Critique of the opacity, discrimination and surveillance that algorithms represent often focus more on the technology than on its uses. Sociologist Angèle Christin will discuss their place in criminal justice and the Berlin Tech Workers Coalition will present its struggles for social change.
Critique of the opacity, discrimination and surveillance that algorithms represent and amplify often focus more on the technologies themselves than on their uses. Sociologist Angèle Christin of Stanford University points to the need to include this critique in ethnographic research, particularly with regard to predictive algorithms in the American criminal justice system.
The technology industry is also a source of unbridled gentrification, senseless wage differentials, pollution and militarism, but it need not be so. The Berlin Tech Workers Coalition is an organization that empowers tech workers to build collective power and get involved in campaigns for social change.
Guests:
- Angèle Christin is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication and affiliated faculty in the Sociology Department and Program in Science, Technology, and Society at Stanford University. She studies how algorithms and analytics transform professional values, expertise, and work practices.
- Yonatan Miller, American activist turned technologist, is the co-founder of the Berlin Tech Workers Coalition and an active member of Berlin vs Amazon.
- Antonio Casilli is professor of sociology at Telecom Paris and researcher at the Interdisciplinary Institute of Innovation at the CNRS.
