The Critical AI Seminar series continues in 2025 and 2026 with another four lectures that critically address Artificial Intelligence (AI) from various perspectives – across different contexts of application and through different lenses of critique. With these lectures we hope to once again bring together scholars from around the world in engaging discussions and further contribute to Critical AI Studies as a continuing ‘field in formation’ (Raley and Rhee, 2023).

The seminars are online, open to everyone. For each seminar, one or two prominent invited speaker(s) are invited to give a talk that engages theoretically or empirically with AI.

March 18, 3-4:30 (CEST): Invited talk by Helene Ratner and Nanna Thylstrup on ‘Ecologies of evaluation’

Registration here

This talk develops the concept of “evaluation ecologies” to theorize how machine learning (ML) systems are assessed in public sector contexts. Through a conceptual analysis supported by case studies of ML deployments in Danish higher secondary education and Dutch psychiatric clinics, we demonstrate how evaluation practices extend beyond technical assessment to encompass complex negotiations of power, expertise, and accountability. Drawing on theoretical perspectives from Science and Technology Studies (STS) and building upon Halpern and Mitchell’s (2023) work on experimental governance and Amoore’s (2020) analysis of cloud ethics, we advance “evaluation ecologies” as a framework for understanding how ML assessments unfold through multiple, often contradictory registers.

Helene Friis Ratner is a full professor of organization studies and technology at The Technical University of Denmark, DTU Management. Combining science and technology studies with organization studies, she researches how digital data infrastructures, data visualizations, and AI applications transform welfare organizations. Her research is published in journals such as Big Data & Society, AI & Society, and Organization Studies. She is currently co-PI of the Algorithms, Data and Democracy project (VELUX foundations) and REPAI – Responsible AI for Value Creation (Grundfos) as well as chief scientist in Denmarks National Centre for AI in Society (CAISA).

Nanna Bonde Thylstrup is an Associate Professor on the Promotion Programme in Modern and Digital Culture. She is PI of Data Loss: The Politics of Disappearance, Destruction and Dispossession in Digital Societies (DALOSS) funded by the European Research Council. The project is premised on the idea that datafication is inherently conditioned by loss, and that this loss can also be generative. Rather than framing loss retroactively as something that can be ‘fixed, patched or recovered’, then, DALOSS  investigates loss as actively constituted through social, political, and aesthetic relations.