Data In/Visibility (Queer Data Studies) | Network Book Forum
Purchase your own copy of Queer Data Studies here: https://bookshop.org/a/14284/9780295751979.
Data & Society
Presenting timely conversations about the purpose and power of technology that bridge our interdisciplinary research with broader public conversations about the societal implications of data and automation.
For more information, visit datasociety.net.
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Episodes (116)
[Databite No. 157] Recognition | Generative AI's Labor Impacts
Generative AI has seeped into many corners of our lives, and threatens to upend the economy as we know it, from education to the film industry. How do workers’ encounters with it differ from their experiences with other systems of automation? How are they similar, and how might this help us understand the shape and stakes of this latest technology? In this three-part Databite series, Data & Society’s Labor Futures program brings together creators, platform workers, call center workers, coders, therapists, and performers for conversations with technologists, researchers, journalists, and economists to complicate the story of generative AI. By centering workers’ experiences and interrogating the relationship between generative AI and underexplored issues of hierarchy, recognition, and adaptation in labor, these interdisciplinary conversations will uncover how new technological systems are impacting worker agency and power.
Learn more about the speakers, series, and references at datasociety.net.
Data & Society
enFebruary 14, 2024
[Databite No. 156] Hierarchy | Generative AI's Labor Impacts
About the Series
Generative AI has seeped into many corners of our lives, and threatens to upend the economy as we know it, from education to the film industry. How do workers’ encounters with it differ from their experiences with other systems of automation? How are they similar, and how might this help us understand the shape and stakes of this latest technology? In this three-part Databite series, Data & Society’s Labor Futures program brings together creators, platform workers, call center workers, coders, therapists, and performers for conversations with technologists, researchers, journalists, and economists to complicate the story of generative AI. By centering workers’ experiences and interrogating the relationship between generative AI and underexplored issues of hierarchy, recognition, and adaptation in labor, these interdisciplinary conversations will uncover how new technological systems are impacting worker agency and power.
Learn more about the speakers, series, and references at datasociety.net.
Caring for Digital Remains | Tamara Kneese and Tonia Sutherland | Network Book Forum
When people die, they leave behind not only physical belongings, but digital ones. While they might have had specific wishes for what happens to their online profiles and accounts after their deaths, preserving these digital remains is complex and requires specialized forms of care. Because digital remains are attached to corporate platforms — which have control over what online legacies look like and how long they continue — people’s digital afterlives are not necessarily the ones they would have chosen for themselves.
On November 16, Tamara Kneese and Tonia Sutherland came together for a conversation about their books, which both foreground death as a site for understanding the social values and power dynamics of our contemporary, platform-saturated world. The conversation between these two authors was moderated by Tamara K. Nopper, senior researcher with Data & Society’s Labor Futures program. Together, they explored death as a site of contestation and transformation.
Decoding the AI Executive Order
On October 30, the White House issued its long-awaited executive order on artificial intelligence. We’re heartened by the order’s focus on some of AI’s most pressing real-world harms, and especially encouraged by its commitment to apply mandatory rights-protecting practices to the federal government’s use of AI, drawing heavily from the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights. A key issue now will be implementing the order’s directives, and addressing the need to put money and people quickly into action across the federal government to advance a very ambitious plan on a short timeline.
Our November 7 at 11 a.m. ET during a special LinkedIn Live event featured analysis of the AI executive order with Data & Society’s Executive Director Janet Haven, Policy Director Brian Chen and two coauthors of the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights: D&S Senior Policy Fellow Sorelle Friedler and Brown University Professor and D&S Board Member Suresh Venkatasubramanian. They offered their impressions of the order, considered the implications of guidance from the Office of Management and Budget, and reflected on what’s next for policy and the field.
[Databite 155] Democratizing AI: Principles for Meaningful Public Participation
As AI presents technical and engineering innovations, the systems present fundamental risks to people, their families, and their communities. Public participation in AI will not be easy. But there are foundational lessons to apply from other domains. Author and legal scholar Michele Gilman’s latest policy brief, Democratizing AI: Principles for Meaningful Public Participation, builds on a comprehensive review of evidence from public participation efforts in anti-poverty programs and environmental policy that summarizes evidence-based recommendations for how to better structure public participation processes for AI.
