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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/
LOCATION:MI
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Symposium,Visiting Speaker
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200403T163000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200403T183000
DTSTAMP:20260615T093817
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/
LOCATION:MI
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200331T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200331T210000
DTSTAMP:20260615T093817
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:20260615T093817
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:20260615T093817
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:20260615T093817
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:20260615T093817
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
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200225T113000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200225T130000
DTSTAMP:20260615T093817
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/
LOCATION:MI
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200224T163000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200224T183000
DTSTAMP:20260615T093817
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/
LOCATION:MI
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200221T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200221T160000
DTSTAMP:20260615T093817
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/
LOCATION:MI
CATEGORIES:Visiting Speaker
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200221T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200221T110000
DTSTAMP:20260615T093817
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/
LOCATION:MI
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Visiting Speaker
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200206T121000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200206T130000
DTSTAMP:20260615T093817
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/
LOCATION:MI
CATEGORIES:Visiting Speaker
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200128T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200128T180000
DTSTAMP:20260615T093817
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/
LOCATION:MI
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Symposium,Visiting Speaker
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200124T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200124T193000
DTSTAMP:20260615T093817
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/
LOCATION:MI
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Mixer,Symposium,Visiting Speaker
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200123T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200123T130000
DTSTAMP:20260615T093817
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/
LOCATION:MI
CATEGORIES:Visiting Speaker
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200121T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200121T130000
DTSTAMP:20260615T093817
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/
LOCATION:MI
CATEGORIES:Visiting Speaker
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20200120T153000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20200120T163000
DTSTAMP:20260615T093817
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/
LOCATION:MI
CATEGORIES:Visiting Speaker
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20191213T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20191213T190000
DTSTAMP:20260615T093817
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/
LOCATION:MI
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20191120T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20191120T172000
DTSTAMP:20260615T093817
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/
LOCATION:MI
CATEGORIES:Visiting Speaker
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20191114T153000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20191114T163000
DTSTAMP:20260615T093817
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/
LOCATION:MI
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20191114T084500
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20191114T100000
DTSTAMP:20260615T093817
CREATED:20190925T214317Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20190925T214317Z
UID:1018-1573721100-1573725600@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Rayid Ghani: Machine Learning for Social Good
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. ABSTRACTCan AI\, ML and Data Science help help prevent children from getting lead poisoning? Can it reduce infant and maternal mortality? Can it reduce police violence and misconduct? Can it help cities better target limited resources to improve lives of citizens and achieve equity? We’re all aware of the potential of ML and AI but turning this potential into tangible social impact takes cross-disciplinary training\, new methods\, and scalable data and computational infrastructure. I’ll discuss lessons learned from working on 50+ projects over the past few years with non-profits and governments on high-impact public policy and social challenges in criminal justice\, public health\, education\, economic development\, public safety\, workforce training\, and urban infrastructure. I’ll highlight opportunities as well as challenges around explainability and bias/fairness that need to tackled in order to have social and policy impact in a fair and equitable manner. SPEAKER BIORayid Ghani was Chief Scientist of 2012 Obama Campaign. He is presently Distinguished Career Professor in Machine Learning at Carnegie Mellon University. This event is part of the 2019 Michigan Institute for Data Science Symposium.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/rayid-ghani-data-science-for-the-next-ten-years/
