Data & Society

Visit datasociety.net for to learn more about this Book Talk's speakers, access resources and referenced materials, and to purchase copies of The AI Con and Empire of AI.Purchase copies of these books from our Bookshop:The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want by Emily M. Bender and Alex HannaEmpire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI by Karen Hao

Recorded on May 6, 2025 at The Greene Space in NYC Featuring Dr. Julián Posada and Aiha Nguyen Resources and recordings will be shared here: https://datasociety.net/events/what-is-work-worth/

Books Death Glitch: How Techno-Solutionism Fails Us in This Life and Beyond (Tamara Kneese)The Pacific Circuit: A Globalized Account of the Battle for the Soul of an American City (Alexis Madrigal)Blockchain Chicken Farm: And Other Stories of Tech in China's Countryside (Xiaowei Wang)

At the turn of the 20th century, the anti-immigration and eugenics movements used data about marginalized people to fuel racial divisions and political violence under the guise of streamlining society toward the future. Today, as the tech industry champions itself as a global leader of progress and innovation, we are falling into the same trap.On April 10th, Anita Say Chan, author of Predatory Data: Eugenics in Big Tech and Our Fight for an Independent Future (UCP 2025 and open access), joined Émile P. Torres and Timnit Gebru for a discussion of the 21st century eugenics revival in big tech and how to resist it in a conversation moderated by Trustworthy Infrastructures Program Director Maia Woluchem. Predatory Data is the first book to draw this direct line between the datafication and prediction techniques of past eugenicists and today's often violent and extractive “big data” regimes. Torres and Gebru have also extensively studied the second wave of eugenics, identifying a suite of tech-utopian ideologies they call the TESCREAL bundle.Purchase your own copy of Anita Say Chan's book Predatory Data: Eugenics in Big Tech and Our Fight for an Independent Future: https://bookshop.org/a/14284/9780520402843.Learn more about the event at datasociety.net (https://datasociety.net/events/resisting-predatory-data/).

Two years ago, we were told that ‘prompt engineer' would be a real job — well, it's not. Is generative AI actually going to replace and transform human labour, or is this just another shallow marketing narrative?In this episode of Computer Says Maybe, host Alix Dunn speaks with Data & Society researchers Aiha Nguyen and Alexandra Mateescu, authors of the primer Generative AI and Labor: Power, Hype, and Value at Work. They discuss how automation is now being used as a threat against workers, and how certain types of labor are being devalued by AI — especially traditionally feminized work like caregiving.Further reading:Generative AI and Labor: Power, Hype, and Value at Work by Aiha Nguyen and Alexandra MateescuBlood in the Machine by Brain MerchantAiha Nguyen is the Program Director for the Labor Futures Initiative at Data & Society where she guides research and engagement. She brings a practitioner's perspective to this role having worked for over a decade in community and worker advocacy and organizing. Her research interests lie at the intersection of labor, technology, and urban studies. She is author of The Constant Boss: Work Under Digital Surveillance and co-author of ‘At the Digital Doorstep: How Customers Use Doorbell Cameras to Manage Delivery Workers', and ‘Generative AI and Labor: Power, Hype and Value at Work'.Alexandra Mateescu is a researcher on the Labor Futures team at the Data & Society Research Institute, where she investigates the impacts of digital surveillance, AI, and algorithmic power within the workplace. As an ethnographer, her past work has led her to explore the role of worker data and its commodification, the intersections of care labor and digital platforms, automation within service industries, and generative AI in creative industries. She is also a 2024-2025 Fellow at the Siegel Family Endowment.Subscribe to our newsletter to get more stuff than just a podcast — we run events and do other work that you will definitely be interested in!