To discuss the policy brief, we invited Michele Gilman to be in conversation with Harini Suresh, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Brown University, and Richard Wingfield, Director of Technology and Human Rights at BSR. This conversation was moderated by D&S Participatory Methods Researcher, Meg Young, and D&S Policy Director, Brian Chen.
Data & Society
enOctober 24, 2023
Network Book Forum | Disrupting DC: The Rise of Uber and the Fall of the City | Katie Wells and Kafui Attoh
As a tech platform and a company, Uber has become emblematic of an economic shift toward precarious, low-wage gig work and declining labor standards, which has unfolded under the guise of innovation. But an overlooked dimension of Uber’s rise is how the company capitalized on deeper tensions at the heart of urban politics. In Disrupting DC: The Rise of Uber and the Fall of the City, authors Katie Wells, Kafui Attoh, and Declan Cullen tell the story of Uber as a political force, revealing how DC became a testing ground and eventual “playbook” for the company’s consolidation of power across the nation and the globe.
During our September 21 Network Book Forum, co-authors Katie Wells and Kafui Attoh discussed their book with M.R. Sauter in a conversation moderated by Data & Society researcher Alexandra Mateescu.
Fellows Capstone Conversation: "Make a Way" | Lindsey Cameron with Sareeta Amrute
"I've always loved the term triple threat: someone who can do research, consulting, and teaching together, consulting being engaged with the world. I knew, yes, I want to be a triple threat. That's been my steadiness, or my purpose, that I've held onto for a long time." - Lindsey Cameron
“Creating your own terms for how you want to be in the world always has to be done in solidarity with others. That's why I get so much from these conversations and the fellowship.” - Sareeta Amrute
Data & Society launched Race and Technology fellowships three years ago to recognize how important questions of race, and analogous concepts like caste, are to studying, developing, and using emerging technologies. This year's fellows, Lindsey Cameron and Christina Harrington, convened interdisciplinary groups to talk through shared analysis and points of difference in their respective fields, devising nuanced ways to engage with the intersections of tech and race.
Recorded in April 2023.
Learn more at www.datasociety.net.
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Data & Society studies the social implications of data-centric technologies, automation, and AI. Through empirical research and active engagement, our work illuminates the values and decisions that drive these systems — and shows why they must be grounded in equity and human dignity.
Fellows Capstone Conversation: "What Guides Us" | Christina Harrington with Sareeta Amrute
“I always say that my research, even in the academy, has these parallel interests of thinking about how we make the technology itself more equitable, but then also thinking about -- how do we make the methods, whether they be the design methods or the research methods, more equitable and more accessible?” - Christina Harrington
Data & Society launched Race and Technology fellowships three years ago to recognize how important questions of race, and analogous concepts like caste, are to studying, developing, and using emerging technologies. This year's fellows, Lindsey Cameron and Christina Harrington, convened interdisciplinary groups to talk through shared analysis and points of difference in their respective fields, devising nuanced ways to engage with the intersections of tech and race.
Recorded in May 2023.
Learn more at www.datasociety.net.
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Data & Society studies the social implications of data-centric technologies, automation, and AI. Through empirical research and active engagement, our work illuminates the values and decisions that drive these systems — and shows why they must be grounded in equity and human dignity.
[Databite 154] The Trauma of Caste in Tech: In Conversation with Thenmozhi Soundararajan
Despite the ban on untouchability 70 years ago, caste, one of the oldest systems of exclusion in the world, is thriving — impacting 1.9 billion people worldwide. And the wreckages of caste are replicated in the US and elsewhere, showing up at work, at school, in housing, and in technology, and forcing countless Dalits to live in fear of being outed.
In The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation on Survivorship, Healing, and Abolition, Dalit American activist Thenmozhi Soundararajan puts forth a call to awaken and act, not just for readers in South Asia, but around the world. She ties Dalit oppression to fights for liberation among Black, Indigenous, Latinx, femme, and queer communities, examining caste from a feminist, abolitionist, and Dalit Buddhist perspective — and laying bare the grief, rage, and stolen futures enacted by Brahminical social structures.