LOCATION:MI
CATEGORIES:Visiting Speaker
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20191111T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20191111T173000
DTSTAMP:20260615T093817
CREATED:20190925T205155Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200123T190612Z
UID:987-1573488000-1573493400@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Megan Finn: We Are All Well
DESCRIPTION:  \n\nTimes shown are Eastern Standard Time (UTC/GMT-5) \n\n\n\nEhrlicher Room\, 3100 North Quad105 S. State St.\, Ann Arbor\, MI 48109\n\n\n\nFOR REMOTE PARTICIPANTS: Video from this talk will be streamed live. A URL will appear here for this event’s live video stream at a later date.\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\nWe are all well – A partial history of public information infrastructures after disasters\n\n\n\nABSTRACT\n\n\n\nWhen an earthquake happens in California today\, residents may look to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) for online maps that show the quake’s epicenter\, turn to Twitter for government bulletins and the latest news\, check Facebook for updates from friends and family\, and hope to count on help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). This information order articulates a particular epistemic experience of earthquake for some Americans. In my new book\, Documenting Aftermath\, I explore post-earthquake information and communication practices amidst infrastructure breakdown in three Northern California earthquakes: the 1868 Hayward Fault earthquake\, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire\, and the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. In this talk\, I discuss how people produce and circulate information in earthquake publics using a comparative historical lens. I analyze the institutions\, policies\, and technologies that shape today’s post-disaster information landscape\, paying close attention to not only the circulation of knowledge\, but also to the production of ignorance. \n\n\n\n\nLandscape\n\n\n\n\nSPEAKER BIO\n\n\n\nMegan Finn is the author of Documenting Aftermath (2018) with MIT Press. She teaches information policy and ethics at University of Washington’s School of Information where she is an assistant professor. Megan is a faculty member of the DataLab at the Information School\, and at the eScience Institute where\, as a part of the data science studies group\, she convenes a talk series called Data Then and Now. She is currently working on an NSF-sponsored project on ethical practices in computer security research. \n\n\n\nThis event is co-sponsored with the Science\, Technology\, Medicine\, and Society Speaker Series.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/megan-finn-we-are-all-well/
LOCATION:MI
CATEGORIES:Visiting Speaker
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20191101T163000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20191101T183000
DTSTAMP:20260615T093817
CREATED:20190929T211234Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20190929T211234Z
UID:1040-1572625800-1572633000@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:ESC POD: Faculty Mixer
DESCRIPTION:Hathaway’s Hideaway310 S. Ashley Street Mixer for Faculty Interested in ESCUniversity of Michigan faculty from any program are invited to this mixer if they are interested in ESC. Any faculty member interested in ESC topics is welcome; you don’t need to have any prior connection to the ESC Center to attend. “Hathaway’s Hideaway” is located at 310 S. Ashley Street in Downtown Ann Arbor. It is a 1901 ward meeting hall redecorated with bar and restaurant furnishings from establishments that are significant in the history of Ann Arbor. It is now operated as a private venue open by arrangement only. RSVPTo attend\, an RSVP is requested. RSVP by completing this form: https://forms.gle/8CWbk1iPcCeZCaV88
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/esc-pod-faculty-mixer/
LOCATION:MI
CATEGORIES:Mixer
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20191029T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20191029T130000
DTSTAMP:20260615T093817
CREATED:20190925T212804Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20190925T212804Z
UID:1013-1572350400-1572354000@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Aynne Kokas: From Grindr to Cybersovereignty