Physical and digital infrastructures have raised tensions around the world, seeding land disputes, climate effects, and disrupting social fabrics. Yet they are also intertwined with myths of progress, transformation, and speculation. To explore these themes, we were joined by Nia Johnson, Ekene Ijeoma, and Lori Regattieri — academics, practitioners, and artists who are each, in their own way, responding to the ways digital infrastructures are transforming the built, natural, and social environments. In a conversation moderated by Trustworthy Infrastructures Program Director Maia Woluchem, we broke down confrontations between technological infrastructures and local communities and discussed how to  reshape narratives of process, power, change, and futurity.This public panel is part of Connective (t)Issues, a Data & Society workshop organized by the Trustworthy Infrastructures program in partnership with Duke Science & Society. Learn more about the workshop at datasociety.net. https://datasociety.net/announcements/2024/11/20/connective-tissues/

What exactly is generative AI (genAI) red-teaming? What strategies and standards should guide its implementation? And how can it protect the public interest? In this conversation, Lama Ahmad, Camille François, Tarleton Gillespie, Briana Vecchione, and Borhane Blili-Hamelin examined red-teaming's place in the evolving landscape of genAI evaluation and governance.Our discussion drew on a new report by Data & Society (D&S) and AI Risk and Vulnerability Alliance (ARVA), a nonprofit that aims to empower communities to recognize, diagnose, and manage harmful flaws in AI. The report, Red-Teaming in the Public Interest, investigates how red-teaming methods are being adapted to confront uncertainty about flaws in systems and to encourage public engagement with the evaluation and oversight of genAI systems. Red-teaming offers a flexible approach to uncovering a wide range of problems with genAI models. It also offers new opportunities for incorporating diverse communities into AI governance practices.Ultimately, we hope this report and discussion present a vision of red-teaming as an area of public interest sociotechnical experimentation.Download the report and learn more about the speakers and references at datasociety.net.--00:00 Opening00:12 Welcome and Framing04:48 Panel Introductions09:34 Discussion Overview10:23 Lama Ahmad on The Value of Human Red-Teaming17:37 Tarleton Gillespie on Labor and Content Moderation Antecedents25:03 Briana Vecchione on Participation & Accountability28:25 Camille François on Global Policy and Open-source Infrastructure35:09 Questions and Answers56:39 Final Takeaways

Do you ever wonder how semiconductors (AKA chips) — the things that make up the fine tapestry of modern life — get made? And why does so much chip production bottleneck in Taiwan?Luckily, this is a podcast for nerds like you. Alix was joined this week by Brian Chen from Data & Society, who systematically explains the process of advanced chip manufacture, how its thoroughly entangled in US economic policy, and how Taiwan's place as the main artery for chips is the product of deep colonial infrastructures.Brian J. Chen is the policy director of Data & Society, leading the organization's work to shape tech policy. With a background in movement lawyering and legislative and regulatory advocacy, he has worked extensively on issues of economic justice, political economy, and tech governance.Previously, Brian led campaigns to strengthen the labor and employment rights of digital platform workers and other workers in precarious industries. Before that, he led programs to promote democratic accountability in policing, including community oversight over the adoption and use of police technologies.**Subscribe to our newsletter to get more stuff than just a podcast — we run events and do other work that you will definitely be interested in!**

On November 14, in a conversation moderated by Data & Society Senior Researcher Ranjit Singh, Madhumita Murgia and Armin Samii discussed Murgia's new book, Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI. Together, they explored living with data by describing their journeys into understanding it, reporting on it, and resisting it. While Murgia's journalistic journey began with tracing the flow of her personal data sold by data brokers, Samii used his expertise as a computer scientist to build UberCheats, an algorithm auditing tool that extracts GPS coordinates from UberEats receipts to calculate the difference between the actual miles a courier traveled and those Uber claimed they did. In Code Dependent, Samii's story is the focus of a chapter on how data-driven systems come to play the role of the boss.Purchase a copy of Code Dependent: https://bookshop.org/a/14284/9781250867391Learn more at datasociety.net (https://datasociety.net) 

When Data & Society was founded ten years ago, it was rooted in the insight that data-centric technologies have broad and often unseen impacts on society — and that to better understand those impacts and realize technologies that reflect our highest values, we need interdisciplinary, empirical research.Today, the urgency of that vision is palpable: How societies choose to design and govern technology will determine our collective future. On September 26, we celebrated our first decade with our incredible network of alumni, friends, and supporters. Along with reflections from Data & Society Executive Director Janet Haven, Board President Charlton McIlwain, and Founder danah boyd, the program included a panel discussion and lightning talks.00:00 Opening00:10 Welcome | Charlton McIlwain, Board President08:23 Creating a Field | danah boyd, Founder19:37 Lightning Talk: Xiaowei R. Wang27:02 Lightning Talk: Ranjit Singh33:09 Lightning Talk: Zara Rahman38:42 Lightning Talk: Michelle Miller46:00 Acting on What We Know | Alondra Nelson, John Palfrey, Felicia Wong (moderator: Suresh Venkatasubramanian)1:13:47 Creating Our Future | Janet Haven, Executive Director1:25:42 Closing | Charlton McIlwain, Board President

