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DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20241024T170000
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SUMMARY:ESC Attacks | A Benefit for computing researchers facing targeted harassment
DESCRIPTION:Join ESC affiliates and their guests for our Fall mixer at the Elks. We will assemble care packages for student researchers in computing and information who are under attack. Materials will be provided. Free parking in rear. Download the digital flyer here. RSVP Required: Click here to RSVP Formed in 1922 during racial segregation\, the Crawford Elks Lodge has been essential to the Ann Arbor African-American community for over 100 years. It provides service to the community as well as a place to gather\, socialize\, and support one another. No Elks membership is required to attend this event. DONATION BOX ON SITE: Bring your unwanted tech company-branded clothing\, bags\, and gifts to be repurposed for the ESC $wag project.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/esc-attacks-a-benefit-for-computing-researchers-facing-targeted-harassment/
LOCATION:James L. Crawford (Pratt) Elks Lodge #322\, 220 Sunset Rd\, Ann Arbor\, MI 48103
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20241007T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20241007T173000
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20240906T161716Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241103T025133Z
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SUMMARY:Paula Harper | Viral: Metaphor\, Narrative\, Music
DESCRIPTION:Abstract: Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic\, “going viral” had nonetheless become commonplace—the epidemiological metaphor characterizing an increasingly-familiar trajectory of explosive circulation\, remix\, and reportage expanding from individual nodes of audiovisual content online. This presentation briefly historicizes and contextualizes the contagious concept\, before suggesting how “virality”—as aesthetic repertoire\, as popular narrative\, as social logic made concrescent in platform architectures—might also be understood as a form of musicality. I argue that participation in the production\, watching\, listening to\, circulating\, or sharing of “viral” digital internet objects has constituted a significant site of 21st-century musical practice. And across the 21st century\, digital platforms have adapted to facilitate this viral musicality\, using music’s positive capacities—aesthetic pleasure\, communal participation\, social connectivity—to enable corporate profit-making\, corral attention\, and incentivize acceptance of increasing technocapital enclosure of the internet and everyday life. Please RSVP here. This event is hosted by STeMs Speakers Series and co-sponsored by ESC.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/paula-harper-viral-metaphor-narrative-music/
LOCATION:1014 Tisch Hall\, 435 S State St\, Ann Arbor
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20241007
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20241015
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20240904T214503Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240911T173657Z
UID:3309-1728266400-1728871199@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:LGBTQ+ VR Museum Open House
DESCRIPTION:Join us for the LGBTQ+ VR Museum Open House hosted by the Digital Studies Institute and the Just XR Futures Lab from Oct. 7 through Oct. 11\, 2024. The LGBTQ+ VR Museum was created by DiVRse Technologies\, a world-leading immersive studio that produces ground-breaking digital experiences using VR and XR technologies. Disrupting historical gatekeeping and erasure of marginalized voices\, DiVRse Technologies uses VR to share stories and artifacts curated directly from the queer community. The LGBTQ+ community globally contributed dozens of personal items scanned into 3D and 2D artworks\, that contextualize their lived experiences. Layers of interactive content appear and programmatically respond to visitors’ emotions in real time as they explore the VR museum. All are welcome. The LGBTQ+ VR Museum was designed to be accessible\, so people of all abilities can experience the exhibits\, artifacts\, and stories. Please register at U-M Sessions at the following link: https://myumi.ch/zXyd9 We want to make our events accessible to all participants. If you anticipate needing additional accommodations to participate or have any questions\, please email Eric Mancini at dsi-administration@umich.edu. Please note that some accommodations must be arranged in advance and we encourage you to contact us as soon as possible.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/lgbtq-vr-museum-open-house/
LOCATION:2001 Modern Languages Building
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20241001T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20241001T163000
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20240923T194008Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240923T193845Z
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SUMMARY:Tiara Roxanne | Digital Technology and Body Memory - Conversation with Rebecca Uliasz
DESCRIPTION:The use of digital technologies and platformitization have become a more normalized way of connecting which shapes our relations and ultimately\, how we intimise. Where we might mutually recognize a shared togetherness within the digital sphere\, we might also discover a feeling of togetherness\, alienation\, horror or even seduction. I ask questions of how digital intimacy fabricates how our bodies move toward one another\, gather or isolate? We are intimate with the algorithms\, social media platforms and digital infrastructures embedded within the technological which intensify feelings of horror. Is the horror we see and feel via the algorithm and what we share\, a new form of attunement and intimacy\, is it a new body memory? Tiara Roxanne is a Purhépecha (descendant) Mestiza scholar and artist based in Berlin. Dr. Roxanne’s work is dedicated to rethinking the ethics of AI through an anti-colonial and cyberfeminist lens. They are currently developing their terminology\, digital attunement and the technological haunt further\, which expands theory and critique regarding body memory and hauntology within socio-technical frameworks. In the recent past\, they developed protocols of trust and safety online with Indigenous communities based in Central and South America. As a performance artist and practitioner\, they work between the digital and the material using textile\, from the space of the body as a site of refusal. Tiara has presented at Images Festival (Toronto)\, Squeaky Wheel Film and Media Art Center (NY)\, Trinity Square Video (Toronto)\, European Media Art Festival (Osnabrück)\, University of Applied Arts (Vienna)\, SOAS (London)\, SLU (Madrid)\, Transmediale (Berlin)\, Duke University (NC)\, Tech Open Air (Berlin)\, AMOQA (Athens)\, Zurich University of the Arts (Zurich)\, Autonomous Intercultural Indigenous University (Columbia)\, Utrecht University (NL)\, University of California (San Diego)\, Laboratorio Arte Alameda\, (Mexico City)\, Fuchsbau Festival (Hannover) among others. We strive to make our events accessible to all participants. This event will be a hybrid event with both a physical meeting space and an online meeting space. Please register in advance for the online Zoom Webinar here: https://bit.ly/3yTjO2r Please register for the physical meeting space at the University of Michigan’s Central Campus here: https://myumi.ch/mZGnV CART will be provided. If you anticipate needing accommodations to participate\, please email Eric Mancini at dsi-administration@umich.edu. Please note that some accommodations must be arranged in advance and we encourage you to contact us as soon as possible.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/tiara-roxanne-in-conversation-with-rebecca-uliasz-digital-attunement-and-other-hauntologies/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20240926T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20240926T203000
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20240904T182220Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240913T204449Z
UID:3284-1727373600-1727382600@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Free Screening of Paul Preciado's Orlando
DESCRIPTION:“Come\, come! I’m sick to death of this particular self. I want another.” Taking Virginia Woolf’s novel “Orlando: A Biography” as his starting point\, academic virtuoso turned filmmaker Paul B. Preciado fashioned the documentary ORLANDO\, MY POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY—a personal essay\, historical analysis\, and social manifesto. For almost a century\, Woolf’s eponymous hero(ine) has inspired readers with their gender fluidity as well as their physical and spiritual metamorphoses across a three-hundred-year span. In making his film\, Preciado invited a diverse group of more than twenty trans and nonbinary people to play the role of Orlando and to participate in this shared biography. Together\, they perform interpretations of the novel\, weaving into Woolf’s narrative their own stories of transition and identity formation. Not content to simply update a groundbreaking work\, Preciado interrogates the relevance of “Orlando” in the ongoing struggle to secure dignity for trans people worldwide. Watch the official trailer here: https://youtu.be/LpGFplNRUmc?si=4TXIapiyMX0YaI7u How to Participate: Register here https://forms.gle/Lc3Zxi8viCeeS7pg8 This event will be in person. Please be sure to register and come early to snag a seat! If you anticipate needing accommodations to participate or would like help filling out the registration form\, please email Giselle Mills at gimills@umich.edu. Please note that some accommodations must be arranged in advance and we encourage you to contact us as soon as possible.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/free-screening-of-paul-preciados-orlando/
LOCATION:232 S State St\, Ann Arbor\, MI 48104
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20240924T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20240924T163000
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20240904T182206Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240913T204528Z
UID:3276-1727190000-1727195400@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Whit Pow in Conversation with Sheila Murphy | The Deliberate History of Randomness: Determinism\, Race\, Trans Life\, and the History of Random Number Generation
