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[UIUC] MDIA590 / IS596: AI + Democracy – Fall 2020: CRN: 63181 (MDIA590) / 73527 (IS596) – 4 credit hours

Course Readings + Schedule

Readings and Schedule

Week 1 (8/26): Introduction

In Class: Pew Internet and Democracy 2020 Report, “Many Tech Experts Say Digital Disruption Will Hurt Democracy.”

Padlet for Week 1 Exercise: https://padlet.com/asaychan/qi6ra2xhb3hp4e4

Week 2 (9/2)– Technodeterminism: Freedom, Control, Democracy

Broussard, Meredith. Artificial Unintelligence How Computers Misunderstand the World. MIT Press, 2018. Ch. 1, 8 (Ch. 2 optional)
Cathy O’Neill: Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy, 2016. Introduction and Ch. 1.
Langdon Winner, “Do Technologies Have Politics,” and “Mythinformation” in The Whale in the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology. 1986.
Assignment: Reading Reaction + Object/Case Study Prompt - Mythical/Narrative Dimensions (due 9/1)

Padlet - Broussard Questions: https://padlet.com/achan47/qlfapmgq6zoor6fk
Padlet - Broussard Quotes: https://padlet.com/achan47/e522ub3prx8838l9

Week 3 (9/9): Seeing AI Labs

Melanie Mitchell: AI: A Guide for Thinking Humans, 2019. Ch. 3-7
Broussard, Meredith. Artificial Unintelligence How Computers Misunderstand the World. MIT Press, 2018. Ch. 6.
Assignment: Reading Reaction + Object/Case Study Prompt - Professional/Epistemological Dimensions (due 9/8)

In-class document: Anatomy of an AI System: The Amazon Echo as an anatomical map of human labor, data and planetary resources, by Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler (2018).

Week 4 (9/16): AI Histories

Ronald Kline: The Cybernetics Moment: Or Why We Call Our Age the Information Age, 2015. Read: Chapters 3, 6, 8. Skim: Chapter 9.
Robert K. Merton. “The Normative Structure of Science,” The Sociology of Science, University of Chicago Press (1973). Ch. 13.
Assignment: Reading Reaction + Object/Case Study Prompt - Historical Dimensions (due 9/15)

Padlet - Mitchell Questions: https://padlet.com/anitajchan/cg51nxo0rl7p0gjo
Padlet - Kline Questions: https://padlet.com/anitajchan/Bookmarks
Padlet - Merton Questions: https://padlet.com/achan47/Bookmarks

Week 5 (9/23): Surveillance Capitalism

Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, 2019. Skim: Intro and Conclusion, Read: Ch. 3, 6, 10, 13.
Michel Foucault, Panopticonism, in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, 1975. pp. 195-228.
Assignment: Reading Reaction + Object/Case Study Prompt - Economic Dimensions (due 9/22)

Padlet - Merton Questions: https://padlet.com/achan47/Bookmarks
Padlet - Zuboff Questions: https://padlet.com/chan_anitaj/bmw23roh65pkhyle
Padlet - Foucault Questions: https://padlet.com/chan_anitaj/Bookmarks

Week 6 (9/30): AI Engines: Big Data Labs

Bruno Latour, “Chapter 6: Centers of Calculation,” in Science in Action, 1987. pp. 235-280.
danah boyd & Kate Crawford, “Critical Questions for Big Data,” in Information, Communication & Society Publication, 2012.
Cathy O’Neill: Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy, 2016. Chap. 5, Conclusion.
Skim: AI Now, Annual Report, 2019. pp. 5-60.

