Data & Society

As AI is integrated into scientific practice, the practice of science itself is changing. AI models that summarize, categorize, simulate, and predict not only stand to accelerate scientific research; they now sit inside these practices, alternately enhancing and eroding craft while shifting how questions are posed, what counts as evidence, how tacit judgment is taught and exercised, and reshaping...

While many people have found benefit and respite in using chatbots for companionship, mental health, and emotional support, the widespread adoption of these tools has also resulted in harm and raised deep concerns about identity and safety. How are chatbots shaping people’s understanding of themselves? What concerns do therapists have about their use? How might these tools be designed and implemen...

In her new report (404) Job Not Found: What Workforce Training Can’t Fix for Black Atlantans in the Age of AI , Data & Society researcher Anuli Akanegbu provides the first ethnographic examination of how AI-related skills are defined, taught, and valued across Atlanta’s growing tech economy. Drawing on interviews, field observations, and historical analysis, she traces how AI literacy is promoted...

The second Trump administration has launched a full-scale effort to achieve “unchallenged global technological dominance.” It is accelerating the construction of AI infrastructure, from opening up federal lands to ramping up energy production. It has invoked AI-enabled “efficiency” in order to replace federal workers, removed agency guidance on algorithmic discrimination,  and supercharged the use...

Generative AI models are marketed as the next revolution in workplace automation, but they ultimately rely on human labor — from the people labeling content and checking outputs, to the content creators and workers whose data are extracted to build the systems. As management and organizational leaders adopt AI across workplaces, the use of these systems raises questions about how companies are res...

The concentration of power and lack of regulation in the technology industry directly shapes how AI is designed and deployed, and whose interests it serves. That means decisions about these tools often reflect corporate priorities over public benefits. While AI is often held up as a tool to increase “efficiency,” it is essential to ask: efficiency for whom, and at what cost? What would it mean to...

Artificial intelligence technologies run on powerful computers that require vast amounts of energy, water, and critical minerals. As AI use grows, so does its environmental footprint. Yet there is little consensus on how to assess and address the technology’s toll on the climate before irreparable damage is done. How can we understand the impact AI data centers have on communities and the environm...

Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping many aspects of our daily lives: from the way people are hired for jobs, to how housing applications are reviewed, to how government services are delivered in healthcare, education, and beyond. But while organizations of all kinds have been introducing AI systems into their core functions, there is uncertainty about how they are working — including who is...

In this moment of AI ascendance and data center accelerationism, there are thousands of tech workers who are concerned about the realities of climate change and see the tech industry’s growing role in it — and who are actively working to create change, develop better tools, and organize for collective action. In her report "Turning the Tide: Climate Action in and Against Tech," Climate, Technology...

Democracy faces challenges worldwide, and artificial intelligence has become an increasing part of that. In their book Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship , cybersecurity technologist Bruce Schneier and data scientist Nathan E. Sanders methodically unpack the ways AI is changing every aspect of democracy, while making the case that we can harness the...

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 Hanna Empire 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 are available 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 Da...

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, Hy...

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, resp...

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...

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 economi...

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...

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 techno...

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 technologie...

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...

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 th...

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 & Societ...

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.