BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//UM ESC - ECPv6.15.16//NONSGML v1.0//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH X-WR-CALNAME:UM ESC X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://esc.umich.edu X-WR-CALDESC:Events for UM ESC REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H X-Robots-Tag:noindex X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Detroit BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:20180311T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20181104T060000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:20190310T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20191103T060000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:20200308T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20201101T060000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:20210314T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20211107T060000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:20220313T070000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:20221106T060000 END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20210325T130000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20210325T140000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20210325T131920Z LAST-MODIFIED:20210325T131920Z UID:2176-1616677200-1616680800@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:Jaime Snyder: Visually Encoding Personal Data for Vulnerable Populations DESCRIPTION:HOW TO PARTICIPATEZoom link: https://umich.zoom.us/j/91648623329\nMeeting ID: 916 4862 3329\nPasscode: misc2021 TITLEVisually Encoding Personal Data for Vulnerable Populations SPEAKERJaime Snyder\, University of Washington ABSTRACT“How am I doing?” Personal informatics and self-tracking systems contribute to expectations that personal health and wellness questions like this can be answered with data. Visualizations play a pivotal role in many PI systems by making tracking data available to end users. As a result\, conventions related to visually encoding are deeply implicated in explicit and implicit associations between self-knowledge and personal data. For vulnerable populations like those who self-track to manage serious mental illness (SMI)\, standardized approaches to visualizing data can introduce normative expectations and inappropriate behavioral targets. This talk will focus on a multi-phase design research project conducted in collaboration with individuals diagnosed with bipolar disorder\, a chronic SMI characterized by difficult to predict mood swings and often managed through therapeutic self-tracking. The study provides a basis for discussing the influence of affect\, visual conventions\, and vernacular literacies on the interpretation and use of personal data. Speculative design concepts created through a grounded design process introduce alternatives to representing and presenting personal data beyond standard approaches to data visualization. I will use this work to highlight key questions about the creation and use of visual representations of data that motivate the work that we do in the Visualization Studies Research Studio\, including: \nWhat characteristics of data do we making visible\, why\, and for whom? What motivates these choices and what values are reflected in these decisions?\nWhat are the mechanisms of visual encoding that surface certain things and obscure others? How are data made visible?\nAnd what are the implications of these design choices\, especially in terms of communication\, collaboration and coordination across individuals with distinctly different training\, points of reference\, and visual literacies?\nBIOJaime Snyder (http://www.jaimesnyder.com/) is an Assistant Professor in the Information School at the University of Washington in Seattle\, an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Centered Design and Engineering\, and a Core Affiliate in the Data Science Studies Special Interest Group. Prior to completing a PhD in Information Science and Technology at the Syracuse University School of Information Studies\, Snyder’s training and professional practice was centered in visual art\, specifically site-specific experimental drawing and painting. She earned a BFA in Painting from Tyler School of Art and an MFA in Visual Art from Stanford University. Building on this strong foundation in the critical image-making\, her work as an information scientist has focused on the creation and use of visual representations of data\, information\, and knowledge as a means of social interaction. At the University of Washington\, she leads the Visualization Studies Research Studio where her team uses qualitative and design research methods to engage in contexts where people from very different backgrounds with diverse types of expertise use visual materials to coordinate and collaborate. Her work has appeared in top HCI and information science venues such as ACM proceedings of CHI\, CSCW\, ASSETS\, and DIS; ACM TOCHI; JASIST; Computers in Human Behavior; and Human-Computer Interaction. Snyder’s research has received recognitions from ACM SIGCHI and CSCW for contributions to diversity\, equity\, and inclusion and has been funded by UW’s Royalty Research Fund (RRF)\, Group Health Foundation\, and an NSF CAREER award\, among others.   This event is co-organized by ESC and Michigan Interactive and Social Computing (MISC). URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/jaime-snyder-visually-encoding-personal-data-for-vulnerable-populations/ CATEGORIES:Visiting Speaker END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20210319T120000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20210319T133000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20210209T223508Z LAST-MODIFIED:20210312T183325Z UID:2142-1616155200-1616160600@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:Morgan G. Ames: The Charisma Machine - The Life\, Death\, and Legacy of One Laptop per Child DESCRIPTION:To participate\, click here to register. Title\nThe Charisma Machine: The Life\, Death\, and Legacy of One Laptop per Child Abstract \nDrawing on her book\, The Charisma Machine\, Ames chronicles the life and legacy of the One Laptop per Child project and explains why — despite its failures — the same utopian visions that inspired OLPC still motivate other projects trying to use technology to “disrupt” education and development. Announced in 2005 by MIT Media Lab cofounder Nicholas Negroponte\, One Laptop per Child promised to transform the lives of children across the Global South with a small\, sturdy\, and cheap laptop computer\, powered by a hand crank. In reality\, the project fell short in many ways\, starting with the hand crank\, which never materialized. Yet the project remained charismatic to many who were enchanted by its claims of access to educational opportunities previously out of reach. Behind its promises\, OLPC\, like many technology projects that make similarly grand claims\, had a fundamentally flawed vision of who the computer was made for and what role technology should play in learning. Based on archival work and an ethnography of a model OLPC project in Paraguay\, this talk will discuss how the laptops were not only frustrating to use\, easy to break\, and hard to repair\, they were designed for “technically precocious boys” — idealized younger versions of the developers themselves — rather than the diverse range of children who actually used them. Reaching fifty years into the past and across the globe\, Ames offers a cautionary tale about the allure of technology hype and the problems that result when utopian dreams drive technology development. Speaker Bio \nMorgan G. Ames researches the ideological origins of inequality in the technology world\, with a focus on utopianism\, childhood\, and learning. Her book The Charisma Machine: The Life\, Death\, and Legacy of One Laptop per Child (MIT Press\, 2019)\, winner of the 2020 Best Information Science Book Award\, draws on archival research and ethnographic fieldwork in Paraguay to explore the cultural history\, results\, and legacy of the OLPC project – and what it tells us about the many other technology projects that draw on similar utopian ideals. Morgan is an assistant adjunct professor in the School of Information at the University of California\, Berkeley\, where she teaches in Data Science and administers the Designated Emphasis in Science and Technology Studies in affiliation with the Center for Science\, Technology\, Medicine and Society. This event is co-sponsored by ESC and the Science\, Technology\, and Society (STS) Program. URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/morgan-ames-the-charisma-machine/ END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20210226T200000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20210226T210000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20210125T191808Z LAST-MODIFIED:20210225T162508Z UID:2132-1614369600-1614373200@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:Sophia Brueckner: Sci-Fi Prototyping and Critical Optimism DESCRIPTION:How to ParticipateThis is a scheduled video event. At the time stated above\, watch via webcast on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYn2vukv4gk. This stream will be simulcast by Detroit Public Television at dptv.org/pennystamps. Discussion is possible via comments on the Penny Stamps Speaker Series Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/PennyStampsSeries/. A recording of the event may be available at a later date after a delay for processing.   TitleSci-Fi Prototyping and Critical Optimism SpeakerSophia Brueckner\, University of Michigan About the SpeakerInseparable from computers since the age of two\, Sophia Brueckner believes she is a cyborg. As a software engineer at Google\, she designed and built products used by tens of millions. At the Rhode Island School of Design and the MIT Media Lab\, she researched the simultaneously empowering and controlling aspects of technology with a focus on tangible and social interfaces. Since 2011\, Brueckner has taught Sci-Fi Prototyping\, a course combining science fiction\, extrapolative thinking\, building prototypes\, and technology ethics at MIT\, Harvard\, RISD\, Brown\, and the University of Michigan. Both the class itself as well as the students’ individual projects received international recognition and were featured by The Atlantic\, Smithsonian Magazine\, Wired\, NPR\, Scientific American\, Fast Company\, and many others. Creating new ways to apply science fiction to the design process\, Brueckner prototypes alternatives to the tech industry’s limited visions for how we live with technology. She makes both physical and digital artifacts combining software programming\, digital fabrication\, and electronics with traditional media. These projects challenge the norms of the tech community\, whose work has enormous impact on our day-to-day lives\, as well as translates the problems in ways that are understandable to the everyday user. She invites others to embody an attitude of “critical optimism” and to imagine what technological futures they might prefer for themselves. Brueckner is the founder and creative director of Tomorrownaut\, a creative studio focusing on speculative futures and sci-fi-inspired prototypes. Brueckner’s work has been featured by Artforum\, SIGGRAPH\, the Peabody Essex Museum\, Portugal’s National Museum of Contemporary Art\, Leonardo\, Eyeo\, ISEA\, TEDx\, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art\, and more. She was an artist-in-residence at Autodesk Pier 9 and is now an artist-in-residence at Bell Labs Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.). She is currently an assistant professor at the Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design at the University of Michigan. Her ongoing objective is to combine her background in design and engineering with the perspective of an artist to inspire a more positive future.   