DESCRIPTION:Times shown are Eastern Daylight Time (UTC/GMT-4)  110 Weiser Hall500 Church St\, Ann Arbor\, MI 48109 FOR REMOTE PARTICIPANTS: Video from this talk will be streamed live. For video\, during the event visit this URL: http://esc.umich.edu/grindrFrom Grindr to Cybersovereignty: The Loaded Interplay between Community\, National\, and Global Standards of Data Governance in ChinaABSTRACTThe Chinese government has become increasingly involved in global standards-making events such as the annual Internet Governance Forum and China’s Wuzhen Internet Summit (aka the World Internet Conference) that leverage China’s national standing in international standards-building events to shape global the future of global Internet governance. At the same time\, Chinese regulators are also exporting standards not through national\, or international governance frameworks\, but through the community standards of individual platforms. This talk examines how the Chinese government is expanding its regulatory control over global consumer platforms through the expansion of Chinese-owned consumer platforms. SPEAKER BIOAynne Kokas is an assistant professor of media studies at the University of Virginia. Her multiple-award-winning first book\, “Hollywood Made in China” (University of California Press\, 2017) argues that Chinese investment and regulations have transformed the US commercial media industry. Her next book project “Border Patrol on the Digital Frontier: The United States\, China\, and the Global Battle for Data Security” examines the policy implications of the transfer of consumer data between the United States and China. Her research has also appeared in “Information\, Communication\, and Society\,” “Journal of Asian Studies\,” “PLOS One\,” and others. Her research has been funded by the Fulbright Foundation\, the Social Science Research Council\, the Mellon Foundation\, The National Endowment for the Humanities\, and others. Professor Kokas’ writing and commentary have appeared in forty-six countries and eleven languages. She is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. This event is organized by the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/aynne-kokas-from-grindr-to-cybersovereignty/
LOCATION:MI
CATEGORIES:Visiting Speaker
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20191021T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20191021T172000
DTSTAMP:20260615T093817
CREATED:20190925T211053Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20190925T211053Z
UID:999-1571673600-1571678400@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:CANCELLED: Max Clermont: Data for Black Lives
DESCRIPTION:Times shown are Eastern Daylight Time (UTC/GMT-4)  \n\n\n\nDue to circumstances beyond our control\, this event has been CANCELLED.\n\n\n\nWeill Hall\, Annenberg Auditorium735 S. State Street Ann Arbor\, MI 48109\n\n\n\nFOR REMOTE PARTICIPANTS: Video from this talk will be streamed live. A URL will appear here for this event’s live video stream at a later date.\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\nOrganizing for Algorithmic Justice: Lessons from Data for Black Lives\n\n\n\nBACKGROUND\n\n\n\nData for Black Lives is a group of activists\, organizers\, and mathematicians committed to the mission of using data science to create concrete and measurable change in the lives of Black people. \n\n\n\nSince the advent of computing\, big data and algorithms have penetrated virtually every aspect of our social and economic lives. These new data systems have tremendous potential to empower communities of color. Tools like statistical modeling\, data visualization\, and crowd-sourcing\, in the right hands\, are powerful instruments for fighting bias\, building progressive movements\, and promoting civic engagement. \n\n\n\nBut history tells a different story\, one in which data is too often wielded as an instrument of oppression\, reinforcing inequality and perpetuating injustice. Redlining was a data-driven enterprise that resulted in the systematic exclusion of Black communities from key financial services. More recent trends like predictive policing\, risk-based sentencing\, and predatory lending are troubling variations on the same theme. Today\, discrimination is a high-tech enterprise. \n\n\n\nSPEAKER BIO\n\n\n\nMax Clermont is co-founder & head of policy with Data for Black Lives in Cambridge\, MA. Prior to his role at D4BL\, Clermont served as chief of staff at the University of Chicago Medicine’s Trauma Center. He is a former project manager with 270 Strategies\, a public engagement firm in Chicago\, IL that works with political campaigns and causes in the design and implementation of advocacy strategy. He focused on helping leaders and organizations enhance the experience of the communities they represent and find better ways to encourage meaningful action. Before joining 270\, Clermont was a Regional Field Director in Florida for President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. He has previously held positions with the 2012 Presidential Inaugural Committee\, Brown University’s School of Public Health\, Partners In Health\, and Brigham & Women’s Hospital. \n\n\n\nClermont holds a B.A. and M.P.H. from Brown University’s School of Public Health with a concentration in health services\, policy & practice. He serves on the board of Brown University’s Alumni Association and is the senior political adviser to the Mayor Alex Morse of Holyoke\, MA. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThis event is co-sponsored with the Program in Science\, Technology\, and Public Policy Speaker Series.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/max-clermont-data-for-black-lives/
LOCATION:MI
CATEGORIES:Visiting Speaker
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20191018T163000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20191018T183000
DTSTAMP:20260615T093817
CREATED:20190929T210742Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20190929T210742Z
UID:1036-1571416200-1571423400@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:ESC POD: Ph.D. Student Mixer
