About

For more information, please contact Alan Richardson at alan.richardson@ubc.ca.

Launch Event

AI for All? Humanities and Social Science Perspectives on Trust and Artificial Intelligence

Centre for Humanities AI Scholarship and Teaching (CHAISE) Launch Event

DATE
Friday September 18, 2026 

LOCATION
Green College Coach House
6201 Cecil Green Park Rd

Morning Research Sessions

Session 1: AI through the lens of Science and Technology Studies (STS)

9am-10am 
What lessons does STS provide us for understanding and intervening in the current public discourse around AI and the changes it is bringing about? What can STS scholars do to help improve the public discourse?

Speakers

Heidi Tworek, History and Public Policy, UBC
Alan Richardson, Philosophy and STS, UBC (Chair)
Jai Virdi, History and Director, Critical Humanities, UVic

Session 2:  Education, Governance, and AI

10:15am-11:15am
AI is making its way into educational institutions, whether we asked for it or not. What are some of the issues we should be paying attention to, given this integration? How should we respond? How does education work to preserve our democratic institutions and human rights, and how might this be disrupted by AI? How, if at all, should we reconceive of governance?

Speakers

Brenna Clarke Gray, Co-ordinator, Educational Technologies, TRU
Madeleine Ransom, CRC in AI, Well-Being, and Ethics, Philosophy, UBCO (Chair)
Wong, Wendy, Principal’s Research Chair, Political Science, UBCO

Session 3: Feminism, AI, and Agency

11:30am -12:30pm
How can feminist philosophy help us navigate and better understand the current AI landscape and the changes it is bringing about? What perspectives, threats and issues should we paying attention to? How can a better understanding of the nature of agency help guide our thinking on how we relate to AI, and the sorts of threats it brings about?

Speakers

Audrey YAP, Philosophy, UVic
Jill Fellows, Humanities, Douglas College (Chair)
Cat Prueitt, Philosophy, UBC

Afternoon Public Humanities Skills Sessions (attendance limited to 30)

Session 4: Working with Journalists and the Media

2:00-3:30pm 
This session brings together journalists and academics who are already doing public scholarship to share their expertise with the audience. The panelists will discuss how to most effectively share research with the general public, some tips and tricks of interviewing and writing for the general public, and pitfalls to avoid. There will be time for audience questions and open discussions.

Session 5: Indie Podcasting as Public Scholarship

4:00-5:30pm
This session will introduce the audience to the practice of podcasting as public scholarship. While podcasting as an industry has grown significantly since 2020, morphing into flashy highly produced YouTube and TV series-style interviews, the nuts and bolts of podcasting can still be done for relatively cheap, and are relatively accessible. And the RSS feed means that it is still possible to produce episodes without needing to depend on a social media hosting platform or be beholden to an algorithm. The pros and cons of indie podcasting will be discussed, and there will also be a quick introduction to how to begin one’s own podcast.

For more information, contact Alan Richardson at alan.richardson@ubc.ca.

Public Event

Do You Trust AI?  Finding the Humanity in Canada’s AI Strategy

Place of Many Trees, Liu Institute for Global Issues, 6476 NW Marine Drive

Friday, 18 September 2026
7:30 to 9 pm

The Federal government’s AI for All strategy is centred on developing Canadians’ trust in AI.In this panel discussion, members of the Centre for Humanities AI Scholarship and Education (CHAISE)  examine what it means to trust AI, whether it is possible or wise to do so, and what the strengths and weaknesses of a strategy focused on and guided by notions of trust are. We bring a humanistically-informed perspective to bear on these issues, centring the human and examining what happens to human relationships, human knowledge and building practices, human values, and human rights as our government focuses on leveraging trust to promote widespread AI adoption.

Panelists:
Jill Fellows, Faculty Member in Humanities at Douglas College and producer, Cyborg Goddess podcast
Heidi Tworek, Professor of History and of Public Policy, UBC, and Director of the UBC Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions
Wendy H. Wong. Principal’s Research Chair, Political Science, UBC, and author of We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age (MIT Press, 2023)

Moderator:
Brenna Clarke Gray, Assistant Professor and Co-ordinator, Educational Technologies, Thompson Rivers University

Sponsored by the UBC Public Humanities Hub, Green College, the UBC School for Public Policy and Global Affairs, and the UBC Department of Philosophy