DESCRIPTION:Event Abstract: There is something deliberate about the history of randomness. Computers are often described as “deterministic”: every process that is performed by a computer is pre-determined\, with often formulaic outcomes. “Determinism” is also a historically loaded word—one that has been paired with the term “biological” to justify eugenicist thought related to race\, disability\, and queer and transgender life. What might it mean\, then\, to place these meanings side-by-side\, connecting the long history of ideological determinism in relationship to race\, gender\, and sexuality in the United States alongside the use of determinism in computer science and programming?   Using previously unseen video from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s archives along with the 1978 glitch art piece Digital TV Dinner\, I examine the randomized imagery and glitch art produced by the Bally Astrocade\, a video game console and home computer whose software was developed in 1978 by trans programmer and game designer Jamie Faye Fenton. I trace this history of the random through computers\, hardware random number generators like lava lamps and atmospheric noise from radio waves\, the United States census\, and the roots of random number generation in eugenicist thought in the United States.   Speaker Bio: Whit Pow (they/them) is an assistant professor of Media\, Culture\, and Communication at New York University. Their work focuses on queer and transgender (trans) histories of games\, computational media and electronic art. Their latest article\, “How the Computer Taught Us to See\,” will be published this fall in Camera Obscura by Duke University Press.   How to Participate: We want to make our events accessible to all participants. This event will be a hybrid event with both a physical meeting space and an online meeting space. Please register in advance for the online Zoom Webinar here: https://bit.ly/3YyzMJN   Please register for the physical meeting space at the University of Michigan’s Central Campus here: https://myumi.ch/egGZr CART will be provided. If you anticipate needing additional accommodations to participate\, please email Eric Mancini at dsi-administration@umich.edu. Please note that some accommodations must be arranged in advance and we encourage you to contact us as soon as possible.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/whit-pow-in-conversation-with-sheila-murphy-the-deliberate-history-of-randomness-determinism-race-trans-life-and-the-history-of-random-number-generation/
LOCATION:Weiser Hall 10th Floor Event Space\, 500 Church St.\, Ann Arbor\, MI
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20240412T100000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20240412T180000
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20240329T142255Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240407T141356Z
UID:3219-1712916000-1712944800@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:2024 Symposium - ESC: Residues or What Remains
DESCRIPTION:ABSTRACTThey say: AI is here. It is inevitable. It is unprecedented. It is the future. Underneath these claims of inevitably and futurity are residues of technological pasts and presents. Things that stick and smear\, pasts that linger. What if we stick with what remains\, with these residues—data not used\, lands wasted\, bodies rendered disposable\, labor discarded\, life that isn’t attractive to computation\, tricky histories of technological and political moments? What if we attend to residual labor\, the work of cleaning up\, of redirecting vision\, of what is soon to be replaced by machines? What lifeforms and futures with technology might become possible then? For this theme year symposium\, five incredible external speakers will join eight local scholars for a day of conversation and thought about residues\, in all their sticky complexity. HOW TO PARTICIPATEParticipants are invited to attend in-person in the Ehrlicher Room (North Quad Room 3100). RSVP encouraged for in-person attendance and required if you would like to join for lunch. Please RSVP here. Registration required for virtual webinar attendance. Please register here. SPEAKERS Yangyang Cheng (she/her) is an interdisciplinary scholar\, award-winning writer\, and public intellectual. Currently\, she is a Research Scholar in Law and Fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center\, where her work focuses on the development of science and technology in China and US-China relations. Her essays have appeared in numerous outlets including The New York Times and WIRED\, and won several awards from the Society of Publishers in Asia\, Asian American Journalists Association\, and Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Trained as a particle physicist\, she worked on the Large Hadron Collider for over a decade\, and received her PhD in physics from the University of Chicago.    Yousif Hassan is an assistant professor at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. His work examines the social\, economic\, and political implications of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI)\, blockchain\, and big data focusing on the relationship between race\, digital technology\, and technoscientific capitalism. Hassan’s interest is at the intersection of social and racial justice\, and technology policy. His most recent project investigates the development of AI and its innovation ecosystem across multiple African countries focusing on data governance and the sociotechnical knowledge production practices of the state\, scientists\, and the tech industry.    Tung-Hui Hu (he/his) is a poet and a media theorist. He is the author of five books\, most recently Digital Lethargy: Dispatches from an Age of Disconnection (MIT Press\, 2022)\, A Prehistory of the Cloud (MIT Press\, 2015) and Greenhouses\, Lighthouses (Copper Canyon Press\, 2013). He was awarded the 2022-23 Rome Prize in Literature from the American Academy in Rome\, and is an associate professor of English at the University of Michigan.    Leah Horgan (they/them) is a Providence-based critical informatics scholar whose work examines the intersection of data technology and urbanism through research\, art/media\, and through/in support of housing justice and abolitionist grassroots organizing. They received their PhD from the University of California\, Irvine and are currently a Computing Innovation Postdoctoral Fellow based at Northeastern University and an instructor at Olin College of Engineering.    Pelle Tracey is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Michigan School of Information. He uses a mixture of methods to investigate infrastructure\, bureaucracy\, algorithms\, and data work\, particularly in frontline government contexts. His current work is an ethnographic examination of how cities in the US make sense of homelessness through data\, and how people experiencing homelessness make sense of this state response.    Kalindi Vora is Professor of Ethnicity\, Race\, and Migration\, and Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies at Yale University. Her first book\, Life Support: Biocapital and the New History of Outsourced Labor (Rachel Carson Book Prize 2018)\, takes up questions of technology\, colonialism and raced and gendered labor under globalization. Her second book is Surrogate Humanity: Race Robotics and the Politics of Technological Futures (Duke 2019)\, co-authored with Neda Atanasoski\, a project on the racial and gendered politics of robotics and artificial intelligence. With the Precarity Lab\, she is co-author of Technoprecarious (2020)\, which tracks the role of digital technologies in multiplying precarity. A book of her collected work on transnational gestational surrogacy in India is forthcoming under the title\, Reimagining Reproduction: Surrogacy\, Labour and Technologies of Human Reproduction.    Silvia Margot Lindtner (she/her) is a writer and ethnographer. Her research focuses on the cultures and politics of technology innovation\, including the labor necessary to incubate entrepreneurial life and data-driven futures. She is the author of the award-winning book Prototype Nation: China and the Contested Promise of Innovation (Princeton University Press\, 2020)\, and co-author of the multigraph Technoprecarious (Goldsmiths/MIT Press 2020). She is Associate Professor at the University of Michigan in the School of Information and Director of the Center for Ethics\, Society\, and Computing (ESC).    \n\nPatricia Garcia examines how Latinx and Black communities develop agentic relationships with technology and gain greater over their data. Her current work is a collaboration with public libraries to design computational justice programs that support Latinx and Black girls in seeing themselves as active decision-makers who can leverage technologies to participate in individual and collective action. \n  \n\n Weixian Pan is Assistant Professor in the Department of Film and Media at Queen’s University. Her research focuses on politics of visuality\, media infrastructure\, and environmental media. Her current book project examines how China’s geopolitical aspirations have been hyper-mediated and entangled with the logic of frontier-making\, between the mid-twentieth century and the present day. Her work appeared in journals such as Asiascape: Digital Asia\, Culture Machine\, Journal of Environmental Media\, and Television and New Media. She received her PhD in Film and Moving Image Studies from Concordia University\, Montreal. She is also a recipient of the 2024-2025 ACLS/Luce Fellowship in China Studies.    Cindy Lin (She/Her) is an Assistant Professor at the College of Information Sciences and Technology and director of the Critical Technocultures Lab at Pennsylvania State University. Her first book project explores statecraft and computing practices in the environmental and mapping sciences in Indonesia and the professional identities and government institutions that emerged from these efforts. She has published two co-authored books entitled Technoprecarious (MIT Press/Goldsmiths Press\, 2020) and Digital Energetics (University of Minnesota Press\, 2023). At the University of Michigan\, she earned a Ph.D. in Information. She was also a postdoctoral scholar at Cornell University and a visiting fellow at the Digital Life initiative at Cornell Tech.     Alyssa Paredes is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan\, Ann Arbor. She is a socio-cultural anthropologist researching plantation capitalism\, environmental activism\, scientific conventions\, and transnational trade between the Philippines and Japan. Her work appears in academic outlets in anthropology\, geography\, food studies\, and Asian Studies\, as well as in the digital environmental humanities project\, Feral Atlas: The More-than-Human Anthropocene\, edited by Anna Tsing\, Jennifer Deger\, Alder Keleman Saxena and Feifei Zhou. She holds a PhD with distinction from Yale University.    Matthew Bui (he/him) is an assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Information and an affiliate with the NYU Center for Critical Race and Digital Studies and UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry. Bui’s research foregrounds the local and racial politics of data-driven technologies\, policy\, and platforms\, in order to identify and explore community-driven interventions for outcomes of social and racial justice. His current book project\, Appetite for Data\, explores how digital foodie platforms increasingly mediate important community debates about race\, class\, gentrification\, and cultural and neighborhood “authenticity.”     Stephanie Jordan is an assistant professor in the Department of Media and Information and core faculty in the Center for Gender in a Global Context at Michigan State University.  She is a previous tech developer now current ethnographer interested in the social and ethical consequences of big data in the climate and ocean sciences with a focus on sustainability across two axes: technical (materials\, maintenance\, quality control\, calibration) and human (labor\, equity\, resilience)\, and their co-construction. I work in direct collaboration with scientists to enact inclusive principles in the full pipeline of scientific work from problem identification\, design\, deployment and modeling through knowledge dissemination through principles of co-design\, community engagement and participatory methods. My work operates at the intersection of environmental\, design and social justice.    Emilia Yang (She/her/hers) is an artist\, organizer and researcher. Her research explores the role of memory\, violence\, emotions\, performance\, and participation in the political imagination. Her art practice utilizes expanded forms of digital media (XR\, transmedia\, web\, interactive\, films\, archives\, performance\, games and public interventions) for the creation of community-based feminist\, anti-racist and transformative justice projects and futures. Yang received a PhD in Interdisciplinary Media Arts + Practice at the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Art and Design at U-M Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design\, with a focus on Anti-Racism by Design. Personal website www.emiliayang.org
