Talk from Dr Nataliia Laba- Artificial witness: Generative AI and the visual politics of war representation


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Talk from Dr Nataliia Laba- Artificial witness: Generative AI and the visual politics of war representation
January 21 @ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

Artificial witness: Generative AI and the visual politics of war representation
One application of generative AI is the production of highly realistic war images, often indistinguishable from photographs taken by human witnesses. These images do not merely document events but actively shape public opinion, legitimizing certain perspectives while obfuscating others. This raises broader cultural implications about how AI-generated imagery may (mis)represent cultural or political nuances of conflicts and wars, prompting reflection on the ethical and perceptual consequences of complementing journalistic authenticity with synthetic, machine-generated representations.
Framing generative AI as an artificial witness – an ‘instrument for seeing’ and for ‘assessing how well we can see’ – this talk addresses the uses of generative AI in imaging and imagining wars. By exploring what Gillian Rose terms ‘the site of the image itself’ (Visual Methodologies, 2016), we can uncover biases in AI model training that otherwise remain hidden due to proprietary models and algorithmic opacity. This knowledge can then be applied to consider the relationship between AI-generated images of war and the contexts in which they are shared and viewed, ultimately contributing to public awareness of how generative AI is reshaping the boundaries of authenticity, trust, and power in war representation.
Dr Nataliia Laba is an Assistant Professor in Digital and Multimodal Communication / Humane AI at University of Groningen. Her research focuses on multimodal generative artificial intelligence and works at the intersection of critical data studies, discourse studies, and techno-ethics. Her current research projects address human-machine agency and a range of representational issues in the context of visual generative media adoption and use. These include how gender bias becomes normalized through prompting practices, the attitudinal stance-taking of non-human agents in AI-generated images of war, the effects of prompt modifiers on AI video generation, and the impact of visual generative media on the creative economy, professional designers, and artists. Nataliia is particularly interested in discourse structure relations between tech companies, designers, critics, and users as a way of engagement with observable techno-cultural practices and activities considered essential for good AI stewardship.
https://digitalsociety.mmu.ac.uk/visiting-fellowships/