Purchase your copy of The Trauma of Caste: https://bookshop.org/a/14284/9781623177652
[Databite 153] Essentially Unprotected: Health Data and Surveillance of Essential Workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Data & Society’s report Essentially Unprotected is based on interviews with 50 people who worked in grocery, warehousing, manufacturing or meat and food processing during the pandemic. The report highlights their experiences and efforts to manage the confusing and often terrifying challenges of the in-person pandemic workplace.
In this conversation featuring Angela Stuesse and Irene Tung, Amanda Lenhart and Livia Garofalo examine the social, economic, and regulatory environment that laid the groundwork for serious information gaps surrounding infections. We will explore how technology contributed to the collection of data and worsened workers’ stress and frustration — and, in select cases, facilitated information-sharing that protected workers’ privacy and addressed their fears.
Read the report : https://datasociety.net/library/essentially-unprotected/
Databite No. 152 Cuidado Digital—Derechos Reproductivos, Aborto y Redes Digitales de Cuidado en América Latina
Desde hace mucho tiempo, el activismo en América Latina ha combatido - y en algunos casos ganado - la batalla por la libertad reproductiva. Dada la reciente revocación de Roe vs Wade, la “ola verde”, el color asociado con el movimiento para el aborto legal, seguro y gratuito que originó en Argentina y se ha expandido al resto del continente, ha llegado a los Estados Unidos. La revocación y penalización del derecho a abortar ha reanimado el debate sobre la autonomía, sobre el propio cuerpo y la información reproductiva personal, especialmente en este nuevo panorama de dataficación.
En esta conversación, Livia Garofalo, investigadora con el equipo Health + Data de Data & Society, hablará con Eugenia Ferrario, activista feminista de las Socorristas en Red en Argentina y Rebeca Ramos Duarte, abogada y directora de El Grupo de Información en Reproducción Elegida (GIRE) en México para reflexionar sobre la importancia del cuidado y la libertad reproductiva. Ponemos en el centro de este evento el concepto de “cuidado” concebido como ética y práctica de relaciones solidarias y sus manifestaciones digitales.
Este Databite fue interpretado por Claudia Alvis y Valeria Lara.
Databite No. 152 Cuidado Digital—Reproductive Rights, Abortion, and Digital Networks of Care in Latin America
With the repeal of Roe v. Wade in the US, the “green wave” — a color associated with the movement for safe and legal abortion that started in Argentina and spread to the rest of the continent — has reached American shores. With it have come debates about bodily autonomy and, in an increasingly datafied landscape, ownership of personal reproductive information.
In this conversation, Livia Garofalo, researcher with Data & Society’s Health and Data team, spoke to Eugenia Ferrario, a feminist activist and educator with the abortion care network Socorristas en Red in Argentina, and Rebeca Ramos Duarte, a lawyer in Mexico and director of El Grupo de Información en Reproducción Elegida, about the significance of reproductive freedom and care in the current climate. In both English and Spanish, this conversation centers cuidado (which means “care” in Spanish) as both the means and an end to providing safe abortions, connecting activists, and understanding how the “digital” can facilitate and impede reproductive liberation.
This Databite was interpreted by Claudia Alvis and Valeria Lara.
Databite No. 151 Power and Retail at the Digital Doorstep
Read the Report: "At the Digital Doorstep"
Databite No. 150 AI in/from the Majority World – Unscripted Conversation
In Fellowship: 2021-2022 Capstone Conversation
Recorded on June 3, 2022. Learn more at www.datasociety.net.
Data & Society
enSeptember 01, 2022
Book Forum Series: Democracy's Data
On August 11, 2022 Dan Bouk discussed his latest book, Democracy's Data: The Hidden Stories in the U.S. Census and How to Read Them, with Dr. Alex Hanna, Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute. The conversation was moderated by Data & Society People and Culture Manager, Ronteau Coppin.
The census isn’t just a data-collection process; it’s a ritual, and a tool, of American democracy. Behind every neat grid of numbers is a collage of messy, human stories—you just have to know how to read them.
