AI Futures at FASS — Brown Bag Session #3 | A/P Federico Cugurullo and Dr Subhayan Mukerjee
Dear all,
You are cordially invited to the third session of the AI Futures at FASS — Brown Bag Sessions series in Semester 1 of AY26/27. Speakers will share one result, challenge, question or provocation about AI in relation to their work. A/P Federico Cugurullo (NUS Geography) and Dr Subhayan Mukerjee (NUS Communications and New Media) will be presenting on "AI Romanticism and Realism" and "Trespassing will be Prompted: Generative AI and the Erosion of Disciplinary Gatekeeping” respectively.
AI Futures at FASS — Brown Bag Session #3
Date: 8 October 2026, 12pm-1pm
Venue: In-person (FASS Research Division Seminar Room AS7 06-42) and Zoom
Lunch will be provided for in-person attendees.
Talk #1: “AI Romanticism and Realism” (A/P Federico Cugurullo)
In this session, we will explore the concepts of AI realism and AI romanticism to critically understand the variegated geography of AI. We will compare two case studies, Singapore and Saudi Arabia as examples of AI realism and AI romanticism respectively, to flesh out oppositional approaches to AI.
Talk #2: "Trespassing will be Prompted: Generative AI and the Erosion of Disciplinary Gatekeeping” (Dr Subhayan Mukerjee)
Generative AI will potentially let researchers outside the social sciences and humanities do work on our topics that many audiences find convincing, whatever existing social scientists and humanities scholars think of it. What does this mean for our fields and our public claim to authority? What consequences might this have on the established disciplinary practices of peer review, training, and hiring?
Federico Cugurullo is an Associate Professor in Urban Geography. During the past decade, Federico has operated interdisciplinary at the intersection of urban geography and philosophy of technology, to theorize AI from an urbanistic perspective and investigate its impact on cities. He is the author of Artificial Intelligence and the City (Routledge 2023).
Subhayan Mukerjee is an assistant professor at the Department of Communications and New Media and the Deputy Director of the NUS Centre for Computational Social Science and Humanities. He studies the interactions between online audiences, media outlets, and digital platforms particularly in the domain of political communication, using computational methods.