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/2024-symposium-esc-residues-or-what-remains/
LOCATION:Ehrichler Room\, 3100 North Quad\, Ann Arbor\, MI\, United States
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20240408
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20240411
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20240404T013538Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240404T014436Z
UID:3237-1712541600-1712714399@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Social Media & Society in India
DESCRIPTION:  How to Attend:The conference takes place Apr 8-9\, 2024 at the University of Michigan\, Ann Arbor\, and is free to attend online or in person and brings together a great line-up of speakers. Registration is free for both online and in-person. Registered attendees can view all the talks and also sign up for office hours with the speakers. This year’s line-up includes a variety of topics including political and electoral social media use\, platform governance\, brand management\, finance\, healthcare\, and hate speech. Details\, a full program\, and registration info for in person and online viewing can be found here: https://influencers.conference.si.umich.edu About:The University of Michigan is hosting the fourth iteration of its hybrid conference on Social Media and Society in India featuring a host of speakers to discuss various ways in which social media is impacting contemporary life in India. The event is a premier venue for conversations around social media and society in India.   This event is hosted by the School of Information\, and is co-sponsored by the Center for Ethics\, Society & Computing (ESC)\, the Center for South Asia Studies\,  the Wallace House Center for Journalists\, the Department of Communications and Media\, the Digital Studies Institute\, and the Neely Center\, Marshall School\, University of Southern California.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/social-media-society-in-india/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20240405T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20240405T163000
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20240329T141229Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240404T012313Z
UID:3217-1712329200-1712334600@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Anna Greenspan: Mou Zongsan and AI ethics
DESCRIPTION:HOW TO PARTICIPATEParticipants are invited to attend in-person in the North Quad Room 3100 or virtually. Please register here to attend online. TITLEMou Zongsan and AI ethics SPEAKERAnna Greenspan is associate professor of global contemporary media\, NYU Shanghai. ABSTRACTChina has a singular media ecology. Tencent and Alibaba are giant internet platforms that rival Facebook and Google. Urban environments have been entirely reshaped by biometrics and QR codes. Mobile payments have practically replaced cash. My work stems from the basic premise that to understand the contemporary mediasphere requires an engagement with China. This talk will draw from my new book China and the Wireless Undertow: Media as Wave Philosophy published in the Technicities book series at Edinburgh University Press in 2023 and the upcoming volume Machine Decision is Not Final: The History and Future of China\, which is co-edited with Benjamin Bratton and Bogna Konior and will be published by Urbanomic/MIT Press in 2024. This talk will focus on the work of philosopher Mou Zongsan and argue that a synthesis of media theory and New Confucian thought can deepen and enrich our thinking about AI ethics. This talk is co-sponsored by ESC and the LSA Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/anna-greenspan-mou-zongsan-and-ai-ethics/
LOCATION:Ehrichler Room\, 3100 North Quad\, Ann Arbor\, MI\, United States
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20240308T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20240308T160000
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20240305T212938Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240305T212938Z
UID:3215-1709910000-1709913600@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Daniel Susser: Exploitation and Platform Power
DESCRIPTION:HOW TO PARTICIPATEParticipants are invited to attend in-person in the North Quad Room 2435. TITLEExploitation and Platform Power SPEAKER Daniel Susser is an associate professor of information science at Cornell University. ABSTRACTBig tech “exploits” us. This has become a common refrain among critics of digital platforms. It gives voice to a shared sense that technology firms are somehow mistreating people—taking advantage of us\, extracting from us—in a way that other data-driven harms\, such as surveillance and algorithmic bias\, fail to capture. But what does “exploitation” entail\, exactly\, and how do platforms perpetrate it? What would a theory of digital exploitation add to existing discussions about platform governance? In this paper\, I argue that claims of exploitation help surface important but undertheorized normative intuitions about the platform economy—intuitions about legitimacy\, consent\, and unfair bargains—and that work on exploitation in philosophy and political theory offers indispensable conceptual and normative tools for navigating and addressing these problems. This talk is co-sponsored by ESC and the Michigan Institute for Data Science (MIDAS).
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/daniel-susser-exploitation-and-platform-power/
LOCATION:Room 2435\, North Quad\, 105 State Street\, Ann Arbor\, MI\, 48104\, United States
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20240307T143000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20240307T160000
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20240122T174806Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240122T174825Z
UID:3204-1709821800-1709827200@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Apryl Williams: Not My Type - Automating Sexual Racism in Online Dating
DESCRIPTION:HOW TO PARTICIPATEParticipants are invited to attend in-person in the North Quad Room 2435 or virtually. Advance registration is encouraged. Register here for in-person attendance: https://myumi.ch/EPbbM Register here for virtual attendance: https://bit.ly/3PjuY6a TITLENot My Type: Automating Sexual Racism in Online Dating SPEAKER Apryl Williams\, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Digital Studies and Communication at the University of Michigan and Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. ABSTRACTIn the world of online dating\, race-based discrimination is not only tolerated\, but encouraged as part of a pervasive belief that it is simply a neutral\, personal choice about one’s romantic partner. Indeed\, it is so much a part of our inherited wisdom about dating and romance that it actually directs the algorithmic infrastructures of most major online dating platforms\, such that they openly reproduce racist and sexist hierarchies. In Not My Type: Automating Sexual Racism in Online Dating\, Apryl Williams presents a socio-technical exploration of dating platforms’ algorithms\, their lack of transparency\, the legal and ethical discourse in these companies’ community guidelines\, and accounts from individual users in order to argue that sexual racism is a central feature of today’s online dating culture. She discusses this reality in the context of facial recognition and sorting software as well as user experiences\, drawing parallels to the long history of eugenics and banned interracial partnerships. Ultimately\, Williams calls for\, both a reconceptualization of the technology and policies that govern dating agencies\, and also a reexamination of sociocultural beliefs about attraction\, beauty\, and desirability. This DSI book talk is co-sponsored by ESC.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/apryl-williams-not-my-type-automating-sexual-racism-in-online-dating/
LOCATION:Room 2435\, North Quad\, 105 State Street\, Ann Arbor\, MI\, 48104\, United States
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20240220T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20240220T173000
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20240122T173527Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240122T174301Z
UID:3202-1708444800-1708450200@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Predictions Without Futures / Of Cosmograms and Clockwork: Sun-ha Hong in Conversation with John Cheney-Lippold
DESCRIPTION:HOW TO PARTICIPATEParticipants are invited to attend in-person in the LSA Building Room 1040 or virtually. Advance registration is encouraged. Register here to attend in-person: https://myumi.ch/PrVPV Register here to attend virtually: https://bit.ly/46TsaCc TITLEPredictions Without Futures / Of Cosmograms and Clockwork SPEAKER Sun-ha Hong is an Assistant Professor of Communication at Simon Fraser University. ABSTRACTOur dominant technological futures help maintain decrepit horizons of the social. As Brecht once observed: “I stood on a hill and I saw the Old approaching\, but it came as the New.” Prediction supplies a powerful conceptual model for this dynamic of stasis through disruption by connecting the technical conceit of predictivity (that criminality or emotion can be anticipated through data-driven modeling) with the mythological use of prediction (where history is an extrapolation of known technological advancements). Drawing from theories of ritual and experiment\, I examine the demonstrative\, belief-building work that prediction does – from 18th century automata of Defecating Ducks to Amazon warehouses\, from the 1956 Dartmouth Conference to the 10\,000 Year Clock. What we call “tech” today serves as a legitimising function for capital\, and crucial to this function is the active foreclosure of any political future other than more of the same. This event is part of the DSI Lecture Series\, and is co-sponsored by ESC.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/predictions-without-futures-of-cosmograms-and-clockwork-sun-ha-hong-in-conversation-with-john-cheney-lippold/
LOCATION:1040 LSA Building\, 500 S. State St.\, Ann Arbor\, MI\, 48109\, United States
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20240123T150000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20240123T163000
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20240122T172819Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240122T172819Z
UID:3198-1706022000-1706027400@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Wendy Sung: Indistinguishability/Inscrutability - Facial Recognition Technologies and the Logics of Asian American Faciality