This event is part of the Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series. The 2020-2021 Series is brought to you with the support of our partners\, Detroit Public Television and PBS Books. URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/sophia-brueckner-sci-fi-prototyping-and-critical-optimism/ CATEGORIES:Visiting Speaker END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20210225T090000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20210225T100000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20210122T135614Z LAST-MODIFIED:20210225T005148Z UID:2036-1614243600-1614247200@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:Hannah Zeavin: Auto-Intimacy -- Algorithmic Therapies and Care of the Self DESCRIPTION:TO PARTICIPATEThis event will be streamed live via Zoom. This event is restricted to the University of Michigan unless special arrangements have been made. Click here for the participation credentials if you have logged into your University of Michigan GSuite account: https://sites.google.com/umich.edu/esc-center/hannah-zeavin TITLEAuto-Intimacy: Algorithmic Therapies and Care of the Self Hannah Zeavin\, University of California Berkeley   ABSTRACT“Auto-Intimacy: Algorithmic Therapies and Care of the Self” engages with therapeutic and psychiatric treatment by algorithmic automated therapies. I interrogate what therapy becomes when the traditional therapist is replaced by a computational actor. “Auto-Intimacy” opens with an overview of very early attempts to write a responsive algorithm which modeled a therapeutic relationship and addresses changes in automated therapy over the past fifty years. At the earliest moment of experimentation with automated therapies\, two strains of work emerged: the simulation and detection of a disordered mind in the hopes of automating intake\, diagnosis\, and psychological education\, and the simulation of a therapist toward the dream of automating therapeutic treatment. I will move to a brief discussion of the politics and “gamification” of contemporary psychological applications such as “Ellie” and “Joyable” and “iHelp\,” which attempt to assist persons with a wide range of mental health disorders in managing their behavior and moods. These applications\, which are frequently offered by employers to employees\, collapse the categories of wellness\, stress\, labor management\, and mental health care. SPEAKER BIOHannah Zeavin is a Lecturer in the Departments of English and History at UC Berkeley\, and is a faculty affiliate of the University of California at Berkeley Center for Science\, Technology\, Medicine\, and Society. She works as a historian and theorist with particular expertise in feminist science and technology studies. Zeavin’s first book\, The Distance Cure: A History of Teletherapy is forthcoming from MIT Press in August 2021. Other work has appeared in American Imago\, Logic Magazine\, The Los Angeles Review of Books\, Somatosphere\, Slate\, and beyond. Her second book\, Mother’s Little Helpers: Technology in the American Family\, investigates the ways in which technologized parenting interacts with moral\, medical\, and psychiatric concepts of parental fitness\, presence\, and absence across the 20th century and into our present\, from the baby monitor to facial recognition in schools.   URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/hannah-zeavin-auto-intimacy-algorithmic-therapies-and-care-of-the-self/ CATEGORIES:Visiting Speaker END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20210208T160000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20210208T170000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20210121T224100Z LAST-MODIFIED:20210203T011630Z UID:2023-1612800000-1612803600@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:Ben Green: Using Algorithms in Government DESCRIPTION:To participate\, click here to register. TITLEUsing algorithms in government: Opportunities\, challenges\, and paths forward A conversation with Ben Green ABOUT THE SPEAKERSBen Green\, assistant professor of public policy\, and Shobita Parthasarathy\, professor of public policy and director of the Science\, Technology\, and Public Policy program\, discuss the social and policy impacts of algorithms in government. Ben Green is a postdoctoral scholar and assistant professor through the Michigan Society of Fellows\, placed with at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. He is an affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard and a research fellow at the AI Now Institute at NYU. Ben studies the social and policy impacts of data science\, with a focus on algorithmic fairness\, municipal governments\, and the criminal justice system. His book\, The Smart Enough City: Putting Technology in Its Place to Reclaim Our Urban Future\, was published in 2019 by MIT Press. Ben’s research draws on his experience working with data and technology in city government. He spent a year working for the Citywide Analytics Team in the City of Boston\, where he combined data and performance analysis to improve public services and civic engagement. Ben previously worked at the University of Chicago Data Science for Social Good Summer Fellowship\, where he developed a machine learning system to enhance the City of Memphis’ urban revitalization efforts. He also spent a year at the New Haven Department of Transportation\, Traffic\, and Parking\, where he managed the deployment of new parking meter payment technology.   This event is co-organized with the Science\, Technology\, and Public Policy Program. URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/ben-green-using-algorithms-in-government/ CATEGORIES:Discussion END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20210206T090000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20210206T110000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20210120T201422Z LAST-MODIFIED:20210120T201534Z UID:2008-1612602000-1612609200@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:ESC ROUTES: Covid Tech & China DESCRIPTION:After Surveillance?  After Authoritarianism? After COVID?A Chinese-English Keywords Workshop SeriesFebruary-April\, 2021\, Remote/Zoom Touted as border-crossing and irreverent of human differences such as nation and class\, the C-19 pandemic has nonetheless become a fulcrum for slicing populations into insiders versus others. While the US promulgates histrionic demonizations of communist totalitarianism\, China champions its benevolent state discipline and its citizens’ purported self-discipline (zilu) as enablers of victory over the pandemic and of a spectacularized return to normalcy. This participatory workshop series centers language incommensurabilities in Covid technologies so as to complicate binaries such as liberalism vs. authoritarianism\, science versus politics and high tech as enabler of health safety or as surveillance mechanism. Specifically\, we explore how the discrepant subjectification of populations allows one virus to be lived so differently. Mobilizing the plural meanings of “after” we subvert narratives of inevitable\, linear progression and  question what they render invisible. Unpacking keywords from both languages as windows onto respective values and sensibilities\, we query\, for instance\, what difference it makes when restrictions on movement are captured through the English “lockdown”\, which connotes stern prison control\, state mandates and active shooter protocols\, versus the Chinese “fengcheng” which evokes a more protective sealing off of a city. What in English is chronically denounced as government violations of rights and freedoms\, is lauded by some Chinese speakers as effective management (guanli) and an ethic of care (zhaogu). And while such technologies as China’s QR Health Code app are impugned by Western media as encroachments of a top-down surveillance state\, China’s national discourse relies on these digital technologies to govern through safeguarding and “positive energy” (zhengnengliang). Aggregating words from both languages that emerge from the COVID crisis\, we meander through their varied social lives and allow them to speak in official\, academic\, mass media and vernacular registers\, thereby pluralizing and destabilizing the categories they invoke. Format: Zoom workshops will take place on Feb 6\, Feb 27\, Mar 27 and Apr 17\, 2021 from 9-11 AM EST. Multidisciplinary workshop facilitators rely on active interchange and collaborative knowledge production for analyzing the social lives of keywords. Showcasing certain revealing words in their accompanying contexts we then invite attendees to contribute from their respective vantage points\, both semantic and sociological. Working knowledge of Chinese is recommended. If you are interested in participating\, please reach out to Yuchen Chen\, cycyc@umich.edu. Hosts: Louisa Schein\, Fan Yang\, Silvia Lindtner Graduate Coordinator: Yuchen Chen A collaboration between the Center for Ethics\, Society\, and Computing (ESC) at the University of Michigan (as part of the ESC ROUTES series)\, the Chinese-English Keywords Project\, and the Rutgers University Center for Chinese Studies. \n\n\n\nAbout the Chinese-English Keywords Project \nThe Chinese-English Keywords Project (CEKP) is a global and growing network of scholars interested in mapping the multivalence and conceptual gaps that emerge when key terms migrate between English and Chinese. Representing fields such as anthropology\, sociology\, literature\, politics\, geography\, media and technology studies\, participants are based in China\, the U.S.