Reimagining AI as a Human Endeavor: A Call for Papers on the Human Aspects of AI and LLMs in Africa

This panel, within the LAGOSTECH (Project: 101104921 – HORIZON-MSCA-2022-PF-01) research project, critically examines Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLMs) not as autonomous, objective technologies, but as deeply human products shaped by labour, social conditions, and cultural contexts. Popular narratives often frame AI as neutral or purely technical, and as these technologies integrate into daily life, they also risk becoming taken for granted, evading scrutiny of their development and use. Yet, evidence shows that algorithmic systems reflect the organizational structures, social architectures, and user interpretations that “enact” them. Far from external forces, AI tools build upon and reinterpret pre-existing human elements, functioning as cultural artifacts embedded in socio-technical fabrics—especially in Africa’s diverse realities.

Viewing algorithms as intrinsically cultural—rather than merely existing “in” culture—transforms our understanding of their technical workings. Even “objective” decisions, like error thresholds or data selection, are infused with human values, hidden labour, and interpretations. Users actively personalize AI, adapting it to culturally specific needs and relationships, countering alienation and turning it into a tool for negotiation, connection, and self-expression in everyday life.

The perception of AI as autonomous often obscures embedded human choices, values, and biases, deflecting accountability from creators and socio-economic structures. Meanwhile, discourses on “algorithms” can stem from terminological anxiety about the roles these systems occupy in society. This panel moves beyond the “algorithmic drama” of AI as an obscure, inhuman power, instead illuminating its complex socio-technical underpinnings.

Call for Contributions

We invite scholarly contributions that critically engage the human dimensions of AI and LLMs, drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives from anthropology, computer science, postcolonial studies, linguistics, and beyond. We especially encourage submissions from African scholars, early-career researchers, and practitioners to foster diverse voices. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Ethnographic studies of AI labour in Africa: Exploring the lived experiences, working conditions, and agency of content moderators, engineers, and other human workers in the AI supply chain across the continent.
• Analyses of LLM bias and cultural representation: Investigating how LLMs reflect, perpetuate, or challenge cultural values, social categories, and linguistic nuances in diverse African contexts, including the impact on low-resource languages.
• Decolonial approaches to AI development and deployment: Proposing frameworks, methodologies, or case studies that prioritize African agency, self-determination, and local epistemologies in the creation and use of AI.
• The socio-political implications of AI infrastructure: Examining how data pipelines, readiness indices, and other digital infrastructures re-articulate historical power dynamics and contribute to digital colonialism in Africa.
• Community-led AI initiatives: Showcasing grassroots efforts, innovations, and adaptations of AI technologies by African communities to address local needs and preserve cultural heritage.
• Human-AI interaction in shaping norms, identity and knowledge: How AI reinterprets pre-existing human elements or seems to create new values, phenomena and meanings, with implications for identity formation, knowledge transmission, norm-making, and cultural practices in Africa.

Submission Guidelines & Important Dates

• Abstract Submission Deadline: 11 August 2025
• Notification of Acceptance: 13 August 2025
• Submission Format: Submit abstracts (max. 300 words) outlining your research question, methodology, key findings/arguments, and relevance to the panel. We welcome diverse formats, including empirical studies, theoretical pieces, and creative interventions, as long as they are possible to perform face to face and stream online.
• Contact: Send abstracts to: davide@casciano.info with the subject “AI Human Aspects Panel Submission.”
• Seminar date: TBD (probably 16 August 2025, hybrid, in-person at the University of Lagos, Nigeria, with virtual participation of foreign scholars).