Categories
Announcements

Exploring the Stranger AI Things

Do you feel like the more you learn about Artificial Intelligence (AI) maybe the less you feel you know? We think the best way into it is to experience it yourself, hence our previous set of activities looking at things that look real but are not. Let’s go deeper. This week I will show you […]

Categories
Miscellaneous

How AI Can Generate Cats, Snacks, and “the Carceral”

I had some fun with AI this week, but I also had some feelings of existential dread as I thought about the dark, wide-reaching implications of this technology. But let’s start with the fun stuff: First, I took the “Which Face Is Real?” quiz a few times. I was able to tell the difference between […]

Categories
Field Notes Miscellaneous

Change in Policy Doesn’t Guarantee Change

                Ruha Benjamin’s article “Catching our Breath” once again solidifies the point that the way we are creating and approaching technology is bringing with it all the issues that are present in our society. I was intrigued with her emphasis on the fact that education alone isn’t enough, on the “routineness” of racism, and with […]

Categories
Miscellaneous

AI E I O…and on that farm

In an old skit from Writer and Comedian, George Carlin, he talks about how the world has become one big technological “club” and if a person was not a member of “Big Business” or part of a “Mega-Corporation” that person was not part of the “club”.  In fact, most Americans don’t qualify to become part […]

Categories
Miscellaneous

I Can’t Breathe…

Ruha Benjamin from Princeton University discussed a sensitive but unfortunate reality that has become more real now than ever before. Science and technology is at an all-time high now, especially with the constant innovations of various technologies being used to understand humans better. But the question arises, are these creations helping or hurting the society […]

Categories
Announcements Ch 10: Race & Technology Miscellaneous

Anticipatory Conformity & Algorithimic Bias

I am glad we have spent some time thinking about the everyday consequences of data surveillance, and I think that discussing the “Screening Surveillance” films has been a great way to get at the issues (moving beyond mere conceptual analysis) as we start to think about how this ubiquitous reality is shaping our everyday lives. […]

Categories
Ch 10: Race & Technology

Power Balance

Ruha Benjamin’s Catching Our Breath: Critical Race STS and the Carceral Imagination does an excellent job in discussing the many racial inequalities that can coexist with developing technologies. It was a point that was brought up before with AI face-scanning and criminal record analysis, but this particular argument is framed around the “proliferation and intensification […]

Categories
Announcements

I AI Therefore I Exist

Hi, my name is Jeremy, and I am helping Alan out this week with some activities. But I should introduce myself. I have been working to launch a blockchain startup called Ideolium that has an exciting new technology of interest to those designing a post pandemic university. We are busy with launch, but I can […]

Categories
Ch 10: Race & Technology Miscellaneous

Can You See Me?

Joy Buolamwini’s TED Talk “How I am fighting algorithms with bias” discusses the biases and discriminatory encounters that individuals of color face when using technology. It is disheartening that we are in 2021, and we have yet to find recognition software that can detect diverse faces. Buloamwini provided her experiences with completing assignments during her […]

Categories
Ch 10: Race & Technology Miscellaneous

Don’t Look at Me Like That

This has been a pretty interesting week, but it is also the week where I’ve managed to hit my “semester slump.” It’s becoming more and more difficult for me to sit down and want to type everything out, and all my thoughts and feelings are starting to really box me into this perpetually tired and […]