Sociotechs

The power associated to Big Tech, often equated to the ‘Big Five’ (Google, Apple, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft), is posing new problems at the societal and regulatory levels. Such problems lead to deeper questions in terms of power generation, use, and limitation, which a political philosophy perspective brings new flesh to. In this episode, we sit with Juho Lindman , whose award-winning paper "Big...

Digital identity, meaning the conversion of human identities into digital data, is often hailed as a route to benefits from the public and private sectors. At the same time, a different reality confronts this orthodoxy: vast empirical evidence exists on the harmful outcomes of digital identity, ranging from exclusion of entitled individuals from essential services to perilous forms of policing and...

The recent Olympic Games and European Football Championship have highlighted once again the importance, and controversiality, of technologies associated with referee decisions. A Video Assistant Referee, or VAR, is tasked with assisting the referee concerning dubious situations in a sports game. While VAR has become part and parcel of the experience of multiple sports, including football, little i...

The ongoing war on Gaza, one of the deadliest military assaults in history, has been accompanied by extreme applications of digital technologies to warfare. This feeds into the many layers of cybercontrol to which Palestine, a land under military and settler occupation, has long been subjected. Today we are joined by Fabio Cristiano to explore data violence in the ongoing Israeli assault, and the...

The foundational elements of EU migration policies and security technologies started to take a turn in the wake of Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, accelerating the research and use of traditional military and war technologies such as drones in civilian border management. In this episode, we explore the role of drones in border studies, the evolving landscape of EU border technologies in the...

Health data governance should ensure protection for individuals' health data against violations, while enabling the smooth functioning of healthcare systems. Doing so involves a complex set of stakeholders, opening multiple questions which directly affect the way our health data are collected, stored and managed. Today we sit with Dragana Paparova to unpack such questions, learning about issue...

The narrative of digital deception pervades the discourse on generative Artificial Intelligence (AI), opening important questions on the validity and verifiability of the information we come across daily. In this landscape, generative AI is now being extensively used to create engaging bots on social media which poses several threats to the fabric of trust and safety we as users expect over the in...

Humanitarian aid has undergone significant transformations in recent years, driven in part by the increasing integration of technology and the growing influence of private partners. Such a development not just changes who the actors are also, the mindset and response these actors bring for such an important ecosystem. We sit with Giulio Coppi to understand the principles of humanitarian aid, how d...

The notion of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for social good is being actively pushed as a route to involve private tech vendors in the pursuit of targets ascribing to the Sustainable Development Goals. With our guest Gianluca Iazzolino, we discuss the implications of the "AI for Social Good" (AI4SG) logic for intended providers and beneficiaries, with a focus on Africa. From biometric dat...

At a time when machines undertake practices previously delegated to human expertise, questions of skill erosion become prominent. Our guests  Esko Penttinen  and  Joona Ruissalo  illuminate the intersections of automation and skill erosion, which denotes a situation of decline in people's ability to manage tasks with the same effectiveness as before. With rich empirics from the accounting sect...

Data reuse is crucial to making existing datasets accessible across users, systems and organisations. As we discuss today with Elena Parmiggiani , many questions surround data reuse: how can data be managed, curated and prepared to achieve cross-contextual reusability? How does this affect social and political responsibility across countries, regions and sites of data production? Elena Parmiggiani...

In this episode we discuss data labeling, the intensive work behind the scenes of AI, with Srravya Chandhiramowuli . Through Srravya's expertise, we explore the myth and realities of data labeling, focusing on the demands experienced by workers and on the many competing challenges experienced in meeting them. Our conversation continues by exploring the origins of such demands, delving into the...

In this episode, we sit down with Aleksi Aaltonen to discuss his focus on data as semantic material and its implications for understanding technology in society. Delving into data ontology, we uncover its implications for the big data industry and how data simplification impacts its ability to capture reality. Aleksi introduces the concept of "data commodities," discussing their signific...

We delve into the world of border securitization and specifically, the involvement of AI in the EU's border externalization strategy. Our guest Antonella Napolitano sheds light on using surveillance technologies at the borders. From the concept of "border externalization" to the implications of the AI Act, we explore the consequences of outsourcing surveillance and the role of the EU...

Hi, Welcome to the inaugural episode of "Sociotechs," we are Silvia and Tejas, the hosts of this brand-new podcast. As researchers with diverse interests, Silvia delves into data justice, digital identity, and the politics of sociotechnical artifacts, while Tejas explores digital behaviors and value creation amidst emerging technologies. Together, we seek to understand how technologies a...