DESCRIPTION:HOW TO PARTICIPATEParticipants are invited to attend in-person at the 10th Floor Event Space in Weiser Hall or virtually. Advance registration is encouraged. Register here for virtual attendance: https://bit.ly/3sBoiay Register here for in-person attendance: https://myumi.ch/73xq1 TITLEIndistinguishability/Inscrutability – Facial Recognition Technologies and the Logics of Asian American Faciality  SPEAKER Wendy Sung is assistant professor of race\, media\, and digital culture in the UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance. ABSTRACTThe mug shot and modes of phrenological and photographic comparison to legitimate eugenics-based categorization have long been acknowledged as precursors to modern facial recognition technologies. However\, this talk traces a pre-history of these technologies to different biometric past: the rise of immigration identification papers within the US when the Chinese Exclusion laws marked the formal emergence of visual documentation regulation into immigration policy. Bringing this history to bear on the present\, this talk illuminates how our contemporary moment of facial attunement normalizes a forensic investigatory eye when it comes to facial logics\, one that is indebted to the specificity of the Asian face. I argue that the ways the Chinese seeking entry into the US relied on the very mechanisms of racialized non-recognition— indistinguishability and inscrutability— to bypass exclusion through paper son forgeries constitute foundational logics of facial recognition technologies. Examining two examples of Asian faciality\, reconstructions of the George Floyd murder and performance artist and photographer Tommy Kha’s work\, this talk elucidates that the hyperscrutiny paid to the Asian face and its misrecognitions are not the glitches in facial recognition but are\, in fact\, central features. This event is part of the DSI Lecture Series\, and is co-sponsored by ESC.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/wendy-sung-indistinguishability-inscrutability-facial-recognition-technologies-and-the-logics-of-asian-american-faciality/
LOCATION:Weiser Hall 10th Floor Event Space\, 500 Church St.\, Ann Arbor\, MI
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20231115T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20231115T193000
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20231002T155545Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231002T155545Z
UID:3149-1700071200-1700076600@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Astria Suparak: Asian Futures\, Without Asians
DESCRIPTION:How to Participate:Participants are invited to attend a live\, multimedia performance in-person at Stern Auditorium or virtually. Registration for required. About:“Asian futures\, without Asians” is a multimedia presentation by artist and curator Astria Suparak\, which asks: “What does it mean when so many white filmmakers envision futures inflected by Asian culture\, but devoid of actual Asian people?” The first iteration of “Asian futures\, without Asians” was an online performance commissioned by The Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts\, San Francisco\, as part of their Trinh T. Minh-ha season. The project has developed over a series of live performances made for the Zoom camera and for in-person\, with script\, imagery\, costuming\, and backdrops tailored to each arts institution and country in which it is presented. As part of the inaugural season of the Digital Studies Institute and the DISCO Network’s Search Engines series\, Astria Suparak will present a new\, live multimedia performance edition of the project for the University of Michigan and for our broader community. Part critical analysis\, part reflective essay and sprinkled throughout with humor\, justified anger\, and informative morsels\, this hour-long illustrated lecture examines nearly 60 years of American science fiction cinema through the lens of Asian appropriation and whitewashing. Using a wide interpretation of “Asian” to reflect current and historical geopolitical trends and self-definitions (inclusive of East Asia\, Southeast Asia\, South Asia\, West Asia\, Central Asia\, North Africa\, and the Pacific Islands—the latter two of which are not Asia)\, this research-creation project examines how Asian cultures have been mixed and matched\, contrasted against\, and conflated with each other\, often creating a fungible “Asianness” in futuristic sci-fi. The quick-paced performance lecture is interspersed with selected images and clips from dozens of futuristic movies and television shows\, as Suparak delivers anecdotes\, trivia\, and historical documents (including photographs\, advertisements\, and cultural artifacts) from the histories of film\, art\, architecture\, design\, fashion\, food\, and martial arts. Suparak discusses the implications of not only borrowing heavily from Asian cultures\, but decontextualizing and misrepresenting them\, while excluding Asian contributors. Artist:   Astria Suparak is an artist\, writer\, and curator based in Oakland\, California. Her cross-disciplinary projects address complex and urgent issues (like institutionalized racism\, feminisms and gender\, and colonialism) made accessible through a popular culture lens\, such as science fiction movies\, rock music\, and sports. Straddling creative and scholarly work\, the projects often take the form of publicly available tools and databases\, chronicling subcultures and omitted perspectives. Over the last year Suparak’s creative projects have been exhibited and performed at the Museum of Modern Art and the Ford Foundation Gallery in New York; Institute of Contemporary Art Los Angeles; the Walker Art Center\, Minneapolis; and as part of the For Freedoms billboard series. She has curated exhibitions\, screenings\, and performances for the Liverpool Biennial; Museo Rufino Tamayo\, Mexico City; The Kitchen\, Eyebeam\, and MoMA PS1\, in New York; and Expo Chicago\, as well as for unconventional spaces\, such as roller-skating rinks\, sports bars\, and rock clubs. Suparak is the winner of the 2022 San Francisco Bay Area Artadia Award.   This talk is sponsored by the U-M Digital Studies Institute and co-sponsored by the Center for Ethics\, Society\, and Computing\, and the U-M Arts Initiative.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/astria-suparak-asian-futures-without-asians/
LOCATION:Stern Auditorium\, 525 S. State St.\, Ann Arbor\, MI\, 48109\, United States
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20231023T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20231023T173000
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20231002T153359Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231002T153359Z
UID:3144-1698076800-1698082200@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra: Count Me In: How Quantification Shapes Knowledge Politics in Contemporary Higher Education
DESCRIPTION:How to Participate: Participants are invited to attend in-person at 1014 Tisch Hall. Advance registration is not required. Title:Count Me In: How Quantification Shapes Knowledge Politics in Contemporary Higher Education Abstract:\nHow is knowledge organized in higher education? In recent decades\, the adoption of market-oriented logics within institutions of research and higher education had notable implications on how the pursuit of knowledge is shaped and rewarded. A number of authors have documented how the “commercialization of science” had consequences on the quality of knowledge produced in particular research settings. Backed by distinct cultures of quantification and tied to concrete devices measurement and commensuration\, the broader audit cultures that embed modern research shape what we know and can know. In this talk\, I explore instances of these cultures by looking into the role of research assessments and budget models as mechanisms for shaping and regulating how universities structure their instructional and research operations. This talk shows how several techniques of quantification become important for implementing change in higher education with long-lasting consequences for the distribution of knowledge\, the organization of the sciences\, and the structure of the public sphere. \nSpeaker: Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra is an Associate Professor in sociology at the University of California\, San Diego\, a founding faculty member of the Halicioğlu Data Science Institute\, co-founder of the Computational Social Science program at UCSD\, and Associate Director of the Latin American Studies Program at UC San Diego. His research concerns markets and their location in contemporary societies with an emphasis on finance\, knowledge\, and organizations.   This talk is part of the STeMS Speaker Series and co-sponsored by the Center for Ethics\, Society and Computing (ESC).
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/juan-pablo-pardo-guerra-count-me-in-how-quantification-shapes-knowledge-politics-in-contemporary-higher-education/
LOCATION:1014 Tisch Hall\, 435 S State St\, Ann Arbor
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20231010T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20231010T173000
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20231002T152408Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231002T152535Z
UID:3137-1696953600-1696959000@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Trans Studies in the Virtual Age: A Conversation and Q&A
DESCRIPTION:HOW TO PARTICIPATEParticipants are invited to attend in-person at Ehrlicher Room\, 3100 North Quad (Map and Directions).   AboutJoin us for an event with academic and performance artist Allucquére Rosanne “Sandy” Stone\, who is commonly credited with founding the field of transgender studies\, and Cassius Adair\, who studies the intersection of digital media history and transgender studies. Stone and Adair will be in conversation about how trans people and identities intertwine with technology in the past\, present and future\, and will take questions from the audience. Stone will also discuss the forthcoming documentary film Girl Island\, directed by Marjorie Vecchio\, which chronicles Stone’s many lives\, including being “a sound engineer for Jimi Hendrix\, a lesbian separatist\, founder of trans studies\, and the goddess of cyberspace.”   PanelistsAllucquére Rosanne “Sandy” Stone is professor emerita of communication at the University of Texas\, Austin; founding core faculty and Wolfgang Kohler professor of media and performance studies at the European Graduate School; senior artist at the Banff Centre; University of California Humanities Research Institute Fellow; and occasional hell-raiser at the University of California\, Santa Cruz and other institutions of higher learning. She was a Sundance Institute invitee\, a member of the Bell Laboratories Special Systems Exploratory Group\, conducted research on the neurological basis of vision for NIH\, and was the director for ten years of the International Conferences on Cyberspace. She is a recipient of Lifetime Achievement Awards from the State of California\, City of Santa Cruz\, and Santa Cruz Diversity Center; and is the author of numerous publications in the fields of science fiction\, neurology\, vision\, architecture\, new media\, and anthropology\, including “The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto”\, a founding text for the academic discipline of Transgender Studies.   Cassius Adair is an audio producer\, writer\, and researcher from Virginia. Currently\, he is an assistant professor of Media Studies at The New School in New York City. Previously\, he has been a visiting assistant professor at NYU’s Department of Media\, Culture\, and Communication and a Fellow at the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) with an affiliation at the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Minnesota. He is also a research fellow at the Digital Research Ethics Collaboratory at the University of Toronto and an outside member of the Precarity Lab at the University of Michigan. His audio production and narrative editing work spans multiple media and genres. Recent roles include production for the SiriusXM podcast Sounds Gay\, with editor JT Green and host Sarah Esocoff\, and consulting and editorial for KCRW’s Bodies\, Wondery’s Twin Flames and Harsh Reality\, Science Friday\, Call to Mind\, and a yet-to-be-released NPR series. From 2020-2021\, he was the lead producer and showrunner of Transcripts\, a production of the Tretter Transgender Oral History Project. He has provided editorial consulting for fiction projects\, including Brit Bennett’s #1 New York Times Bestseller (and Mariah Carey and Noname reading list pick!) The Vanishing Half. His documentary work has been honored in numerous venues\, including the Third Coast International Audio Festival. With Tuck Woodstock\, he is a co-founder of Sylveon Consulting. Adair holds a PhD from the University of Michigan. His writing appears in American Quarterly\, American Literature\, Avidly\, The Rumpus\, Make Literary Magazine\, Nursing Clio\, Misadventures Magazine\, Semiotic Review\, and Transgender Studies Quarterly. He is a coauthor of the experimental scholarly book Technoprecarious (MIT\, 2020) and is currently writing a book about transgender people and the Internet.   This talk is co-sponsored by ESC\, the U-M School of Information\, the U-M Digital Studies Institute\, and the U-M Institute for Research on Women & Gender.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/trans-studies-in-the-virtual-age-a-conversation-and-qa/
