Visiting professor Mike Ananny reckons with Generative AI

by | Feb 25, 2026 | Art History & Visual Studies, Events, Orion Series in Fine Arts, Research, School of Music, Theatre, Undergraduate, Visual Arts, Writing

Faster than many predicted (or wanted), Generative Artificial Intelligence is upon us. It brings a mix of emotions, a shared sense of uncertainty and a persistent question of what we can and should do — individually and collectively — about technological change that feels powerful, inevitable and beyond our control. Visiting guest professor Mike Ananny will offer ways to define and reckon with Generative AI that might help navigate controversies, intervene with integrity at different scales, and debate the perils and promises of “good enough” technologies.
Presented by the Orion Series in Fine Arts, during his six weeks on campus Ananny will speak to students in various classes as well as host a pair of small, focused workshops on March 11 & 25 and a March 19 public talk, the latter of which is being presented in partnership with UVic’s Kula: Library Futures Academy. 
 
 
 
 
 

About Mike Ananny

Mike Ananny is an Associate Professor of Communication and Journalism (and, by courtesy, Cinematic Arts) at the University of Southern California (USC). He studies how people build digital infrastructures, algorithmic systems and artificial intelligence that create public life — and he tries to intervene to make cultures of production, regulatory initiatives and system designs better serve public interests.

At USC he co-directs the interdisciplinary collective Media as SocioTechnical Systems (MASTS) and the AI for Media & Storytelling (AIMS) initiative of the Center on Generative AI and Society, and is an Affiliated Faculty of Science, Technology, and Public Life.

 
 
 
 
 

He is the author of Networked Press Freedom (MIT Press), co-editor (with Laura Forlano and Molly Wright Steenson) of Bauhaus Futures (MIT Press), and publishes in various interdisciplinary academic communities including Journalism Studies, Science and Technology Studies, and Critical Internet Studies. He was a postdoctoral scholar at Microsoft Research, holds a PhD from Stanford University (Communication) and a Masters from the MIT Media Laboratory (Media Arts & Sciences), and has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Helsinki, a Berggruen Foundation Fellow at Stanford’s Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences, and an expert advisor to the Minister of Canadian Heritage on the future of CBC/Radio-Canada. He has written for popular press outlets including The Atlantic, WIRED, Harvard’s Nieman Lab, the Columbia Journalism Review, and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

 
Read Mike’s recent Globe and Mail story about the Stephen Colbert censoring by the US government, and how that impacts Canadian viewing — and values — as well.
 

About the workshops

Workshop 1: “Journalism & Generative AI: Exploring histories, power & synthetic futures of news language”
2:30-4:30pm Wed, March 11 • Fine Arts room 108 • Free
 
 
In this small workshop, students will explore a domain (journalism) and see how GenAI works (or doesn’t work) for that domain. Open to all, but may be of most interest to people studying and practising journalism or writing longform nonfiction.
 
 
Workshop 2: “Crafting your Own Perspective on Generative AI: Drafting first-person statements of synthetic media principles & practices”
2:30-4:30pm Wed, March 25 • Fine Arts room 108 • Free
 
 
In this small workshop, students will learn how to create first-person statements of practice by understanding, using/refusing Generative AI in your practice, and how to describe yourself and your work in relation to synthetic media. Open to all, but it may be of most interest to creative practitioners and artists of all backgrounds, methods and media (not only writers).
 

About the public talk

“Reckoning with Generative Artificial Intelligence”

5 – 6pm Thursday, March 19 in the Phillip T. Young Recital Hall, School of Music (MacLaurin A-wing) 

Free & open to all • Find out more here