ITeG-Lecture: "Cui bono, Data Science?"

Beschreibung

In the ITeG lecture series "Digital Society - A Design Challenge", Dr. Juliane Jarke will provide insights on “Cui bono, Data Science?” on December 15, 2021. She is a senior researcher at the Institute for Information Management and the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research at the University of Bremen. She is co-founder of the Data Science Center at the University of Bremen. Her research focusses on the increasing relevance of digital data for society, related implications and design opportunities. Since 2009, Juliane serves as an independent expert to the European Commission within the areas eInfrastructures, Data Infrastructures and Digital Science.

Summary of her presentation:

In the introduction to Ecologies of Knowledge: Work and Politics in Science and Technology (1995), Susan Leigh Star asks: “Cui bono? Who is doing the dishes? Where is the garbage going? What is the material basis for practice? Who owns the means of knowledge production?” These questions sum up an approach to the social studies of science and technology (STS) that takes science and technology “off the pedestal” (Chubin and Chu 1989) – by treating both as something that people do together, that understands science as practice and technology as socio-political.

Taking Leigh Star’s questions as a starting point, I will engage with some of the critical work on data science that has emerged in STS over the past decade. This includes questions about the invisible human labour required to run our AI-based infrastructures, questions about social justice and racial bias in AI-based systems as well as proposals for community-led design practices and socio-technical innovation. Overall, the talk provides a glimpse into the rich conceptual and methodological toolbox that STS scholars have developed to critically examine technology design and use.