LOCATION:Ehrichler Room\, 3100 North Quad\, Ann Arbor\, MI\, United States
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20231009T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20231009T180000
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20231002T150452Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231002T150452Z
UID:3129-1696867200-1696874400@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:ESC Fall Mixer and Theme Launch
DESCRIPTION:   Join us for conversation\, appetizers\, and drinks: Monday\, October 9\n4:00 – 6:00 PM Bløm Meadworks\n100 S 4th Ave STE 110\, A2 48104 (map) UM Faculty and Graduate Students\nRSVP by Wednesday\, October 4 ESC 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/esc-fall-mixer-and-theme-launch/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20230516T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20230516T170000
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20230504T222042Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230504T222042Z
UID:3086-1684227600-1684256400@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:From Theory to Practice: Building Ethical and Trustworthy AI
DESCRIPTION:How to Attend:This event will be held on May 16th\, 2023 9:00am-5:00 pm. Participants are invited to attend in-person at the Lurie Engineering Center Johnson Rooms\, 3rd Floor. Advance registration required. Registration\, full schedule\, and more information can be found here: https://midas.umich.edu/building-ethical-ai/.   About:Every day\, whether we realize it or not\, we are constantly surrounded by AI technology. From self-driving cars\, to facial recognition software\, fraud prevention models\, recommender systems\, ChatGPT\, etc.\, AI is rapidly transforming our lives. But do we fully comprehend the real range of potential ethical implications related to its use and regulation? This event will stimulate ideas and investigation into that question by bringing together academics\, leaders and scientists in the private sector and policy regulation areas\, to share their knowledge and discuss ethical challenges and trends in AI regulation\, along with cutting-edge theory and implementation of ethical and transparent AI models. The event is free and open to all who develop AI methods\, are current or future users of AI\, or are curious about how AI will shape research and our society.   This event is hosted by the Michigan Institute for Data Science (MIDAS)\, and is co-sponsored by the Center for Ethics\, Society & Computing (ESC) and Rocket Companies\, Inc.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/from-theory-to-practice-building-ethical-and-trustworthy-ai/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20230420T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20230420T210000
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20230110T224807Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230417T153738Z
UID:2930-1682017200-1682024400@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:ESC Watch Party: Moon (2009)
DESCRIPTION:HOW TO PARTICIPATEParticipants are invited to attend in-person at North Quad (105 S. State St\, Ann Arbor Michigan 48109)\, Space 2435. ABSTRACTAstronaut Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is nearing the end of his three year contract of harvesting Helium-3\, a precious energy source\, from the far side of the moon. His only communication with Earth is through the use of pre-recorded messages\, and his only assistant a computer named GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey). Isolation begins to take an alarming toll on his mind\, mere weeks before he is to return home. This sets into motion a series of events which reveals the terrible truth behind his mission. (imdb) Rated “R” for profanity. DETAILSJoin us for an in-person movie night with Moon (2009). Hailed as a “tremendous” (BBC) sci-fi achievement filled with “captivating” performances (Film Obsessive). the film has been described as a “beautifully-crafted fable about the consequences of human greed and unfettered technological endeavour” (RollCredits) with an unusual take on the future role of AI companions. Reviewers warn it will leave “viewers quietly questioning their…opinions [of] humanity” (FilmDaze). The event will include complimentary popcorn and drinks\, as well as a prize giveaway.    Image credits: Sony Pictures Classics; GERTY 3000 Robotic Assist Group.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/esc-watch-party-moon/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20230417T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20230417T173000
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20230110T224444Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230409T225728Z
UID:2926-1681747200-1681752600@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:CANCELLED - Mara Mills: The History of Impairment
DESCRIPTION:Unfortunately\, Mara Mills: The History of Impairment\, has been cancelled. We apologize for any inconvenience.How to Participate:Details to come as they become available. More information can be found here: https://lsa.umich.edu/comm/news-events/all-events.detail.html/102183-21803656.html Speaker:Mara Mills is Associate Professor of Media\, Culture\, and Communication at New York University with expertise in sound studies\, disability studies\, business history\, the history of electronics\, and the history of the telephone. Her book Hearing Loss and the History of Information Theory is forthcoming from Duke University Press. Mills is currently working on the history of optical character recognition and\, with Jonathan Sterne\, she is co-authoring a book titled Tuning Time: Histories of Sound and Speed. She has published articles in Technology & Culture\, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing\, Grey Room\, differences\, Social Text\, and PMLA\, among many other academic journals. This event is part of the Science\, Technology\, and Society (STS) lecture series\, and is co-sponsored by the Departments of American Culture; Communication and Media\, Center for Ethics\, Society and Computing (ESC) and UM Initiative in Disability Studies.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/mara-mills-the-history-of-impairment/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20230407T080000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20230408T180000
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20230307T002407Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230307T002603Z
UID:3039-1680854400-1680976800@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Social Media and Society in India
DESCRIPTION:How to Attend:This symposium will be held on April 7-8th\, 2023 9:00am-6pm. Participants are invited to attend in-person at 2435 North Quad or via livestream. For more details\, and a full list of speakers\, please visit: https://joyojeet.people.si.umich.edu/influencers.htm All are welcome to attend the symposium. Please register in advance by filling out this form. About:Our third event on social media and society at the University of Michigan School of Information focuses on India and features a host of scholars and practitioners in person. The event presents 30+ speakers who will discuss the impact of social media on various aspects of Indian society from food and exercise to journalism and democratic rights.   This event is hosted by the School of Information\, and is co-sponsored by the Center for Ethics\, Society & Computing (ESC)\, the Center for South Asia Studies\, the John Seely Brown Technology & Society Lecture Fund\, the Martha Boaz Distinguished Lectureship Fund\, and the Digital Studies Institute.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/social-media-and-society-in-india/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20230323T113000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20230323T130000
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20230317T144810Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230320T133800Z
UID:3058-1679571000-1679576400@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:A. Feder Cooper: Can Governance be Reconciled with Uncertainty in Machine Learning? Challenges and Opportunities Concerning Accountability and Variance
DESCRIPTION:How to Participate: Participants are invited to attend in-person at 747 Weiser Hall. Advance registration is not required. Title:Can Governance be Reconciled with Uncertainty in Machine Learning? Challenges and Opportunities Concerning Accountability and Variance Abstract:\nArtificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) researchers are confronted daily with the reality that our field has become a stand-in in popular discourse for a variety of public anxieties\, political debates\, and metaphysical questions about human nature and intelligence. Among such weighty topics\, it can be easy to neglect the importance of low-level engineering decisions and infrastructure in AI/ML technology — the realities of implementing algorithms in code\, deploying systems at scale\, reckoning with computational resource constraints\, and numerous other empirical concerns that complicate theory (both statistical and legal) in practice. \nThis talk will explore how variance introduces arbitrariness into AI/ML\, which in turn complicates system reliability and concrete\, actionable notions of accountability. While the details of variance may seem mundane in comparison to debates about the essence of intelligence\, they are in fact responsible for powering the technology — intelligent or not — that is reshaping the contours of fundamental rights and institutions. This talk will clarify these connections by examining how variance is central to the function of AI/ML systems\, and moreover\, is inextricable from how these systems reproduce existing harms\, such as racial discrimination\, and bring about emergent behaviors that create novel problems for due process in the law. \nSpeaker: A. Feder Cooper is a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at Cornell University and Rising Star in EECS (MIT\, 2021)\, working at the interface of uncertainty\, reliability\, accountability\, and ethics in computing. Cooper researches empirically motivated\, theoretically grounded problems in Bayesian inference\, model selection\, and deep learning\, and has published numerous papers at top AI/ML conferences (e.g.\, NeurIPS and AISTATS). In bringing this work to bear on tech policy and ethics\, Cooper engages methods from the law and social sciences\, and has had work featured in interdisciplinary computing venues (e.g.\, FAccT) and tech law journals (e.g.\, Colorado Tech Law Journal). Much of this work has been recognized with spotlight and contributed talk awards.   This talk is sponsored by the Center for the Study of Complex Systems and co-sponsored by the Center for Ethics\, Society and Computing (ESC) and the Michigan Institute for Data Science (MIDAS).