In the United States, Black maternal health is in steep decline. Despite increased awareness and better data about the depths of racial health disparities, outcomes for Black birthing people remain poor. At the same time, a revolution in healthcare technologies is underway, and as they provide care at the frontlines of a crisis, birth workers are figuring out how to make digital health technologies work for them and their patients.In "Establishing Vigilant Care: Data Infrastructures and the Black Birthing Experience," Joan Mukogosi explores how digital health technologies can produce new forms of harm for Black birthing people — by exposing Black patients to carceral systems, creating information silos that impede interoperability, and failing to meet privacy standards. By paying close attention to how clinical contexts and their associated digital technologies impact how care is delivered, this research offers a glimpse into possibilities for improved cohesion between digital health technologies and birth work.Learn more about Data & Society at datasociety.net.

The Formalization of Social Precarities podcast explores platformization from the point of view of precarious gig workers in the Majority World. This conversation was moderated by Aiha Nguyen and Murali Shanmugavelan featuring the voices of Ambika Tandon, Ludmilla Costhek Abílio, and Ananya Raihan. You will also be hearing the experience of two platform workers interviewed for this project: Fatema Begum from Bangladesh and Nicolas Sauza from Brazil. Their voices are narrated in English by Data & Society staff members Iretiolu Akinrinade and Rigoberto Lara Guzmán, respectively. This podcast was edited by Sam Grant.

Data & Society's report, Doing the Work: Therapeutic Labor, Teletherapy, and the Platformization of Mental Health Care, written by Livia Garofalo, explores how these new arrangements of therapeutic labor are affecting how therapists provide care and make a living in the US. By focusing on the experiences of providers who practice teletherapy and work for digital platforms, our research examines the fundamental tensions that emerge when a profession rooted in clinical expertise, licensing, and training standards meets the dynamics of platformization, productivity incentives, and algorithmic management. In this conversation, we reflected on how technology is changing the conditions of how therapists do their work, on the consequences for the present and future of therapeutic labor, and on how this might be changing our understanding of therapy itself.

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.

This public keynote was part of Trust Issues, a Data & Society workshop organized by the Trustworthy Infrastructures program. That team includes Sareeta Amrute, Livia Garofalo, Robyn Caplan, Joan Mukogosi, Tiara Roxanne, and Kadija Ferryman.

Purchase your own copy of Queer Data Studies here: https://bookshop.org/a/14284/9780295751979.

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.

About the SeriesGenerative 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.

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.

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.

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.

“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. __ 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.

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

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/

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.

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.

Read the Report: "At the Digital Doorstep"

A PRIMER ON AI IN/FROM THE MAJORITY WORLD—An Empirical Site and a Standpoint

Recorded on June 3, 2022. Learn more at www.datasociety.net.

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.

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.

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.

Ranjit Singh, Researcher at D&S, in conversation with Joanna Redden, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Information & Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario and the co-director of the Data Justice Lab, and Michele E. Gilman, Venerable Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Faculty Research and Development at the University of Baltimore School of Law and director of the Civil Advocacy Clinic. The automated state is one that seeks to replace human workers with machines. There are three general motivations. One, the desire to leverage computational speed to handle rote and routine work more efficiently. Two, the desire to improve the accuracy, fairness, or consistency of decision-making in light of human fallibility. Three, the desire to depoliticize decision-making (or appear to) by placing it out of reach of human discretion. These motivations, however, raise distinctive concerns about oversight and the ability to seek recourse in the case of errors or bugs in decision-making. What does interacting with systems, interfaces, and datasets require of people interfacing with the Datafied State? What literacies are necessary? What room is there for voice? What does automation look like in practice? Who is rendered invisible when showcasing success in automating state practices? About Data & Society Data & Society is an independent nonprofit research organization. We believe that empirical evidence should directly inform the development and governance of new technology. We study the social implications of data and automation, producing original research to ground informed, evidence-based public debate about emerging technology. About the Series The Datafied State is an emerging research agenda that seeks to explore the relationship between datafication and public administration. It is concerned with the proliferation of data sources, infrastructures, and computational techniques adopted across the public sector. The processes through which governments procure, develop, implement, and legally mandate the use of digital and computational systems are increasingly blurring the boundaries between what is considered public and private. So, how datafied is the state today? How can we find out?