DESCRIPTION:Hathaway’s Hideaway310 S. Ashley Street \n\n\n\nMixer for Ph.D. Students Interested in ESC\n\n\n\nUniversity of Michigan Ph.D. students from any program are invited to this mixer if they are interested in ESC.  Any UM Ph.D. student interested in ESC topics is welcome; you don’t need to have any prior connection to the ESC Center to attend.  \n\n\n\n“Hathaway’s Hideaway” is located at 310 S. Ashley Street in Downtown Ann Arbor. It is a 1901 ward  meeting hall redecorated with bar and restaurant furnishings from establishments that are significant in the history of Ann Arbor. It is now operated as a private venue open by arrangement only.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/esc-pod-ph-d-student-mixer/
LOCATION:MI
CATEGORIES:Mixer
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20190601T111500
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20190601T124500
DTSTAMP:20260615T093817
CREATED:20190514T022734Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200123T084233Z
UID:387-1559387700-1559393100@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Algorithms\, Scale\, Speed\, and the Labor of Logistics
DESCRIPTION:    Times shown are Eastern Daylight Time (UTC/GMT-4) Ehrlicher Room\, 3100 North Quad   FOR REMOTE PARTICIPANTS: Video from this talk will be streamed live; see http://esc.umich.edu/ for details.  “Algorithms\, Scale\, Speed\, and the Labor of Logistics” is one of two public panel conversations that are part of the “Making the ‘Future of Work’ Work” workshop\, funded by the National Science Foundation.   Panel Description: Digital labor regimes have infiltrated various processes from global logistics and supply chains to mass production and mechanic work. Scale\, speed\, and acceleration are key to these processes of increasing algorithmic control (simultaneously critiqued and celebrated). What are the cracks\, frictions\, and gaps in this seemingly all-subsuming finance capitalism? How might we have to rearticulate what counts as solidarity and collective organizing to counter distributed\, isolating\, and large-scale structures of control? How can we intervene in the persistent techno-optimism that live on in contemporary engineering and design?   PRESENTERS:Alessandro Delfanti (http://delfanti.org/)Victoria Hattam (http://www.gidest.org/victoria-hattam)Margaret Jack (https://www.maggiejack.info/)Noopur Raval (https://noopur.xyz/)   DISCUSSANTS:Silvia Lindtner (http://www.silvialindtner.com/)Christian Sandvig (http://umich.edu/~csandvig)
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/making-the-future-of-work-work-algorithms-scale-speed-and-the-labor-of-logistics/
LOCATION:MI
CATEGORIES:Tech Labor
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20190601T093000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20190601T110000
DTSTAMP:20260615T093817
CREATED:20190514T021857Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200123T085226Z
UID:382-1559381400-1559386800@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Labor in the Global Platform Economy
DESCRIPTION:Times shown are Eastern Daylight Time (UTC/GMT-4) Ehrlicher Room\, 3100 North Quad   FOR REMOTE PARTICIPANTS: Video from this talk will be streamed live; see http://esc.umich.edu/ for details.  “Labor in the Global Platform Economy” is one of two public panel conversations that are part of the “Making the ‘Future of Work’ Work” workshop\, funded by the National Science Foundation.   Panel Description: From voice assistances that replicate how care and service professions manage their own emotions to surveillance technologies powered by outsourced\, contracted coding work\, emotional\, gendered\, and racialized labor are the sources of “smart” technologies writ large. How does the promise of a better\, hopeful “future of work” reproduce or contest exploitative regimes of labor? How does the promise of living the “good life\,” of becoming the “smart” self\, and individual empowerment prohibit other forms of solidarity?   PRESENTERS: Nathan Ensmenger (http://homes.sice.indiana.edu/nensmeng/)Mary Gray (http://www.ghostwork.info/)Lilly Irani (https://quote.ucsd.edu/lirani/)Cara Wallis (https://comm.tamu.edu/cara-wallis/) DISCUSSANTS: Sarah Murray (https://lsa.umich.edu/ftvm/people/faculty/sarah-murray.html)Lisa Nakamura (https://lisanakamura.net/)  
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/making-the-future-of-work-work-labor-in-the-global-platform-economy/
LOCATION:MI
CATEGORIES:Tech Labor
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20190425T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20190425T140000
DTSTAMP:20260615T093817
CREATED:20190319T213047Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220531T155627Z
UID:297-1556197200-1556200800@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Ethics & Politics of AI: Tarleton Gillespie