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/a-feder-cooper-can-governance-be-reconciled-with-uncertainty-in-machine-learning-challenges-and-opportunities-concerning-accountability-and-variance/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20230317T110000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20230317T120000
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20230301T214929Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230301T215212Z
UID:3029-1679050800-1679054400@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Adam Harvey: Tessier-Ashpool Distinguished Lecture on the Societal Implications of Artificial Intelligence
DESCRIPTION:How to Participate:Participants are invited to attend in-person at Rackham Amphitheatre (915 E Washington St\, Ann Arbor\, MI 48109) or virtually via Zoom. Registration for virtual participation or RSVP for in person participation required. \nPlease register to attend here: https://forms.gle/2xNZ8tjPFVpfnQ1V9\nSpeaker:Photo from: https://adam.harvey.studio/about/  Adam Harvey (US/DE) is an artist\, software engineer\, and applied researcher based in Berlin focused on computer vision\, privacy\, and surveillance technologies. He is a graduate of the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University (2010) and Pennsylvania State University (2001). Harvey’s research and artwork has been featured in prominent media publications including the New York Times\, Wall Street Journal\, Nature\, New Yorker\, Frankfurter Allgemeine\, Süddeutsche Zeitung\, Washington Post\, Le Monde\, The Guardian\, BBC\, Economist\, and the Financial Times; and shown at internationally acclaimed institutions and events including the V&A museum (UK)\, Seoul Mediacity Biennale (KR)\, Istanbul Design Biennale (TK)\, Frankfurter Kunstverien (DE)\, Zeppelin Museum (DE)\, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (US)\, and Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art (US). Recently\, Harvey developed VFRAME\, a computer vision project for human rights researchers working on OSINT investigations. VFRAME received an Award of Distinction from Ars Electronica in 2019\, was nominated for the EU STARTS prize in 2018\, and nominated for a Beazley Design of The Year Award in 2019. The project is in active development and the latest research was presented at the 2021 Geneva International Center for Humanitarian Demining Mine Action Technology Workshop. Harvey has worked as a research fellow at the Künstlich Intelligenz und Medienphilosophie program at Karlsruhe HfG\, a digital fellow at the Weizenbaum Institut in Berlin working on exposing.ai\, a Future Fellow with the 2020 Rapid Response for a Better Digital Future at Eyebeam\, as part of research fellowship for the Copenhagen Business School\, and as an adjunct professor at New York University and School of Visual Arts in NYC. He currently works as an academic technologist and researcher for the Karlsruhe HfG AI Forensics project.   This talk is sponsored by the Center for Ethics\, Society and Computing (ESC) and the Michigan Institute for Data Science (MIDAS). ESC 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/adam-harvey-tessier-ashpool-distinguished-lecture-on-the-societal-implications-of-artificial-intelligence/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20230314T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20230314T133000
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20230110T225117Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230303T120110Z
UID:2924-1678795200-1678800600@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Ruha Benjamin: Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want
DESCRIPTION:How to ParticipateParticipants are invited to attend in-person at the Michigan Union Rogel Ballroom\, 530 S State St\, or via Livestream. Registration is required.   Speaker Dr. Ruha Benjamin is a professor in the Department of African American studies at Princeton University. Professor Benjamin specializes in the interdisciplinary study of science\, medicine\, and technology with a focus on the relationship between innovation and social inequity. She is author of Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want (Princeton University Press 2022)\, Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code (Polity 2019)\, People’s Science: Bodies and Rights on the Stem Cell Frontier (Stanford University Press 2013)\, and editor of Captivating Technology: Race\, Carceral Technoscience\, and Liberatory Imagination in Everyday Life (Duke University Press 2019)\, as well as numerous articles and book chapters. Professor Benjamin received her BA in sociology and anthropology from Spelman College\, MA and PhD in sociology from UC Berkeley\, and completed postdoctoral fellowships at UCLA’s Institute for Society and Genetics and Harvard University’s Science\, Technology\, and Society Program. She has been awarded fellowships and grants from the American Council of Learned Societies\, National Science Foundation\, Ford Foundation\, California Institute for Regenerative Medicine\, and Institute for Advanced Study. In 2017\, she received the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Princeton and\, in 2020\, the Marguerite Casey Foundation Inaugural Freedom Scholar Award. In collaboration with partners across U-M\, the School of Public Health’s DEI Office is bringing Dr. Ruha Benjamin to campus for a talk and community conversation on March 14\, 2023. Trained as a sociologist\, Dr. Benjamin’s research sits at the intersection of science\, technology\, and medicine and resonates deeply with the field of Public Health. Dr. Benjamin will deliver a lecture on her new book\, Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want. Viral Justice draws on lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and amplified movements for racial justice and\, in doing so\, “offers a passionate\, inspiring\, and practical vision of how small changes can add up to large ones\, transforming our relationships and communities and helping us build a more just and joyful world.”   This event is the School of Public Health’s Winter 2023 DEI lecture\, and is co-sponsored by the Center for Ethics\, Society\, and Computing (ESC); School of Information (UMSI); Ross School of Business; Center for Education of Women (CEW+); Trotter Multicultural Center; Department of Sociology; Office of Diversity\, Equity\, and Inclusion; Ford School of Public Policy; Department of Anthropology; and the Science\, Technology & Society program.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/ruha-benjamin-viral-justice-how-we-grow-the-world-we-want/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20230313T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20230313T140000
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20230110T225148Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230216T204744Z
UID:2922-1678712400-1678716000@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Angèle Christin: Algorithms in Practice
DESCRIPTION:How to Participate: This event will be live-streamed via Zoom\, registration is required. Register here: https://umich.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwpce-uqj8tHNzgx4WLTgmUHOh17psOSDlZ Title:Algorithms in Practice Abstract:Technology evangelists often argue that algorithms and artificial intelligence make decision-making more informed and objective — a promise hotly contested by critics of these technologies. Yet\, to date\, most of the debate has focused on the instruments themselves\, rather than on how they are used. Against the rhetoric of algorithmic determinism that permeates Silicon Valley\, both among evangelists and critics\, I argue that it is essential to study how algorithmic technologies are used on the ground\, rather than merely how they are designed. I call this research program the study of “algorithms in practice.” Drawing on multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork\, I compare how algorithms are used and interpreted in three institutional contexts with markedly different characteristics: online news; criminal justice; and social media creation. I conclude with a call for further ethnographic work on algorithms in practice as an important empirical check against the dominant rhetoric of computational power.   Speaker: Angèle Christin is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication and affiliated faculty in the Sociology Department\, the Program in Science\, Technology\, and Society\, and the Center for Work\, Technology\, and Organization at Stanford University. She studies how algorithms and analytics transform professional values\, expertise\, and work practices. Her award-winning book\, Metrics at Work: Journalism and the Contested Meaning of Algorithms (Princeton University Press\, 2020) focuses on the case of web journalism\, analyzing the growing importance of audience data in web newsrooms in the U.S. and France. Drawing on ethnographic methods\, Angèle shows how American and French journalists make sense of traffic numbers in different ways\, which in turn has distinct effects on the production of news in the two countries. She discussed it on the New Books Network podcast. In a related study\, she analyzed the construction\, institutionalization\, and reception of predictive algorithms in the U.S. criminal justice system\, building on her previous work on the determinants of criminal sentencing in French courts. Her new book project\, Follow Me: Influencers and the Contradictions of Platform Labor\, is an ethnographic study of content creators on social media platforms. The book examines the experiences of influencers as “platform laborers\,” whose work is dominated by digital platforms. Drawing on case studies ranging from vegan YouTubers to “dad” influencers and influencer marketers\, it shows how structural forces reproduce precarity and inequality in social media careers\, while also nudging influencers toward interpersonal “drama” and sometimes the production of problematic online content. Angèle received her PhD in Sociology from Princeton University and the EHESS (Paris). She is an affiliate at the Data & Society Research Institute\, the Center on Digital Culture and Society (University of Pennsylvania\, Annenberg School for Communication)\, and the Médialab (Sciences Po Paris).   This talk is sponsored by the Center for Ethics\, Society and Computing (ESC). ESC 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/angele-christin/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20230310T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20230310T153000
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20230110T224640Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230310T051808Z
UID:2919-1678456800-1678462200@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Jean-Damascène Gasanabo: Building the Gacaca Digital Archive
DESCRIPTION:How to Participate:Participants are invited to attend in-person at North Quad (105 S. State St\, Ann Arbor Michigan 48109)\, Room 2435 or via Zoom. Zoom Meeting ID: 929 9489 1820 (passcode: UMSI) About:After the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda\, more than 130\,000 inmates were imprisoned and accused of genocide crimes. The country was operating through fire and blood! The judicial system was destroyed – judges and lawyers had been killed or exiled in neighboring countries. To judge the genocidaires\, the government decided to reintroduce the Traditional Jurisdictions Courts called Gacaca. This talk will emphasize what Gacaca did as a court and how it worked during the trials; the digitization process of the 45 million pages of Gacaca files; and the impact of the Gacaca files on society after the digitization. Speaker:Jean-Damascène Gasanabo\, PhD Between March 2012 – October 2021\, Damas was Director General\, Research and Documentation Center on Genocide\, National Commission for the Fight against Genocide (CNLG)\, Kigali-Rwanda. This event is sponsored by the University of Michigan School of Information Data\, Archives\, and Information Seminar; African Studies Center; Museum Studies Program; Center for Ethics\, Society and Computing; and Franklin Innovator Residency Fund.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/jean-damascene-gasanabo-building-the-gacaca-digital-archive/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20230220T113000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20230220T130000
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20230110T210335Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230217T131546Z
UID:2917-1676892600-1676898000@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Alex Taylor: Living a Larger Life Together
DESCRIPTION:How to Participate:Participants are invited to attend in-person at North Quad (105 S. State St\, Ann Arbor Michigan 48109)\, Room 2245. In-person RSVP. Hybrid participants can join via Zoom: https://umich.zoom.us/j/92146665462 Zoom Password: misc23 About:I’ll use this talk to think in broader terms about technology’s impact on our lives and whether there’s a different way we can approach technology’s design. I want to ask the question: “are we thinking and doing well with technology and its design?” Through two examples\, I’ll invite us to reflect on some of the core tenets in technology and design\, ideas like human centredness\, mediation and augmentation. I’ll propose such tenants are now limiting our imaginations. They have us narrowing our attention and reinforcing a utilitarian individualism. They leave little space for a design open to the always entangled interplay between human and nonhuman actors\, or for questions about the structural arrangements that value (or devalue) capacities for being and acting in the world. I’ll argue that there is an alternative\, much more generative way of thinking about technology and its design\, one committed to capacities that are always in relation with others and always becoming. This is an expansive idea of capacities that recognizes the correspondences\, interdependencies\, continual attunements and co-makings between diverse human and nonhuman actors. It is to ask what it might be to create the conditions for more to happen\, what a design would look like that holds open the space for relations to proliferate and much more varied forms of life to come into being. This\, I want to propose\, is an alternative that is full with the hope of living a larger life together. Speaker:   Alex Taylor is a sociologist working in the Centre for Human Centred Design\, at City\, University of London. Showing a broad fascination for the entanglements between social life and machines\, his research ranges from empirical studies of technology in everyday life to speculative design interventions—both large and small. Across these realms\, he draws on a feminist technoscience to ask questions about the co-constitutive roles human-machine composites play in forms of knowing and being\, and how they might open up possibilities for fundamental transformations in society. Most recently\, he’s begun to wonder about the abilities of humans and non-humans\, together\, and to speculate on hybrid compositions that enlarge capacity and offer the chance of something different\, something more. This event is hosted by the Michigan Interactive and Social Computing group (MISC)\, and is co-sponsored by the Center for Ethics\, Society & Computing (ESC).