\, Europe\, Australia\, Taiwan\, and Hong Kong. Through international workshops and panels\, we create ongoing dialogue on the key concepts themselves as well as their social import. \nAs theorists of sociocultural process\, we investigate incommensurability of usages and connotations not as problems to be solved but as windows onto distinct contexts\, histories\, and social relations. We strive toward an evenhanded approach to vocabularies in both Chinese and English\, eschewing the linguistic domination that might develop as scholars in mainland import and disseminate prestigious Western terms such as “ethnography” or “decolonizing”. We attend to words in all their specificities of usage to grasp the societal impacts of Chinese and Western semantic interplay and of the discrepancies even between Chinese regions. \nWe are not linguists per se\, or philologists\, nor are we translators or etymologists. Our emphasis exceeds terminology as we are fascinated with anecdotes\, frustrations\, resolutions\, and conversations from diverse perspectives and locations. Disaggregating usages into official\, scholarly\, popular media and vernacular domains\, we take what we call the “social lives” of keywords as lenses on China and pursue vibrant accounts that reveal how power\, authority\, dissent\, even humor and parody\, proliferate meanings rather than standardize them. In the ethnographic spirit\, we are interested in observing\, listening and talking to a range of people\, including ourselves\, to collect disparate usages and portray them evocatively. Keyword entries assemble a heteroglot set of sources and vignettes to tell vibrant stories reflecting that word’s significations. Hence\, our method is to construct entries through collective participation so as to capture heterogeneity\, polysemy\, multiplicity. URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/esc-routes-covid-tech-china/ END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20210202T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20210202T200000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20210121T152923Z LAST-MODIFIED:20210125T170657Z UID:2013-1612292400-1612296000@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:Charlton McIlwain: Smash the Mainframe -- The Collision Between Civil Rights and Computing DESCRIPTION:How to ParticipateWatch on YouTube live during the event. Click here to sign up to receive a reminder before the event. TitleSmash the Mainframe: The Collision Between Civil Rights and Computing A Conversation with Charlton McIlwain\, Professor of Media\, Culture\, and Communication\, NYU and Christian Sandvig\, Director of ESC. Speaker BiosCharlton is Vice Provost for Faculty Engagement and Development and Professor of Media\, Culture\, and Communication at NYU. His recent work focuses on the intersections of race\, digital media\, and racial justice activism. His latest book\, Black Software: The Internet & Racial Justice\, From the AfroNet to Black Lives Matter\, reveals the hidden figures — from the 1960s to the present — who fought the power and sparked a revolution in computing technology. Charlton will explore how “smashing the mainframe” became the way to articulate and demonstrate the clash between civil rights and computing in the 1960s. Moreover\, his talk will address what that moment in history can teach us about how to fight back against today’s technological threats to racial justice. Christian Sandvig is Director of the Center for Ethics\, Society\, and Computing (ESC) and H. Marshall McLuhan Collegiate Professor of Information\, Communication & Media.   This event is sponsored by the School of Information with support from the William Warner Bishop Lectureship Fund and the Martha Boaz Lectureship Fund. URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/charlton-mcilwain-smash-the-mainframe/ CATEGORIES:Discussion,Ethics & Politics of AI,Visiting Speaker END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20210125T160000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20210125T170000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20210120T192517Z LAST-MODIFIED:20210125T193142Z UID:1988-1611590400-1611594000@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:Timnit Gebru: Computer Vision - Who is helped and who is harmed? DESCRIPTION:To ParticipateClick to JOIN VIA ZOOM   Timnit GebruComputer Scientist\, former Co-Lead Ethical AI Research Team\, Google Brain\, Founder of Black in AI AbstractComputer vision has ceased to be a purely academic endeavor. From law enforcement\, to border control\, to employment\, healthcare diagnostics\, and assigning trust scores\, computer vision systems are being rapidly integrated into all aspects of society. In research\, there are works that purport to determine a person’s sexuality from their social network profile images\, others that claim to classify “violent individuals” from drone footage. These works were published in high impact journals\, and some were presented at workshops in top tier computer vision conferences such as CVPR. A critical public discourse surrounding the use of computer-vision based technologies has also been mounting. For example\, the use of facial recognition technologies by policing agencies has been heavily critiqued and\, in response\, companies such as Microsoft\, Amazon\, and IBM have pulled or paused their facial recognition software services. Gender Shades showed that commercial gender classification systems have high disparities in error rates by skin-type and gender\, and other works discuss the harms caused by the mere existence of automatic gender recognition systems. Recent papers have also exposed shockingly racist and sexist labels in popular computer vision datasets–resulting in the removal of some. In this talk\, I will highlight some of these issues and proposed solutions to mitigate bias\, as well as how some of the proposed fixes could exacerbate the problem rather than mitigate it. Speaker BioTimnit Gebru was a senior research scientist at Google co-leading the Ethical Artificial Intelligence research team. Her work focuses on mitigating the potential negative impacts of machine learning based systems. Timnit is also the co-founder of Black in AI\, a non profit supporting Black researchers and practitioners in artificial intelligence.  Prior to this\, she did a postdoc at Microsoft Research\, New York City in the FATE (Fairness Transparency Accountability and Ethics in AI) group\, where she studied algorithmic bias and the ethical implications underlying any data mining project. She received her Ph.D. from the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory\, studying computer vision under Fei-Fei Li. Prior to joining Fei-Fei’s lab\, she worked at Apple designing circuits and signal processing algorithms for various Apple products including the first iPad. This event is co-sponsored by the Michigan Institute for Data Science (MIDAS)\, the U-M AI Lab\, the IT Dissonance Event Series\, and ESC. URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/timnit-gebru-computer-vision-who-is-helped-and-who-is-harmed/ CATEGORIES:Ethics & Politics of AI END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20201001T130000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20201001T150000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20201001T131406Z LAST-MODIFIED:20201001T140345Z UID:1912-1601557200-1601564400@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:Catherine D'Ignazio: Data Feminism DESCRIPTION:FOR REMOTE PARTICIPANTSThis talk is restricted to participants at the University of Michigan. This talk will be held LIVE online via Zoom. To join\, click: https://umich.zoom.us/j/99065572384 and enter the password: misc2020 during the event time. You must use a umich.edu Zoom account to access this talk. TITLECatherine D’Ignazio: Data Feminism ABSTRACTData Feminism (co-authored with Lauren Klein\, MIT Press\, 2020) is a set of seven principles that demonstrate how feminist thinking can be operationalized in order to imagine more ethical and equitable data practices. This talk will briefly introduce those principles and relate them to a collaborative project undertaken by the Data + Feminism Lab\, Feminicidio Uruguay and the Iniciativa Latinoamericana por los Datos Abiertos. We are exploring how to build technologies to support counterdata collection by activists and civil society organizations who are working to fight gender-related violence against women and its lethal outcome\, feminicide\, in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Photo by Diana Levine / dianalevine.com SPEAKER BIOCatherine D’Ignazio is an Assistant Professor of Urban Science and Planning in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. She is also Director of the Data + Feminism Lab which uses data and computational methods to work towards gender and racial equity. D’Ignazio is a scholar\, artist/designer and hacker mama who focuses on feminist technology\, data literacy and civic engagement. She has run reproductive justice hackathons\, designed global news recommendation systems\, created talking and tweeting water quality sculptures\, and led walking data visualizations to envision the future of sea level rise. With Rahul Bhargava\, she built the platform Databasic.io\, a suite of tools and activities to introduce newcomers to data science. Her research at the intersection of technology\, design & social justice has been published in the Journal of Peer Production\, the Journal of Community Informatics\, and the proceedings of Human Factors in Computing Systems (ACM SIGCHI). Her art and design projects have won awards from the Tanne Foundation\, Turbulence.org and the Knight Foundation and exhibited at the Venice Biennial and the ICA Boston. This event is organized by the Michigan Interactive and Social Computing (MISC) and co-sponsored by ESC. URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/catherine-dignazio-data-feminism/ END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200417T120000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200417T140000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20200111T025923Z LAST-MODIFIED:20200311T204706Z UID:1127-1587124800-1587132000@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:CANCELLED: How to do Feminist Robotics DESCRIPTION:This event has been cancelled.\n\nWe are committed to the well-being of the members of our community. Following guidance from the University President and Chief Health Officer regarding COVID-19\, we are cancelling all ESC public events through April 21. We hope to reschedule these events at the appropriate time. We will update the community about future events–including remote participation alternatives–in due course.\n\nFor more information\, see these resources from the University administration:\n\nhttp://publicaffairs.vpcomm.umich.edu/2019-novel-coronavirus-covid-19/\n\nhttps://umich.edu/announcements/\n\n           Co-sponsored by the Institute for Research on Women and Gender and the Stamps School of Art & Design. URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/how-to-do-feminist-robotics/ END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200409T140000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200410T153000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20200111T022553Z LAST-MODIFIED:20200311T204730Z UID:1112-1586440800-1586532600@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:CANCELLED: Behind Walls\, Beyond Discipline: Science\, Technology\, and the Carceral State DESCRIPTION:This event has been cancelled.