Data & Society

Elana Zeide on Student Privacy and Big Data. With the rise of online learning environments, student records are no longer just basic academic and administrative information, but include data and metadata generated from student interaction with digital platforms as well as unexpected sources like student ID badges and social media. Applying big data analytics to this wealth of information has the p...

Madeleine Clare Elish presents “An AI Pattern Language,” coauthored with Tim Hwang. The publication is the culmination of two years of research and conversations with a range of industry practitioners working in intelligent systems and artificial intelligence. The work was supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. You can purchase your own copy or download the PDF at autonomy...

Kristian Lum will elaborate on the concept of “bias in, bias out” in machine learning with a simple, non-technical example. She will then demonstrate how applying machine learning to police records can result in the over-policing of historically over-policed communities. Using a case study from Oakland, CA, she will show one specific case of how predictive policing not only perpetuates the biases...

Ilana Gershon discusses how we all have moments in which someone’s use of new media baffles us, and we have to ask a friend how to respond. It often isn’t just the content of the message, it is also using that particular medium in that way which leaves us scratching our heads. In this talk, I discuss what anthropological concepts can help us understand our confusion. I will turn to LinkedIn as my...

Natasha Schüll – From the NSA scandal to Facebook’s controversial “mood experiment,” the past decade has seen heated debate over the ways that governments and corporations collect data on citizens and consumers, the ends to which they use it, and the threat this poses to civil liberties. Yet even as this discussion over surveillant monitoring unfolds, the public has embraced practices and products...

danah boyd weaves together her work on youth, privacy, and data-driven technologies, to examine the complicated social and cultural dynamics underpinning social media, the messiness of “big data,” and the problematic implications of using algorithms designed for one problem to address societal issues without accounting for unintended consequences.

Noel Hidalgo will journey through two fellowships — his Data & Society Fellowship and construction of a new fellowship for 21st century civic hackers. The first half of the discussion will focus on detailed lessons learned from working within the City’s civic technology community, collaborating with CUNY’s Service Corps students, building a municipal open data curriculum, and developing partne...

Bruce Schneider describes how we’ have created a world where information technology permeates our economies, social interactions, and intimate selves. The combination of mobile, cloud computing, the Internet Things, persistent computing, and autonomy is resulting in something altogether different — a world-sized web. This World-Sized Web promises great benefits, but it is also vulnerable to a host...

Tracing her experiences as a mathematician and data scientist working in academia, finance, and advertising, Cathy O’Neil will walk us through what she has learned about the pervasive, opaque, and unaccountable mathematical models that regulate our lives, micromanage our economy, and shape our behavior. Cathy will examine how statistical models often pose as neutral mathematical tools, lending a v...

Patrick Ball discusses how data about mass violence can seem to offer insights into patterns: is violence getting better, or worse, over time? Is violence directed more against men or women? However, in human rights data collection, we (usually) don’t know what we don’t know — and worse, what we don’t know may be systematically different from what we do know. This talk will explore the assumption...

Mark Latonero and Paula Kift on digital passageways and borders in the movement of refugees. Numerous media reports have highlighted that refugees now increasingly rely on digital devices such as smartphones in order to traverse their perilous routes, contact lost family members, or find safe places before dark. But claims that “a smartphone” may be “the most important” tool for Syrian refugees mi...

Sean McDonald on Ebola and the Law of Disaster Experimentation. As an increasing number of industries digitize, the economy around data analysis – particularly predictive modeling – has exploded. The problem is, we don’t have any real way to understand, analyze, or predict the accuracy of these predictive models. There is no context where this has higher potential – for good and harm – than humani...

Health information technology can save lives, cut costs, and expand access to care. But its full promise will only be realized if policymakers broker a “grand bargain” between providers, patients, and administrative agencies. In exchange for subsidizing systems designed to protect intellectual property and secure personally identifiable information, health regulators should have full access to key...

Ifeoma Ajunwa on genetic coercion. Although we cannot disclaim the utility of genetic data, it is important to consider whether we are being socially and governmentally coerced to relinquish our genetic data. If so, what does this mean for privacy and discrimination? What are the obstacles and potential solutions to securing genetic data? Recorded on 6/11/2015

Tarleton Gillespie on how algorithms may now be our most important knowledge technologies, “the scientific instruments of a society at large.” Algorithms are increasingly vital to how we organize human social interaction, produce authoritative knowledge, and choreograph our participation in public life. Search engines, recommendation systems, and edge algorithms on social networking sites: these n...