The ILPC is delighted to announce that world-leading scholar danah boyd will deliver the ILPC Annual Lecture 2024 entitled:

‘Interventions Not Solutions in an Era of AI Policymaking’

 Abstract 

New widespread technologies are almost always disruptive. They rearrange configurations of power, call into question existing norms, and trigger social reckonings about values and commitments. Such disruptions also prompt policymakers to consider what role they can and should play.  As technologists, policymakers, and members of the public struggle to project their visions of the future with or without the new technology, conversations often devolve into hype and fear.

As unique as AI might seem to those close to the machine, the competing efforts to define an AI-infused future reflect well established patterns. Yet, what makes this particular technological disruption notable is that policymakers around the world are attempting to get in front of the mass adoption of AI, even before it is clear how these some of these systems will play out.

Both technologists and policymakers create interventions in pursuit of a desirable future. Yet, both speak in terms of “solutions” as though their intervention will determine the future. In this talk, danah will explore how different AI phenomena are unfolding in an effort to invite the audience to eschew solutionism and embrace an interventionist mindset.

Danah boyd is a Partner Researcher at Microsoft Research and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Georgetown University. Her research focuses on the intersection of technology and society, with an eye to how structural inequities shape and are shaped by technologies. She is currently conducting a multi-year ethnographic study of the U.S. census to understand how data are made legitimate. Her previous studies have focused on media manipulation, algorithmic bias, privacy practices, social media, and teen culture. Her monograph “It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens” has received widespread praise. She founded the research institute Data & Society, where she currently serves as an advisor. She is also a trustee of the Computer History Museum, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and on the advisory board of Electronic Privacy Information Center.

The Annual Lecture will launch the proceedings of the ILPC Annual Conference taking place on 21-22 November 2024. Attendance (in person and online) will be free thanks to the support of our sponsors, although registration is required as places are limited.

For further details and to register for the ILPC Annual Lecture and Conference, click here.

We hope you can join us.