Kars Alfrink

@kars.leapfrog.nl

333 Followers 222 Following

Designer turned design researcher. Postdoc at TU Delft. Exploring contestable AI. www.contestable.ai

A seated audience in a row of chairs watches attentively in a bright industrial venue, some listening with hands on chins.
The "scan bike" in public space. The signage and QR code, meant to make its function legible to passers-by, came out of the participatory design work. Photo: Michiel Landeweerd.
Opening slide of the lecture, titled "Designing AI Otherwise: Infrastructures and Futures," with details listing AI in Society, Leiden University, 4 May 2026, and presenter Kars Alfrink (Delft University of Technology). The background is a glitchy, pixelated artwork in blues and reds by Elise Racine for Better Images of AI.
Illustrated visual map by Lena Trotereau titled "Soil to Servers: CCU Workshop," capturing themes from the workshop in hand-drawn style. A large pink crystal-like structure labeled "Electric Garden" dominates the upper left. Surrounding it are handwritten concepts including "low-tech infrastructure," "repurposing e-waste," "scarcity prompts creativity," "moving from extractive mindset," "collective action," "living in rhythm with nature," and "how to make all regenerative?" At the top, four circular icons outline the workshop flow: mud in a jar, create circuit, reflect and discuss, and present future vision. Figures throughout the drawing touch grass, use laptops, tend to plants, and gather in groups. The bottom right shows people holding a bowl of soil.
Title slide reading "Designing AI for Autonomy as a Political Project" by Kars Alfrink, TU Delft. Presented at the AI & Algorithm Seminar 2026, Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens, 25 March, ECC Leiden. The URL contestable.ai appears at the bottom. Black bold text on a white background.
A breadboard circuit with colorful wires and alligator clips sits on soil beside a potted plant, part of a microbial fuel cell workshop where participants generate electricity from mud to power small electronic devices.
Workshop participants gathered around a wooden table covered with glass jars filled with dark, muddy material, wires, and electronic components. Several people lean in to examine and connect microbial fuel cells, while others observe and smile. A digital multimeter and various electrodes are visible. A screen in the background shows a presentation, and workshop materials are scattered across the rustic tabletop.
A slide with four images: (1) the Humane AI Pin, (2) a figure from the book Thoughtful Interaction Design, (3) a Safecast Radnote sensor, (4) Tech Workers Coalition marching in San Francisco.
Kars Alfrink presenting at the ThingsCon Salon on June 6, 2025, in Rotterdam.
A still from the Flintstones cartoon. Fred Flintstone operates a dinosaur in a quarry as if it’s heavy machinery. “PMC” is placed next to Fred Flintstone. The dinosaur is labeled “LLM”. At the bottom it says “the future of work”.
Portrait of horror fiction writer, Howard P. Lovecraft, 1915.
A slide from a presentation with the text "Contestability in the age of a global AI arms race—"
Covers of four books: Philosophy and Real Politics (Geuss), Red Planets (Bould & Mieville), The Stack (Bratton), and It's Time to Imagine Harder (Bleecker).
The cover of the book Red Planets, edited by Mark Bould and China Mieville.
Three books: The Manual of Design Fiction (Bleecker et al., 2022), Value Sensitive Design (Friedman & Hendry, 2019), and Responsible Artificial Intelligence (Dignum, 2019).
A table littered with pens, papers, infographic posters, chargers, etc. People are drawing design ideas for contestable public AI systems on big sheets of paper.
Contestability Loops for Public AI infographic.
Front cover of PhD thesis "Contestable Artificial Intelligence."
The cover of Jacobin magazine no. 52.
Covers of three books: Platform Socialism (Muldoon, 2022), Automation and the Future of Work (Benanav, 2020), and Inhuman Power (Kjøsen & Steinhoff, 2019).
Opening slide of presentation "Contestable AI: Designing for Human Autonomy."
The Little Book of Deep Learning by François Fleuret.
The covers of three books: Making Design Theory, Building Power to Change the World, and Operations Anti-Patterns, DevOps Solutions.
A container of crisps with a label that reads “Brazil style snack mix.”