SHAPE researchers participate in workshop with Hamburg Institute of Advanced Study at AIAS.

A diagram (drawn by Pablo Velasco) that represents the architecture of a decentralized platform for AI image generation called AI Horde, run by amateurs who share their personal computers to generate images in common.

A diagram by the Barcelona-based artists collective, Taller Estampa, that traces the actors who contribute in uneven ways to the production of generative AI.

A GPU (graphics processing unit) used to accelerate heavy calculations in machine learning. Members of communities such as Stable Horde share their GPUs to collectively generate images and make their computing power available to those who do not have access to it themselves.

25 June 2025 by Simone Naja Helleberg Bech

SHAPE researchers Rachel Charlotte Smith, Christian Ulrik Andersen, Pablo Velasco and Nicolas Maleve participated in a workshop organized as Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies, following the Januar event Computational Practices in ‘The Rest of The World’, and prior meetings in Hamburg.

Focus on generative AI in the Global South
The goal of the workshop was to discuss community approaches to generative AI, how community based generative AI function in practice, its different and potential roles in the context of the global south, and in particular Africa. The workshop consisted of presentations of the SHAPE “Knowledge Servers” project where Nicolas Maleve, Pablo Velasco and Christian U. Andersen presented their work on Stable Diffusion, the visual culture around Stable Diffusion and the construction of models, and how they function based on communities’ sharing of resources.

In the discussion was also Gertraud Koch, Professor of Anthropology at Hamburg University; Jean Louis Fendji, Associate Professor University of Ngaoundéré Cameroon and fellow at Hamburg Institute of Advanced Study/Stellenbosch Institute of Advanced Study; Pierre-Alexandre Murena, and Professor of artificial intellignve at Hamburg Technical University (TUHH)

Dr. Jean Louis Fendji is focusing on Innovative Technologies at AfroLeadership, and has – like Rachel Charlotte Smith, who has conducted extensive fieldwork in Namibia – deep insights into the politics of AI in Africa, and how this intersects with key questions of community engagement, and more fundamental questions around data and digital divides, affecting in particular marginalized communities and rural areas.

Future collaboration within the network of institutes for advanced studies
Following the discussion, the researchers met with management from AIAS and HIAS to discuss future collaboration in the context of networks for institutes of advanced study. As part of Rachel Charlotte Smith’s fellowship at Hamburg Institute of Advanced Study, another Net-IAS debate around Computational Practices ‘and/in the Global South’ will take place at HIAS on 27-28^th Nov. 2025.