policies and practices? What roles can policy, regulation, resistance, dissent and rebellion play in critiquing, challenging, controlling or even overthrowing AI surveillance?

We call for proposals for papers on the whole range of issues raised by the interrelationship of surveillance and AI, including but not limited to:

• The surveillance challenges of AI
• The history of surveillance and AI
• Surveillance culture and AI (popular culture, arts and media etc.)
• Ideologies of AI and surveillance (“the singularity”, uploading, TESCREAL etc.)
• Surveillance and the multiple varieties of AI (e.g. Generative AI, LLMs, Machine Learning, Neural Networks, AGI etc.)
• AI, surveillance, (big) data and datafication
• AI, surveillance, knowledge production and classification
• Algorithmic surveillance tools and automation of surveillance
• AI and state surveillance
• Political economy of surveillance and AI (surveillance companies, marketing surveillance, etc.)
• Sociospatial surveillance and “smart” environments (smart cities, smart homes, Internet of Things etc.)
• AI, surveillance and politics
• AI, surveillance and social institutions (work, healthcare, welfare, education etc.)
• AI, surveillance, discrimination and marginality (class, race, gender and sexuality, disabilities, intersectionality etc.)
• AI, human rights, privacy and justice
• AI ethics and surveillance
• AI audits and accountability
• Resistance to, rejection of, and destruction of AI-based surveillance

Deadlines & Requirements:

• This regional workshop is an in-person event, aimed at scholars based in Canada and the USA. 
• We particularly encourage doctoral researchers and Early Career Researchers (pre-tenure academics and those within 5 years of completing their PhDs).
• Applicants are invited to submit their name, status (e.g.: PhD, or job title and date of award of PhD, as appropriate), institutional affiliation, e-mail contact, title of proposed presentation, and a 250-word abstract, in a Word-compatible format (.docx, .doc, .rtf etc.) as an e-mail attachment, to david.mw[at]uottawa.ca with the header “SSN2025 Canada/USA” by 10 January 2025.
• An official letter confirming your invitation can be provided for use in funding processes. Please note if you will need such a letter in your e-mail.
• Abstracts will be peer-reviewed and accepted applicants will be informed (and invitation letters provided) by 31 January 2025.

About CSS/Lab

CSS/Lab (pronounced “slab”) is the virtual lab of the Canada Research Chair in Critical Surveillance & Security Studies at the University of Ottawa.

CSS/Lab exists to examine, question and critique the ubiquity of surveillance at all scales from body to planet (and beyond). It is a transdisciplinary research group that brings surveillance studies into conversation with many other disciplines and fields. It aims to push surveillance studies in new directions, both in building critical social theories of surveillance and security, and through active empirical work in multiple locations and contexts. 

CSS/Lab Research

• Planetary surveillance and security
• Surveillance, Authoritarianism and Post-Smart Cities
• Artificial Intelligence (AI), data and dataveillance
• Private surveillance companies and political economy of the surveillance industry
• Positive global futures beyond dystopian surveillance scenarios

CSS/Lab Director: David Murakami Wood