\n\nWe are committed to the well-being of the members of our community. Following guidance from the University President and Chief Health Officer regarding COVID-19\, we are cancelling all ESC public events through April 21. We hope to reschedule these events at the appropriate time. We will update the community about future events–including remote participation alternatives–in due course.\n\nFor more information\, see these resources from the University administration:\n\nhttp://publicaffairs.vpcomm.umich.edu/2019-novel-coronavirus-covid-19/\n\nhttps://umich.edu/announcements/\n\n   A two-day conference from April 9-10. Preliminary schedule. For the most up-to-date listings and to register\, visit the Carceral State conference website.     Panel 1: Privatization\, Technology\, and the Carceral State (Thursday\, 2-3:50pm)From investment in surveillance technologies to relying on prison labor\, the carceral state–like so many other traditional state functions–is being privatized. The state is turning to the private sector in the hopes that it can reduce costs and corruption and produce scalable technologies for risk assessment\, monitoring\, and incarceration while generating entrepreneurial activity and even economic growth. But STS scholarship teaches us that technologies are deeply shaped by and embedded in context\, and when transported carry with them particular values\, assumptions\, and imaginaries. What kinds of carceral technologies are being produced and what worlds do they imagine? How must citizens and societies remake themselves in order to fit these new technologies and privatization of the carceral state? What new economies are emerging\, and how does this shift the dynamics of power and responsibility among the state\, industry\, and the people? How might better understandings of carceral privatization advance STS understandings of the public and private sectors vis-a-vis innovation and technology? Lindsay Smith\, Arizona State UniversityAndrea Quinlan\, University of WaterlooChristina Mejia Visperas\, University of Southern California Keynote (Thursday 4:30-6:00pm)Keith Breckenridge University of Witwatersand\, South Africa Panel 2: Criminal Knowledge: Evidence\, Expertise\, and the Carceral State (Friday 9-10:50am)From physiognomy to predictive policing\, technoscience has long been central to the power of the carceral state. At the same time\, carceral sites such as prisons\, courtrooms\, and crime scenes facilitate and even demand technoscientific interventions. Forensic and legal ideals of truth\, neutrality\, and incontrovertible evidence coexist uncomfortably with the complicated politics of technoscientific expertise. This panel seeks to extend STS insights into the production and politics of expertise through engagement with research on the carceral state. It addresses questions including: How do forensic ideals of evidentiary truth and legal ideals of guilt\, innocence\, and punishment shape scientific and technical expertise and vice versa? What kinds of expertise do carceral sites make possible\, and how does carceral expertise compare across these different sites?  Kelly Gates\, University of California\, San DiegoAnthony Ryan Hatch\, Wesleyan UniversityJorge Nuñez\, Kaleidos\, Ecuador Panel 3: Living in a Carceral State (Friday 11-1:00pm)The twenty-first century carceral state inspires anxieties of a national or even global-scale panopticon. Omniscient and omnipresent technologies report our movements\, purchases\, communications\, and even desires to invisible and unaccountable corporations and government agencies (the public/private distinction having lost effective meaning). In practice\, however\, some people are obviously more vulnerable to coercive state power than others; intrusive surveillance techniques predate the Internet; and socio-technical systems routinely fail. Moreover\, while middle-class consumers fret over exposure of their digital lives\, prisoners labor in the shadows of material walls that obstruct democratic oversight. This panel investigates the experiences of the state’s target populations to betterunderstand the mundane ways people negotiate\, evade\, reproduce\, and resist carceral infrastructures. Tawana Petty\, Detroit Community Technology ProjectCarolyn Sufrin\, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine\, Dept. of Health\, Behavior & SocietyUrsula Rao\, University of Leipzig Roundtable (Friday 2-3:30pm)Melissa Burch\, Univeristy of MichiganJohn Carson\, University of MichiganHeather Ann Thompson\, University of Michigan*with special guest Courtney McClellen\, Roman J. Witt Artist in Residence       & Invited Panelists and the Audience   Co-sponsored by the Science\, Technology\, and Public Policy Program and the Science\, Technology\, and Society Program. URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/behind-walls-beyond-discipline-science-technology-and-the-carceral-state/ CATEGORIES:Discussion,Symposium,Visiting Speaker END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200403T163000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200403T183000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20200123T092513Z LAST-MODIFIED:20200311T204746Z UID:1332-1585931400-1585938600@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:CANCELLED: ESC POD: Faculty Mixer DESCRIPTION:This event has been cancelled.\nWe are committed to the well-being of the members of our community. Following guidance from the University President and Chief Health Officer regarding COVID-19\, we are cancelling all ESC public events through April 21. We hope to reschedule these events at the appropriate time. We will update the community about future events–including remote participation alternatives–in due course. \nFor more information\, see these resources from the University administration: \nhttp://publicaffairs.vpcomm.umich.edu/2019-novel-coronavirus-covid-19/ \nhttps://umich.edu/announcements/ \n   URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/esc-pod-faculty-mixer-2/ END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200331T190000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200331T210000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20200111T024359Z LAST-MODIFIED:20200311T205041Z UID:1117-1585681200-1585688400@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:CANCELLED: Shoshana Zuboff: The Age of Surveillance Capitalism DESCRIPTION:This event has been cancelled. \n\nWe are committed to the well-being of the members of our community. Following guidance from the University President and Chief Health Officer regarding COVID-19\, we are cancelling all ESC public events through April 21. We hope to reschedule these events at the appropriate time. We will update the community about future events–including remote participation alternatives–in due course.\n \n\nFor more information\, see these resources from the University administration:\n \n\nhttp://publicaffairs.vpcomm.umich.edu/2019-novel-coronavirus-covid-19/\n \nhttps://umich.edu/announcements/\n \n     A Lecture and Book Signing   About the Talk In her book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism\, scholar and sociologist Shoshana Zuboff posits a detailed examination of the unprecedented power of surveillance capitalism\, by which our personal information\, monetized and exploited by big tech companies\, is then used to predict and shape our behaviors. In this frank and lucid talk\, Zuboff defines the terms of surveillance capitalism as a new economic system\, pioneered at Google and later Facebook\, in much the same way that mass-production and managerial capitalism were pioneered at Ford and General Motors a century before. Zuboff speaks urgently to our need to protect ourselves in this unprecedented age\, and not try to resist or strike in the ways we did a century ago. Google\, Amazon and now fallen behemoths like Cambridge-Analytica aren’t going anywhere\, but as Zuboff expansively demonstrates\, we can create countermeasures to stave off the monopolistic workings of these companies. We have the power to demand more from these seemingly all-powerful corporations. If they want what we provide (data)\, they in turn will have to change their usage tactics. The citizen desire and the leverage is here\, Zuboff argues—and it’s in the companies’ best interests to change. Rather than facing the subject with worry or paranoia\, Zuboff argues for us to pay attention\, resist habituation\, and come up with novel\, innovative responses to the issue of surveillance capitalism\, as novel a system as we are likely to know. About the Author \nShoshana Zuboff is the author of three books\, each of which signaled the start of a new epoch in technological society. In the late 1980s her decade-in-the-making In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power became an instant classic that foresaw how computers would revolutionize the modern workplace. At the dawn of the twenty-first century her influential The Support Economy: Why Corporations Are Failing Individuals and the Next Episode of Capitalism (with James Maxmin)\, written before the invention of the iPod or Uber\, predicted the rise of digitally-mediated products and services tailored to the individual. It warned of the individual and societal risks if companies failed to alter their approach to capitalism. Now her masterwork\, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power\, synthesizes years of research and thinking in order to reveal a world in which technology users are neither customers\, employees\, nor products. Instead they are the raw material for new procedures of manufacturing and sales that define an entirely new economic order: a surveillance economy. She is the Charles Edward Wilson Professor Emerita at Harvard Business School and a former Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. \n Co-Organized by the Digital Studies Institute and ESC: The Center for Ethics\, Society\, and Computing. With Generous Support From Our Co-Sponsors: Business+Impact Initiative at the Ross School of Business; Center for Political Studies; College of Engineering; Computer Science and Engineering; Department of Communication and Media; Department of Film\, Television\, and Media; Department of Psychology; Department of Sociology; Dissonance Event Series; Electrical and Computer Engineering; Ford School of Public Policy; Information and Technology Services; Law School; Michigan Institute for Data Science; Office of the President; School of Information; Science\, Technology\, and Public Policy Program; Science\, Technology\, and Society Program; Stamps School of Art & Design; Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning.   URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/shoshana-zuboff-the-age-of-surveillance-capitalism/ LOCATION:Rackham Auditorium\, 915 E Washington Street\, Ann Arbor\, MI\, 48109\, United States END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200313T163000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200313T183000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20200123T092333Z LAST-MODIFIED:20200311T204638Z UID:1330-1584117000-1584124200@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:CANCELLED: ESC POD: Graduate Student Mixer DESCRIPTION:This event has been cancelled.