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/alex-taylor-living-a-larger-life-together/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20230217T163000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20230217T180000
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20230110T204440Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230123T185158Z
UID:2912-1676651400-1676656800@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Sahana Udupa: Digital Influencers and the Business of "Data Tested" Campaigns in India
DESCRIPTION:How to Participate:Participants are invited to attend in-person at Weiser Hall\, Room 110. More information can be found here: https://events.umich.edu/event/101422 About:This talk will delve into the narratives and strategies of a new class of political consultants and the divergent practices of election influencers in India\, to propose “shadow politics” as a digitally mediated structure of election campaigning. Highlighting the specificity of shadow politics in terms of “data centricism” and the dual structure of official-unofficial campaign streams\, I will discuss how disinformation and extreme speech production is intricately linked to the logics of political marketing and growing uptake for digital tools that define the evolving spaces of commercial political consultancy. Theoretically positioning “shadow politics” in relation to distinctive mass political cultures of South Asia discussed in postcolonial scholarship\, I will conclude by highlighting policy directions for disinformation regulation. Speaker: Sahana Udupa is Professor of Media Anthropology at the University of Munich (LMU) and Principal Investigator of the For Digital Dignity Research Network. Her latest publications include the co-authored monograph\, Digital Unsettling: Decoloniality and Dispossession in the Age of Social Media (New York University Press\, with E. G. Dattatreyan)\, and co-edited volume\, Digital Hate: The Global Conjuncture of Extreme Speech (Indiana University Press). She is the recipient of Joan Shorenstein Fellowship at the Harvard Kennedy School\, Francqui Chair (Belgium) and European Research Council Grant Awards.   This event is part of the Center for South Asian Studies (CSAS) lecture series\, and is co-sponsored by the Center for Ethics\, Society & Computing (ESC).
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/sahana-udupa-digital-influencers-and-the-business-of-data-tested-campaigns-in-india/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20230209T090000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20230209T173000
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20230110T203755Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230206T152354Z
UID:2908-1675933200-1675963800@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Data Justice\, AI\, and Design Colloquium
DESCRIPTION:How to Attend:This event will be held on February 9th\, 2023 9:00am-5:30pm. Participants are invited to attend in-person at A. Alfred Taubman Wing Commons. More details can be found here:\nhttps://midas.umich.edu/data-justice-and-design/ All are welcome to attend the colloquium. No registration in advance is required. About:In the rapidly emerging field of design aided by neural networks\, one question seldom emerges: where does the data come from? This colloquium\, presented by MIDAS\, AR²IL\, Taubman College\, and ESC\, brings together experts in architecture\, data science\, and AI to discuss an equitable and inclusive approach to data harvesting for design. The goal of this colloquium is to explore the current status of the use of data in ML approaches in design and critically interrogate the methods of creation – in particular\, exploring the implementation of data justice. It is the perfect moment to do this\, before it is too late and the common creation of datasets for design is executed without consideration of the ethical implications of racial bias in data for architecture design. The discussion and debate between these speakers will generate new insight and new knowledge that might help in the further development of AI and design. Speakers:Morning Sessions\nSESSION 1: A Ground Truth in Data Justice (9:30AM-10:50AM)\nChair:  Matias del Campo is the co-founder of the architecture practice SPAN. The practice gained wide recognition for the design of the Austrian Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo and\, more recently\, for the Robot Garden at the Ford Robotics Building. SPAN’s work was featured at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2012 and 2021\, at ArchiLab in 2013\, and at the Architecture Biennale in Vienna and Buenos Aires in 2019. Solo shows include ‘Formations’ (MAK\, Vienna) and ‘Sublime Bodies’ (Fab Union\, Shanghai). SPAN’s work is in the permanent collection of the FRAC\, the MAK\, the Benetton Collection\, the Albertina\, the Pinakothek Munich\, and several private collections. His publishing work includes two editions of AD – Evoking through Design and Machine Hallucinations (co-edited with Neil Leach) as well as the books Neural Architecture – Design and Artificial Intelligence (ORO Editions 2022) and Sublime Bodies (co-authored with Sandra Manninger\, Tongji Press 2017).   Speakers:  Jose Sanchez is an Architect\, Game Designer\, and Theorist based in Detroit\, Michigan. He is the director of the Plethora Project\, a research studio investing in the future of the propagation of architectural design knowledge. He is the creator of the video games Block’hood and Common’hood\, digital social platforms that aid the authoring of architectural and ecological thinking to non-expert audiences. He is the author of the book “Architecture for the Commons: Participatory Systems in the Age of Platforms” published by Routledge in 2020 and the co-creator of Bloom\, a crowdsourced interactive installation which was the winner of the Wonder Series hosted by the City of London for the 2012 Olympics. He has taught in renowned institutions in the United States and in Europe\, including the Architectural Association in London\, The Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London\, at the University of Southern California. He is currently at the University of Michigan\, where he is an Associate Professor at the Taubman College School of Architecture. His research “Architecture for the Commons” designs and interrogates social media platforms as tools with the potential to author architectural content in the public domain.    Catherine Griffiths is a media artist\, designer\, and researcher exploring critical code and algorithmic aesthetics in the context of machine learning ethics. By creating simulations\, short films\, and software applications\, her hybrid practice-theory-based creative research attempts to make palpable invisible computational forces that shape power and social dynamics. Drawing on the legacy of generative art\, the recent rise in artificial intelligence\, and critical theory\, she seeks to contribute to an emerging arts knowledge. As an Annenberg Fellow\, she is a Ph.D. candidate in Interdisciplinary Media Arts at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. She received her MArch in Architectural Design from The Bartlett\, University College London\, and her BA in Fine Art from Camberwell College\, University of the Arts London. Her research has been exhibited in the Centre Pompidou\, Paris\, and published in the Journal of Digital Culture and Society and the Journal of Science and Technology of the Arts. Today she is an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan with a joint appointment between Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning and the Digital Studies Institute.    Shelby Elizabeth Doyle\, AIA is a registered architect and Associate Professor of Architecture where she is the Stan G. Thurston Professor of Design Build at Iowa State University College of Design\, co-founder of the ISU Computation & Construction Lab (CCL)\, and director of the ISU Architectural Robotics Lab (ARL). The CCL and ARL the result of Doyle’s ISU Presidential Impact Hire to rethink digital fabrication and design-build. The CCL works to connect developments in computation to the challenges of construction: through teaching\, research\, and outreach. The central hypothesis of CCL and Doyle’s work is that computation in architecture is a material\, pedagogical\, and social project; computation is both informed by and productive of architectural cultures. This hypothesis is explored\, through the fabrication of built projects and materialized in computational practices. The CCL is invested in questioning the role of education and pedagogy in replicating existing technological inequities\, and in pursuing the potential for technology in architecture as a space of\, and for\, gender equity.   SESSION 2: Artificial Intelligence vs Design Intelligence (11:20AM-12:40PM) Chair:  McLain Clutter is an associate professor and chair of the architecture program at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. As an architect\, Clutter’s work focuses on the role of architecture within the multidisciplinary milieu of contemporary urbanism\, and the interrelations between architecture and media culture. His work has been featured in Grey Room\, Thresholds\, MONU\, 306090\, the Journal of Architectural Education\, Plat\, The Avery Review\, ARPA Journal\, the edited volume Formerly Urban: Projecting Rustbelt Cities\, and other publications. He has exhibited work in international venues\, including the 7th Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture in Shenzhen\, the Architecture League of New York\, Materials & Applications in Los Angeles\, and others. Clutter’s design and research has been awarded an Architect Magazine R+D Award in 2015\, ACSA Faculty Design Awards in 2015 and 2018\, and other honors. His research has received support from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. Clutter’s book\, Imaginary Apparatus: New York City and its Mediated Representation was published by Park Books in 2015. He is a Registered Architect in the state of Michigan\, and a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal of Architectural Education. Clutter received a B.Arch from Syracuse University and an MED from the Yale School of Architecture\, where he was the recipient of the Everett Victor Meeks Fellowship. Prior to arriving at Taubman College\, Clutter practiced in offices in New York and Chicago\, working on projects ranging in scale from residential renovations to campus master planning. He is a partner in the Ann Arbor based design practice EXTENTS\, with Cyrus Peñarroyo.   