In Democracy’s Data, the data historian Dan Bouk examines the 1940 U.S. census, uncovering what those numbers both condense and cleverly abstract: a universe of meaning and uncertainty, of cultural negotiation and political struggle. He introduces us to the men and women employed as census takers, bringing us with them as they go door to door, recording the lives of their neighbors. He takes us into the makeshift halls of the Census Bureau, where hundreds of civil servants, not to mention machines, labored with pencil and paper to divide and conquer the nation’s data. And he uses these little points to paint bigger pictures, such as of the ruling hand of white supremacy, the place of queer people in straight systems, and the struggle of ordinary people to be seen by the state as they see themselves.
The 1940 census is a crucial entry in American history, a controversial dataset that enabled the creation of New Deal era social programs, but that also, with the advent of World War Two, would be weaponized against many of the citizens whom it was supposed to serve. In our age of quantification, Democracy’s Data not only teaches us how to read between the lines but gives us a new perspective on the relationship between representation, identity, and governance today.
Book Forum Series: Experiments of the Mind
Join author Emily Martin (Professor Emerita, Department of Anthropology, NYU), panelists Iretiolu Akinrinade (Research Analyst, Data & Society), and Noelle Stout (faculty member, Program in Advanced Teaching and Research, Apple University), and host Emanuel Moss (Join Postdoctoral Scholar, Data & Society, Cornell Tech) for a conversation around Experiments of the Mind: From the Cognitive Psychology Lab to the World of Facebook and Twitter.
Experimental cognitive psychology research is a hidden force in our online lives. We engage with it, often unknowingly, whenever we download a health app, complete a Facebook quiz, or rate our latest purchase. How did experimental psychology come to play an outsized role in these developments? Experiments of the Mind considers this question through a look at cognitive psychology laboratories. Emily Martin traces how psychological research methods evolved, escaped the boundaries of the discipline, and infiltrated social media and our digital universe.
Martin recounts her participation in psychology labs, and she conveys their activities through the voices of principal investigators, graduate students, and subjects. Despite claims of experimental psychology's focus on isolated individuals, Martin finds that the history of the field--from early German labs to Gestalt psychology--has led to research methods that are, in fact, highly social. She shows how these methods are deployed online: amplified by troves of data and powerful machine learning, an unprecedented model of human psychology is now widespread--one in which statistical measures are paired with algorithms to predict and influence users' behavior.
Experiments of the Mind examines how psychology research has shaped us to be perfectly suited for our networked age.
Data & Society
enJune 15, 2022
Book Forum Series: Nice White Ladies
Nice White Ladies: The Truth About White Supremacy, Our Role in it, and How We Can Help Dismantle it, by D&S 2018-2019 Fellow Jessie Daniels, and hosted by Principal Researcher & Race and Tech Program Director Sareeta Amrute
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Named a Best Book of 2021 by Kirkus
An acclaimed expert illuminates the distinctive role that white women play in perpetuating racism, and how they can work to fight it.
In a nation deeply divided by race, the “Karens” of the world are easy to villainize. But in Nice White Ladies, Jessie Daniels addresses the unintended complicity of even well-meaning white women. She reveals how their everyday choices harm communities of color. White mothers, still expected to be the primary parents, too often uncritically choose to send their kids to the “best” schools, collectively leading to a return to segregation. She addresses a feminism that pushes women of color aside, and a wellness industry that insulates white women in a bubble of their own privilege.
Daniels then charts a better path forward. She looks to the white women who fight neo-Nazis online and in the streets, and who challenge all-white spaces from workplaces to schools to neighborhoods. In the end, she shows how her fellow white women can work toward true equality for all.
Data & Society
enJune 07, 2022
Conversations on the Datafied State – Part Three: Race, Surveillance, Resistance
Tamara K. Nopper and Chaz Arnett in conversation with Raúl Carrillo and Alyx Goodwin
This panel focuses attention on how datafication processes are related to social control and surveillance, whether policing and the criminal punishment system or credit scoring systems and monitoring the use of cash. State power is expanded through the widening net of surveillance and the use of tools of automated detection and enforcement, which maintains racial and class hierarchies. Our panel also examines how communities and organizations are resisting the datafied state and its particular impact on Black and people of color communities, including efforts to regulate data collection, politically organize against harmful data initiatives, or propose policies that attempt more ethical data processes.
Data & Society
enJune 01, 2022