Skim: Joy Buolamwini, Vicente Ordóñez, Jamie Morgenstern, and Erik Learned-Miller, “Facial Recognition Technologies: A Primer,” A report of the Algorithmic Justice League, 2020.
Assignment: Reading Reaction + Object/Case Study Prompt - Textual Dimensions (due 9/29)

Padlet: Latour Questions: https://padlet.com/wrongrrl/fcgoqk51xbeoq8xo
Padlet: boyd + Crawford/ONeil Questions: https://padlet.com/wrongrrl/Bookmarks

Optional:

Erik Learned-Miller, Vicente Ordóñez, Jamie Morgenstern, and Joy Buolamwini, “Facial Recognition Technologies in the Wild: A Call for a Federal Office,” A report of the Algorithmic Justice League, 2020.
Rashida Richardson, Jason M. Schultz, Vincent M. Southerland, “Litigating Algorithms 2019 US Report: New Challenges to Government Use of Algorithmic Decision Systems,” 2019.
AI Now, Algorithmic Accountability Policy Toolkit, 2018.
Jonathan Taplin, Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy, 2017. Selections.

Week 7 (10/7): AI + Labor

Lilly Irani & M. Six Silberman, “Stories We Tell About Labor: Turkopticon and the Trouble with ‘Design’”
Mary Gray & Siddharth Suri, Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass, 2019. Intro: Ghost in the Machine + Ch. 1: Humans in the Loop (pp. 7-59).
Karen Levy, “The Contexts of Control: Information, Power, and Truck Driving Work,” The Information Society 31 (2015): 160–174.
Sareeta Amrute, Bored Techies Being Casually Racist: Race as Algorithm, Science, Technology, & Human Values 2020, Vol. 45(5), pp. 903-933.
Assignment: Reading Reaction + Object/Case Study Prompt - Labor Dimensions (due 10/6)

Padlet for Ghost Work/ Turkopticon: https://padlet.com/wrongrrl/a3zmby6rbx0409pu

Week 8 (10/14): Race + Tech – Surveillance

Ruha Benjamin, Race after Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code, 2019. Introduction, Chapters 4 + 5.
Charton Mcilwain, Black Software, The Internet & Racial Justice, from the AfroNet to Black Lives Matter, 2019. Chapters 12, 15, 16.
Safiya Noble, Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Enforce Racism, 2018. Ch. 2.
Skim: Facebook Civil Rights Audit, 2020: https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Civil-Rights-Audit-Final-Report.pdf
Assignment: Reading Reaction + Object/Case Study Prompt - Political Dimensions (due 10/13)

Padlet for Benjamin/Noble Articles: https://padlet.com/chan_anitaj/68z8lrch3mz1ctox

Week 9 (10/21): Gender, Race + Tech – Maxtices of Domination

Sasha Costanza-Chock, Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need, 2020. Introduction: #TravelingWhileTrans, Design Justice, and Escape from the Matrix of Domination, and Chapter 4: Design Sites: Hackerspaces, Fablabs, Hackathons, and DiscoTechs.
Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren Klein, Data Feminism, 2019. Chapter 1: The Power Chapter and Chapter 2: Collect, Analyze, Imagine, Teach.
Donna Haraway, Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective," Feminist Studies Vol. 14, No. 3 (Autumn, 1988).
optional: Lisa Nakamura, “Feeling Good About Feeling Bad: Virtuous Virtual Reality and the Automation of Racial Empathy,” Journal of Visual Culture, vol. 19, no 1, 47-64, March 2020.
Assignment: Reading Reaction + Object/Case Study Prompt - Bodily/Organic/Affective Dimensions (due 10/20)

Padlet - Data Feminism: https://padlet.com/anita265/dymf9s2ubc5p0m1v

Week 10 (10/28) Disinformation + AI

Eli Pariser, The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized Web Is Changing What We Read and How We Think. 2011. Ch. 2-3 (pp. 29-61), Ch. 5 (pp. 76-91).
Joan Donovan & danah Boyd. "Stop the Presses? Moving From Strategic Silence to Strategic Amplification in a Networked Media Ecosystem." American Behavioral Scientist (September 2019).
Amelia Acker & Joan Donovan. "Data Craft: A Theory/Methods Package for Critical Internet Studies." Information, Communication & Society 22.11 (July 20, 2019): 1590-1609.
Sarah Roberts, Behind the Screen: Content Moderation in the Shadows of Social Media. 2019. Ch. 4: "I Call Myself a Sin Eater". Skim: Ch. 6: Digital Humanity.
Assignment: Reading Reaction + Object/Case Study Prompt - Educational Dimensions (due 10/28)

