Robotic Collective Memory

The various ways in which robots and AI will affect our future society are at the center of scholarly attention. This Commentary, conversely, concentrates on their possible impact on humanity’s past, or more accurately, on the ways societies will remember their joint past. We focus on the emerging use of technologies that combine AI, cutting-edge visualization techniques, and social robots, in order to store and communicate recollections of the past in an interactive human-like manner. We explore the use of these technologies by remembrance institutions and their potential impact on collective memory. Taking a close look at the case study of NDT (New Dimensions in Testimony)—a project that uses ‘virtual witnesses’ to convey memories from the Holocaust and other mass atrocities—we highlight the significant value, and the potential vulnerabilities, of this new mode of memory construction. Against this background, we propose a novel concept of memory fiduciaries that can form the basis for a policy framework for robotic collective memory. Drawing on Jack Balkin’s concept of ‘information fiduciaries’ on the one hand, and on studies of collective memory on the other, we explain the nature of and the justifications for memory fiduciaries. We then demonstrate, in broad strokes, the potential implications of this new conceptualization for various questions pertaining to collective memory constructed by AI and robots. By so doing, this Commentary aims to start a conversation on the policies that would allow algorithmic collective memory to fulfill its potential, while minimizing its social costs. On a more general level, it brings to the fore a series of important policy questions pertaining to the intersection of new technologies and intergenerational collective memory

The conspiracy of silence: Family communication effects on interpersonal functioning and differentiation of self in children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors

Findings have been inconsistent regarding the existence of intergenerational transmission of trauma in offspring of Holocaust survivors (OHS) and grandchildren of Holocaust Survivors (GHS). Some studies have indeed found that OHS have more psychosocial problems than their counterparts with no family members in the Holocaust (e.g., Scharf, 2007), while others have not found any differences (e.g., Sagi-Schwartz et al., 2003). One reason for these mixed findings is the quantity and quality of communication on the part of the Holocaust survivor within their families about their trauma (e.g., Danieli et al., 2017). Another reason for the inconsistent findings is that much of the research on OHS has focused on psychopathology instead of focusing on the vulnerabilities in the areas of interpersonal difficulties and problems with separation and individuation that have been more frequently observed by clinicians working with OHS patients (e.g., Solkoff, 1992). To address these limitations with past research, the present study predicted that a lack of explicit communication between Holocaust survivor parents and their children would detrimentally impact OHS in the areas of interpersonal functioning and ability to separate from others and regulate their emotions. The study also examined the relationship between these variables in a subset of the OHS participants and their GHS children. Self-report measures were completed and analyzed from 412 OHS and 71 of their GHS children. There were several important findings, including that OHS-rated parental numbness predicted both greater OHS interpersonal problems and lower OHS differentiation of self. Additionally, OHS differentiation of self mediated the relationship between OHS-rated parental numbness and OHS interpersonal problems. Interestingly, none of these effects carried over to the GHS generation

Human values in curating a human rights media archive

Cultural institutions, such as museums, often curate politically and ethically sensitive materials. Increasingly, Internet-enabled, digital technology intersects with these curatorial practices offering new opportunities for public and scholarly engagement. We report on a case study of human rights media archiving at a genocide memorial centre in Rwanda, motivated by interests in ICT support to memorialisation practices. Through an analysis of our discussions with staff about their work, we report on how accounts of the Rwandan Genocide are being captured and curated to support the centre's humanitarian agenda and associated values. We identify transferable curatorial concerns for human rights media communication amongst scholarly networks and public audiences worldwide, elucidating interaction design challenges for supportive ICT and contributing to HCI discourses on value sensitive design and cultural engagement with sensitive materials

Virtual Trauma: Prospects for Automediality

Unlike some current discourse on automediality, this essay eschews most of the analysis concerning the adoption or modification of avatars to deliberately enhance, extend or distort the self. Rather than the automedial enabling of alternative, virtual selves modified by playful, confronting or disarming avatars we concentrate instead on emerging efforts to present the self in hyper-realist, interactive modes..

The language of uncertainty in W.G. Sebald's novels

textThis dissertation investigates two of W.G. Sebald’s novels, "Die Ausgewanderten" and "Austerlitz" as examples of a unique kind of Holocaust fiction by a non-Jewish German author. Sebald’s fiction represents a radically different German depiction of the Holocaust and its effects on Jewish victims, as it deconstructs critical discourse and debates about the Holocaust in Germany, establishing an ethical approach to Jewish suffering and the idea of coming to terms with the Nazi past in the German context. Through the narrative structure, ambiguity and the language of the German narrators, what I term its language of uncertainty, Sebald’s fiction avoids appropriating the Jewish voice as well as identifying with Jewish Holocaust victims and survivors, while giving voice to the underrepresented Jewish perspective in contemporary German literature. In addition, this dissertation examines competing discourses on representation, victimization and memory in regard to the Nazi past and views Sebald’s work as a critical response to these discussions. Indeed, Sebald’s fiction moves the discussion beyond the trope of Vergangenheitsbewältigung (“mastery of the past”), which has for so long dominated discussion of the Holocaust in Germany, towards a reconsideration of the victims, whose voice has been marginalized in the focus on the non-Jewish German handling of the Nazi past.Germanic Studie