\nWe are committed to the well-being of the members of our community. Following guidance from the University President and Chief Health Officer regarding COVID-19\, we are cancelling all ESC public events through April 21. We hope to reschedule these events at the appropriate time. We will update the community about future events–including remote participation alternatives–in due course. \nFor more information\, see these resources from the University administration: \nhttp://publicaffairs.vpcomm.umich.edu/2019-novel-coronavirus-covid-19/ \nhttps://umich.edu/announcements/ \n   RSVPTo attend\, an RSVP is requested. RSVP by completing this form: https://forms.gle/YncPqRoQegg4Szor9   A Mixer for Graduate Students Interested in ESC University of Michigan graduate students from any program are invited to this mixer if they are interested in ESC. Any UM graduate student interested in ESC topics is welcome; you don’t need to have any prior connection to the ESC Center to attend. Accessible EntryDirections For Fully Accessible Entry: On the ground floor there is a door right by the staircase. Ring the doorbell and someone from The Circ staff will come down to open it. A staff member will walk you to the Lounge. (There is also a sign explaining this.) URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/esc-pod-grad-student-mixer/ LOCATION:The Circ Bar\, 2nd Floor Lounge\, 210 South First Street\, Ann Arbor\, MI\, MI\, 48104\, United States END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200311T133000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200311T141500 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20200219T221725Z LAST-MODIFIED:20200309T133824Z UID:1566-1583933400-1583936100@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:Book Signing with Sasha Costanza-Chock DESCRIPTION:This event immediately follows the related talk: Design Justice. Design Justice: Community-led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need. The book is an exploration of how we might re-imagine design to be led by marginalized communities as a tool to help dismantle structural inequality\, advance collective liberation\, and support ecological survival. More information about the book can be found at https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/design-justice. Books have been pre-ordered for purchase with UM Union Barnes & Nobles. Books can be purchased in store before the event and at the event. Please note that book purchases at the event can only be made via cash or check.   URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/book-signing-with-sasha-costanza-chock-design-justice/ LOCATION:Conference Room C\, Michigan League\, 911 N University Ave.\, Ann Arbor\, MI\, 48109\, United States CATEGORIES:Book Signing END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200311T120000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200311T133000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20200219T220305Z LAST-MODIFIED:20200309T133633Z UID:1542-1583928000-1583933400@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:Sasha Costanza-Chock: Design Justice DESCRIPTION:FOR REMOTE PARTICIPANTSVideo from this talk will be streamed LIVE. Please find the link to the youtube video stream here. A light lunch will be provided. AbstractIn this talk\, Dr. Costanza-Chock presents an overview of their new book\, Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need\, published by the MIT Press in 2020. The book is an exploration of how we might re-imagine design to be led by marginalized communities as a tool to help dismantle structural inequality\, advance collective liberation\, and support ecological survival. More information about the book can be found at https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/design-justice. Speaker BioSasha Costanza-Chock (pronouns: they/them or she/her) is a researcher\, designer\, educator\, and media-maker whose work focuses on networked social movements\, transformative media organizing\, and design justice. They are currently Associate Professor of Civic Media at MIT and Faculty Associate at the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Their new book\, Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need\, was published by the MIT Press in 2020. Sasha is a board member of Allied Media Projects (alliedmedia.org) and a Steering Committee member of the Design Justice Network (designjustice.org). \n\n\n\nThe talk will be followed by a Book Signing with Dr. Sasha Constanza-Chock:\n\n\n\n1:30 – 2:15pm\nConference Room C\nMichigan League URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/sasha-costanza-chock-design-justice-community-led-practices-to-build-the-worlds-we-need/ LOCATION:Koessler Room\, Michigan League\, 911 North University Ave.\, Ann Arbor\, MI\, 48109\, United States CATEGORIES:Visiting Speaker END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200309T153000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200309T163000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20200309T130505Z LAST-MODIFIED:20200309T135210Z UID:1646-1583767800-1583771400@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:Nicholas Diakopoulos: Algorithms and the News DESCRIPTION:FOR REMOTE PARTICIPANTSVideo from this talk will be streamed LIVE. To access the live stream\, click: https://midas.umich.edu/seminar-stream/ during the event time. TITLEThe Role of Algorithmic Intermediaries in Shaping Attention to News ABSTRACTAs people seek news information online\, platforms like Google\, Facebook\, Apple\, Amazon and other news aggregators mediate and influence a huge portion of human attention\, acting as algorithmic gatekeepers and curators. But as private platforms\, there are few public details about how the algorithms of these information intermediaries serve to drive public exposure and salience of news information. What types and sources of news are made available and prioritized\, what’s the quality of that information\, and are there diverse perspectives represented in the algorithmic curation of major platforms? This talk will address these questions by presenting the results of several audit studies of algorithmic news intermediaries. These studies begin to shed light on the role such intermediaries play in impacting human attention towards the news. Implications for platform power\, governance\, and the economic health and competitiveness in the larger news ecosystem will be discussed. SPEAKER BIONicholas Diakopoulos (http://www.nickdiakopoulos.com/) is an Assistant Professor in Communication Studies and Computer Science (by courtesy) at Northwestern University where he directs the Computational Journalism Lab. He is also a Tow Fellow at Columbia University School of Journalism as well as Associate Professor II at the University of Bergen Department of Information Science and Media Studies. His research focuses on computational journalism\, including aspects of automation and algorithms in news production\, algorithmic accountability and transparency\, and social media in news contexts. He is the author of Automating the News: How Algorithms are Rewriting the Media\, published by Harvard University Press in 2019. Recently he was a resident researcher in the Computational Political Journalism Lab at the Washington Post. He received his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Computer Science from the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology\, and his Sc.B. degree in Computer Engineering from Brown University. This event is organized by the Michigan Institute for Data Science (MIDAS) and co-sponsored by ESC. URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/nicholas-diakopoulos-algorithms-and-the-news/ LOCATION:340 West Hall\, 1085 S University Ave\, Ann Arbor\, MI\, 48109\, United States END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200225T113000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200225T130000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20200221T011030Z LAST-MODIFIED:20200221T014214Z UID:1586-1582630200-1582635600@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:David Nemer: WhatsApp and Radicalization DESCRIPTION:(Talk begins at noon.) Ehrlicher Room 3100 North Quadrangle 105 South State Street Ann Arbor\, MI 48109-1245     TITLE  From Misinformation to Extremism: How WhatsApp Is Affording Radicalization in Brazil      ABSTRACT  \nDuring the 2018 Brazilian general election\, WhatsApp became a potent tool for the spread of misinformation\, especially for supporters of Bolsonaro. I began monitoring pro-Bolsonaro WhatsApp groups in March 2018- at the outset of the election\, the social media app eventually helped Bolsonaro win and become the president of Brazil. I found that fake news spread in typical fashion\, through a structure of groups that resembled a pyramid. Now\, ten months into Bolsonaro’s presidency\, WhatsApp is still serving as a largely hidden platform for the radicalization of right-wing Brazilians\, even as Bolsonaro’s once-united base has splintered into separate\, and often competing\, factions. In this talk\, I uncover hidden spaces of populism and misinformation on WhatsApp and detail the social infrastructure that is radicalizing the right in Brazil.\n    ABOUT THE SPEAKER  An ethnographer with fieldwork experience in Havana\, Cuba\, Guadalajara\, Mexico\, the slums of Vitória\, Brazil\, and in the Appalachian region of eastern Kentucky\, David Nemer is the author of Favela Digital: The other side of technology (2013). Nemer has also written for The Guardian\, El País\, HuffPost\, Salon\, and The Intercept_. His research and teaching cover the intersection of Science and Technology Studies (STS)\, Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICTD)\, and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Nemer is currently examining the problem of online misinformation for democracies worldwide\, particularly in countries in the Global South where democratic institutions remain in a beleaguered state. While most research and conversation on the subject of misinformation have focused on online platforms\, such as Twitter\, Facebook\, and blogs\, little is known about the spread of misinformation on mobile messaging apps\, such as Telegrams and WhatsApp. These apps are particularly popular Global South countries due to the quick spread and adoption of mobile phones in the region. Nemer aims to expand our understanding of the motivations and infrastructures behind the creation\, sharing\, and consumption of misinformation on messaging apps\, and to build awareness and interventions to circumvent their effects.    Light lunch will be provided. Please RSVP by 12PM on 02/23 if you will be there.  