Jenna Burrell, Director of Research at Data & Society, in conversation with Anne Washington, Assistant Professor of Data Policy at NYU, and Deidre Mulligan, Professor in the School of Information at UC Berkeley. Part one in a series of three Conversations on The Datafied State. The role of government is distinct from the private sector. Governments serve the public and prioritize values beyond market fit and return on investment. Governments interface with advocacy groups, unions, and other publics and not just individuals. In their approach to solving problems using computational, data-driven systems, governments have an opportunity to model responsible, accountable, and accessible tech. But what exactly would it mean for that tech to be in “the public interest,” and how are such publics constituted?

Meredith D. Clark, Ph.D. is an assistant professor in the Media Studies department at the University of Virginia. Her professional journalism background informs her primary research on the relationships between Black communities and news media in social media spaces. Her secondary research in critical journalism studies addresses questions of systemic racism in U.S. news media, with a focus on culture and processes in print and digital newsrooms. Her current work contextualizes Black Americans' use of Twitter to create digital counter-narratives to mainstream news coverage of Black lived experiences as contemporary forms of resistance.Shaka McGlotten is Professor of Media Studies and Anthropology at Purchase College-SUNY, where they also serve as Chair of the Gender Studies and Global Black Studies Programs. Their work stages encounters between Black study, queer theory, media, and art. Their research focuses on networked intimacies and messy computational entanglements as they interface with QTPOC lifeworlds.

Algorithmic impact assessments have emerged as a centerpiece of the conversation about algorithmic governance. Impact assessments integrate many of the chief tools of algorithmic governance (e.g., auditing, end-to-end governance frameworks, ethics reviews) and speak to the challenges of algorithmic justice, equity, and community redress. Impact assessment (or similar accountability mechanisms) are at the core of recent headlines about procurement practices in Canada, leaked regulatory proposals in the EU, and new efforts to regulate the tech industry in the US. But do impact assessments promise too much? Multiple national and state governments have instituted, or are considering, requirements for impact assessment of algorithmic systems, but there is a surprisingly wide range of structures for these regulations.Sarah Chander leads EDRi's policy work on AI and non-discrimination with respect to digital rights. She is interested in building thoughtful, resilient movements and she looks to make links between the digital and other social justice movements. Sarah has experience in racial and social justice, previously she worked in advocacy at the European Network Against Racism (ENAR), on a wide range of topics including anti-discrimination law and policy, intersectional justice, state racism, racial profiling and police brutality. Comment endFenwick McKelvey is an Associate Professor in Information and Communication Technology Policy in the Department of Communication Studies at Concordia University. He studies digital politics and policy. He is the author of Internet Daemons: Digital Communications Possessed (University of Minnesota Press, 2018) winner of the 2019 Gertrude J. Robinson Book Award. He is co-author of The Permanent Campaign: New Media, New Politics (Peter Lang, 2012) with Greg Elmer and Ganaele Langlois.Jacob (Jake) Metcalf, PhD, is a researcher at Data & Society, where he is a member of the AI on the Ground Initiative, and works on an NSF-funded multisite project, Pervasive Data Ethics for Computational Research (PERVADE). For this project, he studies how data ethics practices are emerging in environments that have not previously grappled with research ethics, such as industry, IRBs, and civil society organizations. His recent work has focused on the new organizational roles that have developed around AI ethics in tech companies.Brittany Smith is the Policy Director at Data & Society. Prior to joining Data & Society, Brittany worked at DeepMind and Google in policy, ethics and human rights roles. Brittany also currently serves on the Advisory Board of JUST AI, a humanities-led network inviting new ways of thinking about data and AI ethics. Brittany graduated from Northwestern University and the London School of Economics.

