Designing with Agency: The Next Wave of Explainable AI for the Arts — KEYNOTE
Adina Florea
Professor at the Department of Computer Science, Director of the Center of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence @ POLITEHNICA University Bucharest (RO)
23 October 2025, 15:00, Sala Cinema UNATC (75-77 Matei Voievod Street)
Designing with Agency: The Next Wave of Explainable AI for the Arts
The rapid adoption of AI across creative fields, from digital painting and design to music and theatrical performance, has introduced a critical challenge: the “black box” problem. While AI offers unprecedented creative power, its lack of transparency undermines the human creator’s control and agency. This presentation explores the emerging field of Explainable AI for the Arts (XAIxArts), which seeks to transform opaque AI systems into intelligible, controllable co-creators. We will examine recent trends emphasizing human-centered XAI, highlighting ways that restore the artist’s role as the primary visionary. Specifically, we focus on mechanisms like Concept-based Control which map abstract algorithms to semantic artistic concepts, Steerable Latent Space Interfaces, that allow interfaces for real-time manipulation of artistic attributes, and the philosophical shift toward Distributed Agency, where artists embrace “calculated randomness.” Thus, we demonstrate how XAI allows artists to gain the necessary insight to inspect, subvert, and intentionally steer their AI collaborators, ensuring that technology serves as a complex, understandable material that fuels new aesthetic exploration.
Adina Magda Florea is Professor at the Department of Computer Science of the National University of Science and Technology POLITEHNICA Bucharest and Director of the International Center of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence of the university. Professor Florea is also the Manager of the project “The Romanian Hub for Artificial Intelligence – HRIA” within the Intelligent Growth, Digitalization and Financial Instruments Program. Her research interests are in multi-agent systems, machine learning, ambient intelligence, social robots, and human-robot interaction. She is Senior Member of IEEE, Senior Member of ACM, founding member and President of Romanian Association for Artificial Intelligence, and Chair of IEEE Romanian Chapter of the Computational Intelligence Society.
The keynote is part of the the second edition of the AI in Art Practices and Research international conference, organized by UNATC in Bucharest from 23–26 October 2025. The event explores the impact of AI on artistic creation and research, as well as its broader applications in society, such as accessibility, healthcare and well-being.