DESCRIPTION:Times shown are Eastern Daylight Time (UTC/GMT-4)   Ehrlicher Room\, 3100 North Quad   FOR REMOTE PARTICIPANTS: Video from this talk will be streamed live. For video\, during the event visit this URL: http://umsi.info/gillespie  Custodians of the Internet: Platforms\, Content Moderation\, and the Hidden Decisions That Shape Social Media  ABSTRACTContent moderation can serve as a prism for examining what platforms are\, and how they subtly torque public life. Our understanding of platforms too blithely accepted the terms in which they were sold and celebrated – open\, impartial\, connective\, progressive\, transformative – skewing our study of social behavior that happens on them\, stunting our examination of their societal impact. Content moderation doesn’t fit this celebratory vision. As such\, it has often been treated as peripheral to what they do—a custodial task\, like sweeping up\, occasional and invisible. What if moderation is in fact central to what platforms do? Moderation is an enormous part of the work of running a platform\, in terms of people\, time\, and cost. The work of policing all this caustic content and abuse haunts platforms\, and profoundly shapes how they work. Today\, social media platforms are being scrutinized in the press; specific controversies\, each a tiny crisis of trust\, have gelled into a more profound interrogation of their responsibilities to users and society. What are the implications of the emerging demand that platforms serve not as conduits or arbiters\, but as custodians? This is uncharted territory for the platforms\, a very different notion of how they should earn the trust of their users and stand accountable to civil society.   SPEAKER BIO\n\nTarleton Gillespie is a principal researcher at Microsoft Research New England\, and an affiliated associate professor in the Department of Communication and Department of Information Science at Cornell University. His new book\, Custodians of the Internet: Platforms\, Content Moderation\, and the Hidden Decisions that Shape Social Media (Yale University Press) was published in June 2018. He is also the author of Wired Shut: Copyright and the Shape of Digital Culture (MIT Press\, 2007)\, the co-editor of Media Technologies: Essays on Communication\, Materiality\, and Society (MIT\, 2014)\, and the co-founder of the blog Culture Digitally.  
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/ethics-politics-of-ai-tartleton-gillespie/
LOCATION:MI
CATEGORIES:Ethics & Politics of AI
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=:
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20190422T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20190422T160000
DTSTAMP:20260615T093817
CREATED:20190319T211030Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20190319T211030Z
UID:287-1555945200-1555948800@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Ethics & Politics of AI: Anna Lauren Hoffmann
DESCRIPTION:Ehrlicher Room\, 3100 North Quad\n\n\n\nData Violence: Discourse and Justice in a Datafied World\n\n\n\nABSTRACT\n\n\n\nValues of fairness\, antidiscrimination\, and inclusion occupy a central place in the emerging ethics of data and algorithms. Their importance is underscored by the reality that data-intensive\, algorithmically-mediated decision systems—as represented by artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML)—can exacerbate existing (or generate new) injustices\, worsening already problematic distributions of rights\, opportunities\, and wealth. At the same time\, critics of certain “fair” or “inclusive” approaches to the design and implementation of these systems have illustrated their limits\, pointing to problems with reductive or overly technical definitions of fairness or a general inability to appropriately address representative or dignitary harms. \n\n\n\nIn this talk\, I extend these critiques by focusing on problems of cultural and discursive violence. I begin by discussing trends in AI/ML fairness and inclusion discussion that mirror problematic tendencies from legal antidiscrimination discourses. From there\, I introduce “data violence” as a response to these trends. In particular\, I lay out the discursive bases of data-based violence—that is\, the discursive forms by which competing voices and various “fair” or “inclusive” solutions become legible (and others marginalized or ignored). In doing so\, I undermine any neat or easy distinction between the presence of violence and its absence—rather\, our sense of fair or inclusive conditions contain and feed the possibility of violent ones. I conclude by echoing feminist political philosopher Serene Khader’s call to move away from justice-imposing solutions toward justice-enhancing ones. Importantly\, justice-enhancing efforts cannot simply be a matter of protecting or “including” vulnerable others\, but must also attend to discourses and norms that generate asymmetrical vulnerabilities to violence in the first place. \n\n\n\nSPEAKER BIO\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nI am Anna Lauren Hoffmann\, a scholar and writer working at the intersections of data\, technology\, culture\, and ethics. I am currently an Assistant Professor with The Information School at the University of Washington. \n\n\n\nMy work centers on issues in information\, data\, and ethics\, paying specific attention to the ways discourse\, design\, and uses of information technology work to promote or hinder the pursuit of important human values like respect and justice. I am concerned with the ways data\, information\, and technological systems (or the ways we talk about them) discriminate by undermining the development of self-respect of some\, especially through the infliction of symbolic and discursive violences. In addition\, I work on issues around ethics education for data professionals and computer scientists\, as well as the possibilities (and limits) of research ethics and professional codes of ethics.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/ethics-politics-of-ai-anna-lauren-hoffman/
LOCATION:MI
CATEGORIES:Ethics & Politics of AI
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