Currently, humanists use AI like tourists use ready-made maps: they only reach destinations along well-worn trails created by engineers. This lecture is an invitation to chart your own paths. I will show that when a humanities expert, supported by AI, gains the ability to create their own software, they not only streamline their work but also open entirely new, previously unknown research perspectives. This is a breakthrough moment: the low barrier to entry into programming allows us to discover "new lands" of text and culture analysis whose existence we never even suspected when limited by previous tools.
David Sypniewski has been affiliated with SWPS University for four years, where he teaches Social Robotics, Creative Coding, and Artificial Intelligence in Art and Creative Practice. He is the founder and head of the AI Open Lab at the SWPS Faculty of Design, established two years ago. He also serves as the head of the AI Unit and the Dean’s Representative for Innovation.
He is an active member of the HumanTech Centre, for which he designed the new visual identity. He also co-organises the HumanTech Summit conference, with a particular focus on the accompanying hackathon.
Together with Agnieszka Rayss, he co-authored The End of the War, an exhibition featuring a series of images expanded with generative tools. The project received recognition at the FotoLux Festival in Lucca. His research focuses on integrating artificial-intelligence-based tools into the design process, and he is currently pursuing a PhD on automating wayfinding design in refugee centres.
Beyond his academic work, he designs interactive experiences and visualisations. He previously worked at the creative studio Rzeczyobrazkowe, where he coordinated the Internet+Animation department and facilitated strategy workshops. Before that, he was a co-director of the Practitioners of Culture Association, where he and his colleagues used film, photography, and theatre to work with groups at risk of social exclusion, including refugees, girls from reformatory schools, and young people from small towns. He is also a trained anti-discrimination educator. Having grown up in the third sector, he continues to identify strongly as a social activist.
His first artistic passion was theatre, where he learned to walk on stilts. He met his wife in an experimental choir, and together they are now raising their eight-year-old son, Jonasz (Jonah).
How to reach out to David: