For some years now, the data-centric digital circuits of global finance have been pushing financial markets towards a comprehensive algorithmic mode of (infrastructural) management. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is somehow enthusiastically said to be the new frontier of this process. Building on the Science and Technology Studies (STS) definition of infrastructures – as evolving sociotechnical systems that combine human and non-human elements – and in the political economy of digitalized finance, this work addresses AI in and as an (emergent) financial infrastructure. Clearing the field, it first presents a solid definition of currently in motion, existing AI. It then addresses the state-of-the-art of the most salient AI applications in financial markets in different areas (retail, accounting, credit, risk assessment, etc.). Once paved the way for a multistakeholder empirically grounded understanding of actual AI penetration in finance, it finally elaborates on some concrete evolving trends in this field vis-à-vis the forecasts (sociotechnical imaginaries) provided by relevant actors (major players and regulators).

Professor Edemilson Paraná from the Federal University of Ceará, Brazil will be speaking on AI in the context of financial markets. Dr. Paraná is Assistant Professor of Economic Sociology and Sociology of Work and is also author of the books The Digitalized Finance: Financial Capitalism and Informational Revolution (Brill, 2019/Haymarket, 2020) and Money and Social Power: A Study on Bitcoin (Brill, Forthcoming). The talk is hosted by Prof. Rafael Grohmann, Faculty of Information, Department of Arts, Culture and Media, and the Critical Digital Methods Institute at UTSC.

Time & Date: March 13, 10AM (Feel free to drop by anytime starting at 9AM for a chat with the speaker. Coffee/tea and cookies will be served.)

Location: Claude Bissell Building, Room 520