This event is part of the Michigan Interactive and Social Computing (MISC) event series and is co-sponsored by ESC. URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/david-nemer-from-misinformation-to-extremism-how-whatsapp-is-affording-radicalization-in-brazil/ END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200224T163000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200224T183000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20200123T092053Z LAST-MODIFIED:20200224T164052Z UID:1328-1582561800-1582569000@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:ESC POD: Undergraduate Student Mixer DESCRIPTION:Monday\, February 18\, 2020\n4:30-6:30 p.m. (drop-ins welcome)\nSouth Lounge\, Michigan Union (The South Lounge is the room with the fireplace just to your left as you walk up the steps from the main entrance on State Street.)   ABOUT THIS EVENTAre you an undergrad at U of M? Interested in the ethics of computing and technology? Love free food?  Come check out the Center for Ethics\, Society\, and Computing (ESC\, pronounced “escape”) — a brand new research center on campus focused on inequality\, digital media\, and a justice-focused approach to computing. Get some food\, play some games\, talk to some people\, and learn about opportunities! No previous experience with ESC is required or expected.     Poster by Summer Nguyen. Organized by the ESC undergraduate committee.       URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/esc-pod-undergraduate-student-mixer/ END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200221T140000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200221T160000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20200206T210553Z LAST-MODIFIED:20200221T054358Z UID:1516-1582293600-1582300800@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:Sarah Roberts: Behind the Screen DESCRIPTION:Vandenburg Room \nMichigan League \n911 N University Ave. \nAnn Arbor\, MI 48109   \n  \n  \n \n  \nABSTRACT\n  \nFaced with mounting pressures and repeated\, very public crises\, social media firms have taken a new tack since 2017: to respond to criticism of all kinds and from numerous quarters (regulators\, civil society advocates\, journalists\, academics and others) by acknowledging their long-obfuscated human gatekeeping workforce of commercial content moderators. Additionally\, these acknowledgments have often come alongside announcements of plans for exponential increases to that workforce\, which now represents a global network of laborers – in distinct geographic\, cultural\, political\, economic\, labor and industrial circumstances – conservatively estimated in the several tens of thousands and likely many times that. Yet the phenomenon of content moderation in social media firms has been shrouded in mystery when acknowledged at all. In this talk\, Sarah T. Roberts will discuss the fruits of her decade-long study the commercial content moderation industry\, and its concomitant people\, practices and politics. Based on interviews with workers from Silicon Valley to the Philippines\, at boutique firms and at major social media companies\, she will offer context\, history and analysis of this hidden industry\, with particular attention to the emotional toll it takes on its workers. The talk will offer insights about potential futures for the commercial internet and a discussion of the future of globalized labor in the digital age. \n  \n  \nSPEAKER BIO\n  \n\n\n\nSarah T. Roberts is an assistant professor of Information Studies at the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies\, specializing in Internet culture\, social media\, and the intersection of media\, technology and society. She is founding co-director\, along with Dr. Safiya Noble\, of the forthcoming UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry. Roberts researches information work and workers\, and is a leading global authority on “commercial content moderation\,” the term she coined to describe the work of those responsible for making sure media content posted to commercial websites fit within legal\, ethical\, and the site’s own guidelines and standards. She is frequently consulted on matters of policy\, worker welfare\, and governance related to content moderation issues and the broader social media landscape. She is a 2018 Carnegie Fellow and winner of the 2018 EFF Barlow Pioneer Award in recognition of her work on commercial content moderation.\n \nThis event is organized by the Digital Studies Institute. \n  \n  \n  URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/sarah-roberts-behind-the-screen/ CATEGORIES:Visiting Speaker END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200221T090000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200221T110000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20200221T002810Z LAST-MODIFIED:20200221T020026Z UID:1578-1582275600-1582282800@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:Kavya Pearlman: How to Build SAFE Virtual Worlds DESCRIPTION:Forum Hall Palmer Commons 100 Washtenaw Ave.\, Ann Arbor\, MI 48109     ABSTRACT  We need to create SAFE immersive environments! XR misuse by attackers can potentially lead to psychological\, physical\, reputational\, social and economic harm. In this session\, XRSI founder and CEO\, Kavya Pearlman explores the potential of threats in XR systems\, how to mitigate them and how to better protect end-users and enterprises moving forward. This session will approach the topic from multiple directions. It will provide an introduction to the XR domain\, discuss XR-specific security challenges\, concerns\, and constraints\, and the types of threats XR is experiencing and may experience in the future. Discussion will also involve issues of privacy and trust in the context of cyber-attacks\, child safety\, disinformation\, and propaganda. Finally\, it will frame how the industry can respond to these challenges: Actionable advice on how to create SAFE immersive environments in order to move from research prototypes and early demonstrators to secure\, reliable and trustworthy systems that can play a more significant role in everyday life.     ABOUT THE SPEAKER  Kavya Pearlman\, founder of non-profit\, XR Safety Initiative (XRSI)\, the very first global effort that promotes privacy\, security\, ethics and develops standards and guidelines for Virtual Reality\, Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality (VR/AR/MR) collectively known as XR.   An on-stage discussion with ESC Faculty Florian Schaub will occur after the lecture.   Please Register for this free event if you plan to attend.   This event is organized by the XR initiative at Academic Innovation. URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/how-to-build-safe-virtual-worlds/ CATEGORIES:Discussion,Visiting Speaker END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200206T121000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200206T130000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20200206T205009Z LAST-MODIFIED:20200206T205120Z UID:1501-1580991000-1580994000@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:Angela Washko: Tactical Embodiment DESCRIPTION:Michigan Theater 603 E Liberty St Ann Arbor\, MI 48104   \n\n\n\n(For additional venue details\, see the web page for The Michigan Theater.)\n \n\n\n\n SPEAKER BIO  Angela Washko is an artist\, writer\, and facilitator devoted to creating new forums for discussions about feminism in online spaces frequently hostile toward it. Since 2012\, Washko has operated “The Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness in World of Warcraft\,” an ongoing intervention inside the most popular online role-playing game of all time. Washko’s most recent project\, The Game: The Game\, is a video game in which professional pickup artists attempt to seduce the player using their signature coercive techniques sourced from their instructional books and video materials. Washko is a recent recipient of the Impact Award at IndieCade\, a Franklin Furnace Performance Fund grant\, and a Frank-Ratchye Fund for Art at the Frontier grant. Her practice has been highlighted in The New Yorker\, Frieze Magazine\, Time Magazine\, The Guardian\, ArtForum\, the Los Angeles Times\, Art in America\, The New York Times\, and more. Her projects have been presented internationally at venues including the Museum of the Moving Image in New York\, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Finland\, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles\, the Milan Triennial\, the Shenzhen Independent Animation Biennale in China\, and the Rotterdam International Film Festival in the Netherlands. Washko is an assistant professor of art at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh\, where she is also a member of the MFA core faculty and the area head of electronic time-based art.   This event is part of the Penny W. Stamps Speaker Series with additional support from the U-M Institute for the Humanities and the Center for Ethics\, Society\, and Computing.     This event is free of charge and open to the public. URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/angela-washko-tactical-embodiment/ CATEGORIES:Visiting Speaker END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200128T130000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200128T180000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20200111T025237Z LAST-MODIFIED:20200128T203016Z UID:1120-1580216400-1580234400@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:Privacy@Michigan 2020 DESCRIPTION:    FOR REMOTE PARTICIPANTS: A Live Stream is available for this event. See: https://safecomputing.umich.edu/events/privacy-at-michigan/2020/stream     Privacy@Michigan 2020\, hosted by the School of Information and ITS Information Assurance\, brings together faculty\, researchers\, students\, staff\, and the public for multidisciplinary conversations about privacy’s role in society.   Kathleen Kingsbury\, editor of the New York Times Privacy Project\, will give the keynote address. Additional privacy experts will participate in two panel discussions:   It Takes a Village:Multi-Disciplinary Voices on Privacy and Ethics in a Hyper-Connected Age    \nChristian Sandvig (moderator)\, Director\, Center for Ethics\, Society\, and Computing (ESC); H. Marshall McLuhan Collegiate Professor of Digital Media\, School of Information\, LSA Department of Communication Studies \nH.V. Jagadish\, Bernard A Galler Collegiate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science\, U-M\nLisa Nakamura\, Director\, Digital Studies Institute; Gwendolyn Calvert Baker Collegiate Professor\, LSA Department of American Culture\nPaul Resnick\, Director\, Center for Social Media Responsibility; Michael D Cohen Collegiate Professor of Information\, Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Affairs\, School of Information\nKayte Spector-Bagdady\, Chief\, Research Ethics Service\, Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine; Assistant Professor\, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology\, University of Michigan Medical School\n  I Always Feel Like Someone Is Listening to Me:Voice Assistants and the Internet of Things    \nFlorian Schaub (moderator)\, Assistant Professor\, School of Information / College of Engineering\nDavid Jurgens\, Assistant Professor\, School of Information / College of Engineering\nSara Rampazzi\, Research Investigator\, Computer Science and Engineering\, College of Engineering\nJenny Radesky\, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics\, Michigan Medicine\n  Register here. Open to the public. Admission is free of charge.   