In the final episode of our season, “Becoming Data,” scholars Sareeta Amrute and Emiliano Treré join our host, Natalie Kerby, to discuss the concept and lived reality of racial capitalism. The episode explores how data-centric systems perpetuate racial capitalism, and how different communities, particularly in the Global South, have resisted this datafication.Sareeta Amrute (@SareetaAmrute) is an anthropologist, associate professor at the University of Washington, and Director of Research at Data & Society.Emiliano Treré (@EmilianoTrere) is a senior lecturer in Media Ecologies and Social Transformation and co-director of the Data Justice Lab at Cardiff University."Becoming Data" is co-produced by Data & Society and Public Books.

Scholars Laura Forlano and Ranjit Singh join our host, Natalie Kerby, to explore the different infrastructures that data interacts with and flows through. Whose values get embedded into the algorithms that increasingly govern our lives? How are these data infrastructures complicating what it means to be human?Ranjit Singh (@datasociety) is a Postdoctoral Scholar at Data & Society.Laura Forlano (@laura4lano) is associate professor at the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology."Becoming Data" is co-produced by Data & Society and Public Books.

Over the past year, Covid-19 has exacerbated suffering across every section of life. Harassment and hostility, work pressure, and the strain of a pandemic, along with trauma from ongoing racism, sexism, and other discrimination, have taken a toll on our mental health. Until now, little research has been done on the impact of Covid-19 on the tech workforce. Project Include surveyed almost 3,000 people and interviewed dozens more about the shift to remote online workplaces. In their latest report, “Remote work since Covid-19 is exacerbating harm: What companies need to know and do”, they take an intersectional lens and data equity-focused approach to understand specifically who has been harmed, how they were harmed, and how to fix it.Speaker BiosOne of Silicon Valley's leading advocates for fairness and ethics, Ellen Pao is also a long-time entrepreneur and tech investor. Her landmark gender discrimination case against venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins sparked other women, especially women of color, to fight harassment and discrimination in what's been called the "Pao Effect.” Currently, Ellen is CEO of nonprofit Project Include, which uses data-based, practical solutions and recommendations to give everyone a fair chance to succeed. At reddit, she was the first major social platform CEO to ban revenge porn, unauthorized nude photos, and cross-platform harassment, with other social media sites quickly following suit. Ellen has written and spoken extensively, including in The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, Recode, and WIRED. Her book “Reset” recounts her long-time advocacy of diversity and inclusion and her own experiences with discrimination.Yang Hong works as Shoshin Insights, an in(ter)dependent data and machine learning consultancy with a justice-centered approach for societal issues. She's worked on the global refugee crisis, hearing aids, data poverty, climate justice, tech equity, and more. As a community builder, she has tended to gardens such as Work On Climate, Activist Teahouse, and South Park Commons. Yang is a creative apprentice to lifelong practices of tea and collective liberation.McKensie Mack (pronouns: they/them) is a trilingual anti-oppression consultant, researcher, facilitator, and the founder & CEO of MMG. MMG is a global social justice organization that specializes in organizational change management through a lens of data equity; helping people transform culture, practices, and policies at the intersection of race, gender, class, disability, and LGBTQ+ identity. Their clients are currently based all over the world in the U.S., the UK, France, South Africa, Nigeria, Germany, Spain, and Peru. McKensie is the former inaugural Executive Director of Art+Feminism, one of the largest gender equity focused projects on Wikipedia.

Researchers Arthur Gwagwa and Deb Raji join our host, Natalie Kerby, to discuss data, AI, and automation, and the different ways they operate across geopolitical contexts such as the US and Africa. The episode covers not only the harms that can result from these systems, but also how we might address and prevent those harms.Arthur Gwagwa (@arthurgwagwa) is a researcher at Utrecht University's Ethics Institute in the Department of Philosophy.Deb Raji (@rajiinio) is a fellow at Mozilla and works closely with the Algorithmic Justice League."Becoming Data" is co-produced by Data & Society and Public Books.

