Accepted Panels

The issues and debates for and against the development and expansion of deep learning bots have permeated across various cultural domains, from the academe to the art community. The prevalence of exponentially sophisticated artificial intelligence platforms has triggered a cultural panic that echoes the Luddite resistance to the 19th Century Industrial Revolution. At the forefront of the critique against artificial intelligence is how it potentially compromises the primacy of human identity. There is an intellectual and social anxiety rooted on technology’s quantum growth, particularly in how it purportedly stunts the initiative towards a more comprehensive and honest representation of history through the rediscovery, restoration, and reaffirmation of indigenous identities as a means of understanding the roots of institutional injustice. The trend towards indigenous scholarship and cultural work is relevant in the context of both arboreal and rhizomatic decolonization projects in Asian Cultural Studies. This paper is an invitation to discourse into the implications of deep learning technology to indigenous studies.