This event is organized by Dissonance. URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/privacymichigan-2020/ CATEGORIES:Discussion,Symposium,Visiting Speaker END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200124T130000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200124T193000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20190925T220809Z LAST-MODIFIED:20200309T133153Z UID:1033-1579870800-1579894200@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:ESC PLAN: The ESC Opening Event DESCRIPTION:Space 2435 North Quadrangle105 South State StreetAnn Arbor\, MI 48109 \n\n FOR REMOTE PARTICIPANTSVideo from this talk will be streamed live at http://esc.umich.edu/plan \n\n To submit questions during live Q&A\, use the links below each panel title.   ESC PLAN is a half-day public event to inaugurate the Center for Ethics\, Society\, and Computing. RSVP\n\n An RSVP is requested for in-person participation. RSVP form: https://forms.gle/f1DhfD8Cirkt6CZx9 \n\n SCHEDULE\n\n 1:00 p.m. – 1:15 p.m.Toward Ethics\, Society\, and Computing (ESC)*(Opening Remarks.) \n\n 1:15 p.m. – 2:45 p.m.PANEL: Accountable Technology — An Oxymoron?* Submit a live question to this panel: http://esc.umich.edu/plan1 \nJulia Angwin\, The Markup\ndanah boyd\, Data & Society\nMarc DaCosta\, Enigma\nJen Gennai\, Google\nChristian Sandvig\, University of Michigan (moderator)\n 3:15 p.m. – 4:45 p.m.PANEL: Culture After Tech Culture — Unimaginable?* Submit a live question to this panel: http://esc.umich.edu/plan2 \nAndré Brock\, Georgia Tech\nMichaelanne Dye\, University of Michigan\nSilvia Lindtner\, University of Michigan (moderator)\nHolly Okonkwo\, Purdue University\nMonroe Price\, University of Pennsylvania \nShobita Parthasarathy\, University of Michigan\n 4:45 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.The Future of Ethics\, Society\, and Computing (ESC)*(Closing Remarks.) \n\n 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.Reception and Mixer \n\n The Circ Bar\, 2nd Floor Private Lounge210 South First Street\, Ann Arbor\, MI (map) \n\n Directions For Fully Accessible Entry: On the ground floor there is a door right by the staircase. Ring the doorbell and someone from The Circ staff will come down to open it. A staff member will walk you to the Lounge. An RSVP is requested for in-person participation. RSVP form: https://forms.gle/f1DhfD8Cirkt6CZx9 \n\n The PDF for a printable poster is available for this event. \n\n\n\n   * – This part of the event will be live-streamed. See: http://esc.umich.edu/plan \n\n   URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/esc-plan-the-esc-opening-event-2/ CATEGORIES:Discussion,Mixer,Symposium,Visiting Speaker END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200123T120000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200123T130000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20200111T021526Z LAST-MODIFIED:20200111T021526Z UID:1103-1579780800-1579784400@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:André Brock: On Black Technoculture DESCRIPTION:Times shown are Eastern StandardTime (UTC/GMT-5) Ehrlicher Room\, 3100 North Quadrangle FOR REMOTE PARTICIPANTS: Video from this talk will be streamed live. For video\, during the event visit this URL: http://umsi.info/black On Black TechnocultureABSTRACTWhere does Blackness manifest In the ideology of Western technoculture? Technoculture is the American mythos (Dinerstein 2006) and ideology; a belief system powering the coercive\, political\, and carceral relations between culture and technology. Once enslaved\, historically disenfranchised\, never deemed literate\, Blackness is understood as the object of Western technical and civilizational practices. This presentation is a critical intervention for internet research and science and technology studies (STS)\, reorienting Western technoculture’s practices of “race-as-technology” (Chun 2009) to visualize Blackness as technological subjects rather than as “things”. Hence\, Black technoculture. Utilizing critical technocultural discourse analysis (Brock 2018)\, Afro-optimism\, and libidinal economic theory\, this presentation employs Black Twitter as an exemplar of Black cyberculture: digital practice and artifacts informed by a Black aesthetic. SPEAKER BIOAndré Brock is an associate professor of media studies at Georgia Tech. His scholarship examines racial representations in videogames\, black women and weblogs\, whiteness\, blackness\, and digital technoculture\, as well as innovative and groundbreaking research on Black Twitter. His forthcoming book titled Distributed Blackness: African American Cybercultures will be published with NYU Press in February 2020\, offering an innovative approach to understanding Black everyday lives mediated by digital technologies. Free and open to the public\, no RSVP required. This event is co-sponsored by the Digital Studies Institute. This lecture is generously supported by the School of Information; the Center for Political Studies at the Institute for Social Research; and the Department of Communication & Media in the College of Literature\, Science\, and the Arts at the University of Michigan. URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/andre-brock-on-black-technoculture/ CATEGORIES:Visiting Speaker END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200121T120000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200121T130000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20200113T020052Z LAST-MODIFIED:20200113T020052Z UID:1138-1579608000-1579611600@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:Julia Stoyanovich: TransFAT DESCRIPTION:Times shown are Eastern Standard Time (UTC/GMT-5) 1430BD ISR426 Thompson Street\, Ann Arbor\, MITransFAT: Translating Fairness\, Accountability\, and Transparency into Data Science PracticeABSTRACTData science technology promises to improve people’s lives\, accelerate scientific discovery and innovation\, and bring about positive societal change. Yet\, if not used responsibly\, this same technology can reinforce inequity\, limit accountability\, and infringe on the privacy of individuals. In my talk I will give an overview of the “Data\, Responsibly” project that aims to operationalize ethics and legal compliance in data science systems. In particular\, I will speak about my involvement in efforts to regulate the use of data science and AI in New York City\, and about the imperative to establish a broad and inclusive educational agenda around responsible data science. SPEAKER BIOJulia Stoyanovich is an Assistant Professor at New York University in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the Tandon School of Engineering\, and the Center for Data Science. Julia’s research focuses on responsible data management and analysis practices: on operationalizing fairness\, diversity\, transparency\, and data protection in all stages of the data acquisition and processing lifecycle. She established the Data\, Responsibly consortium (https://dataresponsibly.github.io/)\, and serves on the New York City Automated Decision Systems Task Force\, by appointment from Mayor de Blasio. In Spring 2019\, Julia developed and is teaching a course on Responsible Data Science at NYU (https://dataresponsibly.github.io/courses/spring19/). In addition to data ethics\, Julia works on management and analysis of preference data\, and on querying large evolving graphs. She holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from Columbia University\, and a B.S. in Computer Science and in Mathematics and Statistics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Julia’s work has been funded by the NSF\, BSF and by industry. She is a recipient of an NSF CAREER award and of an NSF/CRA CI Fellowship. This event is organized by the Michigan Institute for Data Science and the Institute for Social Research. URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/julia-stoyanovich-transfat/ CATEGORIES:Visiting Speaker END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200120T153000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200120T163000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20200112T225949Z LAST-MODIFIED:20200112T225949Z UID:1130-1579534200-1579537800@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:Julia Stoyanovich: Follow the Data! DESCRIPTION:Times shown are Eastern Standard Time (UTC/GMT-5) 340 West Hall1085 S University Ave\, Ann Arbor\, MI 48109FOR REMOTE PARTICIPANTS: Video from this talk will be streamed live at http://midas.umich.edu/seminar-stream/ Follow the Data! Responsible Data Science Starts with Responsible Data ManagementABSTRACTData science technology promises to improve people’s lives\, accelerate scientific discovery and innovation\, and bring about positive societal change. Yet\, if not used responsibly\, this same technology can reinforce inequity\, limit accountability\, and infringe on the privacy of individuals. In my talk I will discuss recent technical work in scope of the “Data\, Responsibly” project. The goal of this project is to establish a foundational new role for database technology\, in which managing data in accordance with ethical and moral norms\, and legal and policy considerations becomes a core system requirement. I will connect our technical insights on fairness\, diversity\, transparency\, and data protection to ongoing regulatory efforts in the US and elsewhere. Additional information about the project is available at https://dataresponsibly.github.io. SPEAKER BIOJulia Stoyanovich is an Assistant Professor at New York University in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the Tandon School of Engineering\, and the Center for Data Science. Julia’s research focuses on responsible data management and analysis practices: on operationalizing fairness\, diversity\, transparency\, and data protection in all stages of the data acquisition and processing lifecycle. She established the Data\, Responsibly consortium (https://dataresponsibly.github.io/)\, and serves on the New York City Automated Decision Systems Task Force\, by appointment from Mayor de Blasio. In Spring 2019\, Julia developed and is teaching a course on Responsible Data Science at NYU (https://dataresponsibly.github.io/courses/spring19/). In addition to data ethics\, Julia works on management and analysis of preference data\, and on querying large evolving graphs. She holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from Columbia University\, and a B.S. in Computer Science and in Mathematics