At social media and gaming companies, the user is the constant focus — at least in theory. How to get them to use this platform more? To stay longer? To come back tomorrow? Attention and resources are poured into answering these questions throughout the industry. That same attention and those same resources are not, however, put toward the well-being of a major group of their users: young people. Data & Society's new report, The Unseen Teen: The Challenges of Building Healthy Tech for Young People investigates how social platform companies think about and design for young people and their health and digital well-being. Based on a multi-year, qualitative research project interviewing social media and social gaming company workers in a variety of roles, we learned that many companies struggle to imagine and design for the breadth of their users, especially minors. Instead by focusing on averages, and limited quantitative metrics, tech companies miss the nuance in differential impacts that has real consequences for real people. We discuss the report, our recommendations, and the real world implications of our findings on those entrusted to help companies think about the well-being of their youngest users.Speaker BiosAmanda Lenhart studies how technology affects human lives, with a special focus on families and children. A quantitative and qualitative researcher, Amanda is the Health + Data Research Lead at the Data & Society Research Institute. Over decades, she has examined how adolescents and their families use and think about technology, how young adults consume news, how harassment has thrived in online spaces, and how automation will impact workers. Most recently, as deputy director of the Better Life Lab at New America, Amanda focused on the ways technology affects workers' jobs and lives, as well as the family-supportive policies that enable balance between the personal and the professional. She began her career at the Pew Research Center, studying how teens and families use social and mobile technologies.Charlotte Willner is the Founding Executive Director of the Trust & Safety Professional Association (TSPA) and the Trust & Safety Foundation after fourteen years of working in trust and safety operations. She began her career at Facebook, where she led international user support, then built out their first safety operations team. She went on to build and lead Pinterest's trust and safety operations team, overseeing online safety, law enforcement response, and intellectual property matters. She holds a degree in English from Bowdoin College and is delighted to show you that this is, in fact, what you can do with an English degree.Aden Van Noppen is the Founder and Executive Director of Mobius, an unconventional collective of technologists, scientists, activists, and spiritual teachers working together to create a world in which technology brings out the best in humanity. She was a Senior Advisor to the U.S. Chief Technology Officer in the Obama White House Office, where she developed the led programs that leverage tech as a tool for social and economic justice. After that, she spent a year as a Resident Fellow at Harvard Divinity School focusing on the intersection of tech, ethics and spirituality and was an affiliate at Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. Aden was also part of the founding leadership team of The Sanctuaries, the first interfaith arts community in the country. Her work has been featured in the New Yorker, The New York Times, WIRED, and elsewhere.

Scholar Shaka McGlotten and activist Chris Ramsaroop join our host, Natalie Kerby, to discuss data in the context of labor. The episode addresses the historical ways that data has been used to organize labor, the labor of making ourselves visible to data-centric systems, and the different ways that people, and more specifically workers, are resisting datafication.Shaka McGlotten (@shakaz23) is a professor of anthropology and media studies at Purchase College, SUNY and 2020-2021 Faculty Fellow at Data & Society.Chris Ramsaroop (@j4mw) is an organizer with Justice for Migrant Workers and a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto."Becoming Data" is co-produced by Data & Society and Public Books.

In the first episode of our new season, “Becoming Data,” artist Mimi Onuoha and data journalist Lam Thuy Vo join host, Natalie Kerby, to consider what is lost when human life becomes translated into data. How do people show up in data, and what are some of the inequalities that can result from data collection?Mimi Onuoha (@thistimeitsmimi) is a media artist who makes work about what it means for the world to take the form of data.Lam Thuy Vo (@lamthuyvo) is a reporter who digs into data to examine how systems and policies affect individuals. She is an incoming Data Journalist-in-Residence at the Craig Newmark School of Journalism."Becoming Data" is co-produced by Data & Society and Public Books.

In the podcast series, Natalie Kerby of Data & Society asks her guests: How long has human life been quantified as data, and in what contexts? What are some major implications of humanity being measured as data? How are people pushing back against the datafication of human life, work, health, and citizenship?She speaks with academics, artists, activists, and journalists to explore these questions and more.