Each year, the Brown Institute sponsors talks that explore the intersection between media and technology. This year we have three virtual presentations lined up, each challenging us to think about data and computation in new ways. Each talk is by researchers outside of journalism, and yet we have a great deal to learn from their approaches to data and computation.
Roles for Computing in Social Justice
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Recent scholarship in AI ethics warns that computing work has treated problematic features of the status quo as fixed, failing to address and even exacerbate deep patterns of injustice and inequality. Acknowledging these critiques, we ask: what roles, if any, can computing play to support and advance fundamental social change? We articulate four such roles — computing as a diagnostic, formalizer, rebuttal, and synecdoche — through an analysis that considers the opportunities as well as the significant risks inherent in such work. We then discuss how these insights may be used to support advocacy work aimed at fostering more equitable and just systems.
