Data & Society

The podcast delves into the labor impacts of generative AI, discussing its influence on education, therapy, and various industries. It highlights concerns about bias in AI systems and the importance of establishing guidelines in education. The conversation also explores the challenges of automating tasks involving ethics and privacy, emphasizing the need for regulations and ethical evaluations.

Experts from the Trustworthy Infrastructures program discuss the impact of AI systems on trust within marginalized groups. Topics include challenges of discerning between human and AI-generated content, evaluating AI systems, biases in natural language processing, struggles for accurate representation in AI technologies, and building trust and representation within marginalized communities.

Explore the impact of data systems on queer subjects and strategies of resistance. Delve into LGBTQ activism, alternative models for privacy, and shared vulnerability in queer data practices. Discuss the concept of algorithms shaping identities, algorithmic oppression, and queer resistance in technology. Dive into visual representation in queer history and the power of queer information activism in reshaping narratives.

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.

Explore the impact of generative AI on labor, including hierarchies, power asymmetries, and low wages. Discuss the increasing demand for professionals and concerns over copyright infringement. Introduce John Lopez and recommend experts on AI and image generators. Highlight the importance of including worker voices in AI discussions and advocating for transparency. Examine the labor impacts of generative AI and audience appreciation of AI-generated content.

Tamara Kneese and Tonia Sutherland discuss caring for digital remains and online legacies after death. They explore the challenges of preserving digital remains attached to corporate platforms. The podcast also delves into the intersection of technology and death on the internet, the relevance of historical analog records, and the importance of caring for someone's digital possessions after their death. The speakers touch on the use of images of black death in public conversation and the historical use of photography by black political agitators.

An analysis of the recently released AI executive order by the Biden administration and its implications for AI governance and accountability. The challenges in implementing the order, including the appointment of a chief AI officer and improving transparency of AI use cases in government. The impact of the order on AI practices in the government and private sector, and the lack of guidance on federal grants for surveillance technology.

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.

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.

"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. __ 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.