Speakers:  Molly Wright Steenson is a historian of design\, architecture\, and the history of those concepts alongside cybernetics and artificial intelligence. Her current research focuses on the idea of artificial intelligence and how it’s viewed and portrayed in contemporary media and culture. She argues that our ideas of artificial intelligence are outdated and this inhibits peoples’ ability to understand what it really is. Her book Architectural Intelligence: How Designers & Architects Created the Digital Landscape\, published with Graham Foundation support\, combines “an architectural history of interactivity and an interactive history of architecture.” Steenson holds a PhD in Architecture from Princeton University\, a Master’s in Environmental Design from Yale School of Architecture\, and a BA in German from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.    Sarah Fox is an Assistant Professor in the Human Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University\, where she directs the Tech Solidarity Lab. Her research examines how technological artifacts challenge or propagate social exclusions. She holds a Ph.D. in Human Centered Design & Engineering from the University of Washington.    Mingyan Liu is an electrical engineering and computer science professor\, and the Peter and Evelyn Fuss Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Michigan\, Ann Arbor\, MI. Her research is in optimal resource allocation\, sequential decision theory\, incentive design\, online learning\, and modeling and mining of large scale Internet measurement data concerning cyber security. She was a co-founder of the cybersecurity scoring startup Quadmetrics in 2014. Quadmetrics was named a “2016 Cool Vendor in Risk Management” by Gartner\, and was acquired by FICO in 2016.   Afternoon Sessions\nSESSION 3: Games\, Art and the Ethics of Data (2PM-3:20PM)\nChair:  Kathy Velikov is a licensed Architect and founding partner of the research-based practice rvtr (www.rvtr.com)\, and the former President of ACADIA (Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture). Her work investigates and experiments with the intertwinements across architecture\, the environment\, technology\, and sociopolitics through design methods that mobilize systems-based approaches and computational design. Her work ranges from material prototypes that explore environment-aware behavioral building skin assemblies\, to high-performance building design\, to research on urbanism\, infrastructure\, and territorial practices explored through techniques of mapping and analysis\, speculative design propositions\, installations\, and writing. She is co-editor of Ambiguous Territory: Architecture\, Landscape\, and the Postnatural (Actar\, 2022) and co-author of Infra Eco Logi Urbanism (Park Books\, 2015). Honors include the ACSA/AIA Housing Design Education Award (2020)\, the Technology + Architecture Design (TAD) Journal Research Contribution Award (2020)\, two R&D Awards from Architecture Magazine (2010\, 2016)\, a Journal of Architectural Education Best Design as Research Article (2013)\, the Architizer A+ Award Program’s Architecture + Sound Jury Award (2013)\, the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture Faculty Design Award (2012\, 2014)\, a Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Award of Excellence for Innovation in the Practice of Architecture (2011)\, the Canadian Professional Prix de Rome (2009)\, the Architectural League of New York’s Young Architect’s Forum Award (2008)\, and the Oberdick Fellowship at Taubman College (2006-07). Kathy received her professional degree from the University of Waterloo and masters from the University of Toronto.   Speakers:  Mitchell Akiyama is a Toronto-based scholar\, composer\, and artist. His eclectic body of work includes writings about sound\, metaphors\, animals\, and media technologies; scores for film and dance; and objects and installations that trouble received ideas about history\, perception\, and sensory experience. He holds a PhD in communications from McGill University and an MFA from Concordia University and is Assistant Professor of Visual Studies in the Daniels Faculty of Architecture\, Landscape\, and Design at the University of Toronto.    Matias del Campo is the co-founder of the architecture practice SPAN. The practice gained wide recognition for the design of the Austrian Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo and\, more recently\, for the Robot Garden at the Ford Robotics Building. SPAN’s work was featured at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2012 and 2021\, at ArchiLab in 2013\, and at the Architecture Biennale in Vienna and Buenos Aires in 2019. Solo shows include ‘Formations’ (MAK\, Vienna) and ‘Sublime Bodies’ (Fab Union\, Shanghai). SPAN’s work is in the permanent collection of the FRAC\, the MAK\, the Benetton Collection\, the Albertina\, the Pinakothek Munich\, and several private collections. His publishing work includes two editions of AD – Evoking through Design and Machine Hallucinations (co-edited with Neil Leach) as well as the books Neural Architecture – Design and Artificial Intelligence (ORO Editions 2022) and Sublime Bodies (co-authored with Sandra Manninger\, Tongji Press 2017).    Leah Wulfman is a Carrier Bag architect\, educator\, game designer\, digital puppeteer\, and occasional writer. Trained as an architect\, Wulfman has been assembling hybrid virtual and physical spaces in order to prototype new relationships to technology and nature\, as well as challenge normative ideologies so often reinforced by technology and architecture. In addition to mixed reality installations that play with and emphasize the physical\, material basis of everything digital\, they are presently working on a research series focusing on gamified environments\, interactions and materials—traversing a variety of themes like ‘Deep Unlearning\,’ Stone Soupercomputers\, GamerGirl Bath Water\, and our potential interactions with a Jacaranda Tree in full bloom witnessed through Google Earth. Wulfman holds a Bachelors of Architecture degree from Carnegie Mellon University\, as well as a Masters of Arts in Liam Young’s Fiction and Entertainment program at SCI-Arc. They have taught at numerous institutions in the United States\, including SCI-Arc\, ArtCenter’s Media Design Practices Graduate Program\, IDEAS Program at UCLA Architecture and Urban Design\, and The School of Architecture at Taliesin\, where they have developed youth programming and mixed reality coursework. Wulfman’s work experience can be likened to playing musical chairs\, with collaborative projects presently underway with Studio Elana Schlenker as well as the LA-based artist Lauren Halsey. Their research and design work has been supported by numerous residencies and publications\, and has been shown as part of various exhibitions and festivals\, including Tbilisi Architecture Biennial\, The FiDi Arsenale\, Space Saloon Design and Build Festival\, Open Engagement\, VIA Festival for Electronic Art and Music\, A Queer Query\, and The Wrong Biennale for New Digital Art. Leah is now at the University of Michigan\, where they are currently the Walter B. Sanders Fellow at the Taubman College School of Architecture.   SESSION 4: Final Roundtable (3:40PM-5:30PM)   This event is hosted by the Michigan Institute for Data Science (MIDAS)\, and is co-sponsored by the Center for Ethics\, Society & Computing (ESC)\, Taubman College\, and AR²IL.
URL:https://esc.umich.edu/event/data-justice-ai-and-design-colloquium/
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20230203T113000
DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20230203T130000
DTSTAMP:20260613T041309
CREATED:20230110T202901Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230119T232424Z
UID:2904-1675423800-1675429200@esc.umich.edu
SUMMARY:Caroline Sinders: Using Design and Art to Create Equitable AI
DESCRIPTION:How to Participate:Participants are invited to attend in-person at North Quad Space 2435 or virtually via Zoom. Registration for virtual participation or RSVP for in person participation required. \nPlease register to attend online via Zoom\nPlease RSVP to attend in-person (for catering)\nTitle:Using Design and Art to Create Equitable AI Speaker: Caroline Sinders is an award winning critical designer\, researcher\, and artist. She’s the founder of human rights and design lab\, Convocation Research + Design. For the past few years\, she has been examining the intersections of artificial intelligence\, intersectional justice\, systems design\, harm\, and politics in digital conversational spaces and technology platforms. She has worked with the United Nations\, Amnesty International\, IBM Watson\, the Wikimedia Foundation\, and others. Sinders has held fellowships with the Harvard Kennedy School\, Google’s PAIR (People and Artificial Intelligence Research group)\, Ars Electronica’s AI Lab\, the Weizenbaum Institute\, the Mozilla Foundation\, Pioneer Works\, Eyebeam\, Ars Electronica\, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts\, the Sci Art Resonances program with the European Commission\, and the International Center of Photography. Her work has been featured in the Tate Exchange in Tate Modern\, the Contemporary Art Center of New Orleans\, Telematic Media Arts\, Victoria and Albert Museum\, MoMA PS1\, LABoral\, Wired\, Slate\, Hyperallergic\, Clot Magazine\, Quartz\, the Channels Festival\, and others. Sinders holds a Masters from New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program. She’s been named by Forbes as an AI Designer to Watch in 2017\, won the bronze award for Webby’s Anthem Award’s responsible technology category for a toolkit she created for technologists and community organizers for how to hold safe and caring events during COVID19\, shortlisted for a Fast Company’s Innovation by Design Award in the Social Good Category for a product she lead design on\, and she has provided insights\, critique and feedback to internationally regulatory bodies such as the ICO and FTC on technology\, design\, digital harm\, and policy.  Her artwork on disinformation has been described “work [that] helps us better understand how easily visual culture contributes to their credibility” by Hyperallergic. Caroline is currently based between London\, UK and New Orleans\, USA.   This talk is sponsored by the Center for Ethics\, Society and Computing (ESC). ESC 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/caroline-sinders-using-design-and-art-to-create-equitable-ai/
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