Category: Uncategorized

By Jenny L. Davis, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair and Professor of Sociology at Vanderbilt University

Algorithmic bias is a perpetual problem. It is a problem rooted in history, manifesting in the present, and shaping the future into troubling form. This is not a problem with a technical fix, a box to be ticked, nor obvious actors to blame. It’s diffuse, entrenched, and the subject of significant attention.

That attention, framed through the prism of ‘fairness’, has not been especially effective, if effectiveness is measured in a greater justice and less harm. With each new advance—automated decision systems, facial recognition, generative AI—social stratifications replicate, amplify, and scale.

The fairness paradigm isn’t working. It’s time for something else. Here, I pose algorithmic reparation as an orienting framework and worldbuilding project, displacing fairness in favour of redress. This draws from a burgeoning movement across fields and domains.

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By Matt Dowse

Here at the Centre for Sociodigital Futures we’ve convened a speculative fiction reading group about Community Technology with friends outside the university that we know are practicing Community Technology and co-creators from the Centre for Creative Technology. We’ve worked in various ways to come together to experiment with ideas about community/technology/and community technology. All of these ideas are feeding into the research that we are doing and are planning to do in the future. Through the reading group we have engaged with Octavia Butler Octavia E Butler: Visionary black sci-fi writer – BBC World Service, Witness History (youtube.com), Adrienne Maree Brown adrienne maree brown – awe. liberation. pleasure. , and Mother Cyborg About — MOTHER CYBORG so far. Watching Neptune Frost was the group’s first exploration in to film.

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By Judith Nyfeler

Between February and April 2024 I spent time as a visitor to the Centre for Sociodigital Futures at the University of Bristol. I had visited Bristol before and also one of my co-authors was based within the Centre. I was glad to have this opportunity to live and work in this colourful city in southwest England. And also, to have the privilege to take my family with me for a certain time. During my stay, I learned a lot about the benefits of such a trip. I will now share eight reasons why working abroad can be fruitful and beneficial.

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