Padlet - Donovan/Acker/Boyd: https://padlet.com/anita265/dsv7famexvsby1dd

Optional:

Friedberg, Brian, and Donovan, Joan. "On the Internet, Nobody Knows You’re a Bot: Pseudoanonymous Influence Operations and Networked Social Movements." Journal of Design and Science 6 (August 7, 2019).
Sarah Roberts, “Social Media’s Silent Filter,” The Atlantic, March 8, 2017.

Week 11 (11/4): AI + Ethics

Jacob Metcalf, Emmanuel Moss, danah boyd, Owning Ethics: Corporate Logics, Silicon Valley, and the Institutionalization of Ethics,” social research (86:2), Summer 2019
Rodrigo Ochigame, “The Invention of Ethical AI: How Big Tech Manipulates Academia to Avoid Regulation,” The Intercept, December 20, 2019.
Gary Marcus and Ernest Davis. Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligence We Can Trust, 2019. Chapter 8: Trust.
Amnesty International, Toxic Twitter, 2018. Chapter 2: Triggers of Violence and Chapter 4: The Reporting Process.
Re-Skim: Facebook Civil Rights Audit, 2020. Introduction, pp. 5-12: https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Civil-Rights-Audit-Final-Report.pdf
Assignment: Reading Reaction + Object/Case Study Prompt - Contextual/Situatedness Dimensions (due 11/3)

Padlet - Ethics Owners/Inventing Ethical AI: https://padlet.com/anita265/Bookmarks

Optional:

Inioluwa Deborah Raji Joy Buolamwini, “Actionable Auditing: Investigating the Impact of Publicly Naming Biased Performance Results of Commercial AI Products,” IAES 2019 Paper.
Langdon Winner, Building a Better Mousetrap, in The Whale in the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology. 1986.

Week 12 (11/11): Human Machine Reconfigurations

Zeynep Tufeki, Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest, 2017. Chapters 3, 4, 6.
Joan Donovan. "Toward a Militant Ethnography of Infrastructure: Cybercartographies of Order, Scale, and Scope across the Occupy Movement." Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 48.4 (August 2019): 482-509.
Precarity Lab - Irina Aristarkhova, Ivan Chaar-Lopez, Anna Watkins Fisher, Tung-Hui Hu, Meryem Kamil, Silvia Lindtner and Lisa Nakamura. “Digital Precarity Manifesto,” Social Text 141: Volume 37, No 4, December 2019.
Mark Maguire, “The birth of biometric security,” Volume25, Issue2 April 2009 Pages 9-14.

Padlet: Tufeki/Donovan: https://padlet.com/anitasaychan1/cf8fp30xrav9teiz

Week 13 (11/18): Human Machine Reconfigurations 2

Lucy Suchman, "Ch. 4: Configuration." In Inventive Methods: The Happening of the Social. Lury, C. & Wakeford, N. (eds.). Taylor and Francis, pp. 48-60.
Donna Haraway, "The Cyborg Manifesto," (originally published in The Socialist Review, 1985). In Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York; Routledge, 1991), pp.149-181.
Feminist Data ManifestNO, https://www.manifestno.com/

Optional:

Virginia Eubanks, Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor. 2018. Intro, Ch. 1, Ch. 5.

Week 14 (11/25): NO CLASS /THANKSGIVING BREAK

Week 15 (12/2): Presentations – FINAL CLASS

Week 16 (12/9): Presentations – FINAL CLASS