and Statistics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Julia’s work has been funded by the NSF\, BSF and by industry. She is a recipient of an NSF CAREER award and of an NSF/CRA CI Fellowship. This event is organized by the Michigan Institute for Data Science and the Institute for Social Research. URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/julia-stoyanovich-follow-the-data/ CATEGORIES:Visiting Speaker END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20191213T170000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20191213T190000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20191203T202221Z LAST-MODIFIED:20191203T202221Z UID:1076-1576256400-1576263600@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:"Anonymous Autonomous" Work in Progress Community Demo DESCRIPTION:A free public exhibition at the Duderstadt Gallery2281 Bonisteel Boulevard\, Ann Arbor\, MI 48109\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nARTIST\n\n\n\nKatherine Behar\, Michigan ESC Artist-in-Residence; Associate Professor of Art at Baruch College \n\n\n\nDESCRIPTION \n\n\n\nAnonymous Autonomous is a robotic art installation being developed by Katherine Behar\, Artist in Residence at the University of Michigan\, together with a team of U-M students. As the Fall 2019 semester draws to a close\, we invite the U-M community to meet the team and see the work in progress with live demos of the robots and experimentation in the Duderstadt Center Gallery. \n\n\n\nAnonymous Autonomous is an interactive art installation that transforms empty office chairs into driverless cars. The Anonymous Autonomous Work in Progress Community Demo offers viewers a peek under the hood of two development processes—of autonomous control systems and of art installations—both of which are typically hidden in polished black boxes. \n\n\n\nIn particular\, autonomous vehicles are part of a wave of transformative technologies that utilize automation\, deskilling\, and algorithmic decision-making. These processes are hidden in polished black boxes\, where they remain out of sight and out of control for drivers and pedestrians. This hidden development process of algorithmic interactivity is similar to the hidden development process of an art installation\, which is typically closed to audiences until the artwork is complete. This community demo opens up a work in progress to the public\, and encourages viewers to participate in understanding and shaping algorithmic autonomous control systems. \n\n\n\nThe artist and student team members will be available to discuss their work on the robots\, and demonstrate how they operate. Audience members can reroute the chairs by laying strips of paper that serve as lane markings on the floor\, and also debug and tune the algorithms the chair is using to avoid these markings. We invite viewers to step behind the curtain\, look under the hood\, and engage in an active conversation about questions of automation\, deskilling\, and algorithmic decision-making. \n\n\n\nARTIST BIO\n\n\n\nKatherine Behar is an artist and critical theorist of new media whose work explores gender and labor in digital culture. In contexts spanning automated labor\, mandated obsolescence\, big data\, and machine learning\, Behar applies object-oriented feminism into practice in her art and writing. Her work connects feminist and antiracist post-colonial histories with a wave of new theories that grapple with the nonhuman object world. Katherine Behar’s works have appeared throughout North America and Europe. Pera Museum in Istanbul presented a comprehensive survey exhibition and catalog\, Katherine Behar: Data’s Entry | Veri Girişi\, in 2016. Additional solo exhibitions include Katherine Behar: Anonymous Autonomous (2018)\, Katherine Behar: E-Waste (2014\, catalog/traveling)\, and numerous others collaborating as “Disorientalism.” Behar is the editor of Object-Oriented Feminism\, coeditor of And Another Thing: Nonanthropocentrism and Art\, and author of Bigger than You: Big Data and Obesity. She is Associate Professor of New Media Arts at Baruch College\, CUNY. \n\n\n\nPHOTO CREDIT\n\n\n\nCaption; An art installation that resembles a road\, with two desk chairs on wheels. Courtesy of Katherine Behar\, Anonymous Autonomous\, 2018–ongoing. Photo credit: Sean Carroll. \n\n\n\nCO-SPONSORS\n\n\n\nThis event is co-sponsored by the Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG) with support from the Stamps School of Art and Design and the MCubed Program. \n\n\n\nWork in progress will continue in the gallery Dec 13–20\, 2019 URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/anonymous-autonomous-work-in-progress-community-demo/ END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20191120T160000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20191120T172000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20190925T211735Z LAST-MODIFIED:20190925T211735Z UID:1004-1574265600-1574270400@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:Chris Calabrese: Show Your Face? DESCRIPTION:Times shown are Eastern Standard Time (UTC/GMT-5) Weill Hall\, Annenberg Auditorium 735 S. State Street Ann Arbor\, MI 48109 FOR REMOTE PARTICIPANTS: Video from this talk will be streamed live at http://esc.umich.edu/face Show Your Face? The Pros and Cons of Facial Recognition Technologies for Our Civil LibertiesABSTRACTFacial recognition technology is sweeping into our public and private lives. The government is deploying it at the border and throughout law enforcement investigations. Technology companies are building it into their social networks. Employers are using it to monitor movements and productivity. As the technology becomes increasingly powerful\, accurate\, and versatile\, it’s raising more and more privacy and civil liberties concerns\, especially for marginalized or vulnerable populations. Christopher Calabrese\, Vice President for Policy at the Center for Democracy & Technology will discuss the pros and cons of facial recognition technology\, how it is changing many aspects of our lives\, and how policymakers should address it. SPEAKER BIOChris Calabrese is the Vice President for Policy at the Center for Democracy and Technology. This event is co-sponsored with the Program in Science\, Technology\, and Public Policy. URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/chris-calabrese-show-your-face/ CATEGORIES:Visiting Speaker END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20191114T153000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20191114T163000 DTSTAMP:20260615T083728 CREATED:20190925T214748Z LAST-MODIFIED:20200123T090412Z UID:1022-1573745400-1573749000@esc.umich.edu SUMMARY:Tina Eliassi-Rad: Just Machine Learning DESCRIPTION:Times shown are Eastern Standard Time (UTC/GMT-5) Rackham Building\,915 E Washington St\, Ann Arbor\, MI 48109In-person attendance at this event requires free advance registration. See the event home page. Just Machine LearningABSTRACTTom Mitchell in his 1997 Machine Learning textbook defined the well-posed learning problem as follows: “A computer program is said to learn from experience E with respect to some task T and some performance measure P\, if its performance on T\, as measured by P\, improves with experience E.” In this talk\, I will discuss current tasks\, experiences\, and performance measures as they pertain to fairness in machine learning. The most popular task thus far has been risk assessment. For example\, Jack’s risk of defaulting on a loan is 8\, Jill’s is 2; Ed’s risk of recidivism is 9\, Peter’s is 1. We know this task definition comes with impossibility results (e.g.\, see Kleinberg et al. 2016\, Chouldechova 2016). I will highlight new findings in terms of these impossibility results. In addition\, most human decision-makers seem to use risk estimates for efficiency purposes and not to make fairer decisions. The task of risk assessment seems to enable efficiency instead of fairness. I will present an alternative task definition whose goal is to provide more context to the human decision-maker. The problems surrounding experience have received the most attention. Joy Buolamwini (MIT Media Lab) refers to these as the “under-sampled majority” problem. The majority of the population is non-white\, non-male; however\, white males are overrepresented in the training data. Not being properly represented in the training data comes at a cost to the under-sampled majority when machine learning algorithms are used to aid human decision-makers. There are many well-documented incidents here; for example\, facial recognition systems have poor performance on dark-skinned people. In terms of performance measures\, there are a variety of definitions here from group- to individual-fairness\, from anti-classification\, to classification parity\, to calibration. I will discuss our null model for fairness and demonstrate how to use deviations from this null model to measure favoritism and prejudice in the data. SPEAKER BIOTina Eliassi-Rad is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Northeastern University in Boston\, MA. She is also a core faculty member at Northeastern University’s Network Science Institute. Prior to joining Northeastern\, Tina was an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Rutgers University; and before that she was a Member of Technical Staff and Principal Investigator at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Tina earned her Ph.D. in Computer Sciences (with a minor in Mathematical Statistics) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research is rooted in data mining and machine learning; and spans theory\, algorithms\, and applications of big data from networked representations of physical and social phenomena. She has over 80 peer-reviewed publications (including a few best paper and best paper runner-up awardees); and has given over 190 invited talks and 13 tutorials. Tina’s work has been applied to personalized search on the World-Wide Web\, statistical indices of large-scale scientific simulation data\, fraud detection\, mobile ad targeting\, cyber situational awareness\, and ethics in machine learning. Her algorithms have been incorporated into systems used by the government and industry (e.g.\, IBM System G Graph Analytics) as well as open-source software (e.g.\, Stanford Network Analysis Project). In 2017\, she served as the program co-chair for the ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (a.k.a. KDD\, which is the premier conference on data mining) and as the program co-chair for the International Conference on Network Science (a.k.a. NetSci\, which is the premier conference on network science). In 2010\, she received an Outstanding Mentor Award from the Office of Science at the US Department of Energy. For more details\, visit http://eliassi.org. This event is part of the 2019 Michigan Institute for Data Science Symposium. URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/tina-eliassi-rad-just-machine-learning/ END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR