November 2020
Data & Democracy
Part II in the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere's multi-year series examining challenges to rational public debate turns to the question of how new technologies and the algorithms underlying ‘big data’ shape human experience, communication, and representation. These talks reveal the human values and biases embedded in technological advances, from drone warfare and corporate data to surveillance systems and robots. Our speakers consider the implications of artificial intelligence in public spaces and mobilize the humanities to reflect on cybernetics and intelligent machines.
Find out more »Data and Democracy: Drone Publics
How do drone technologies imagine an automated public sphere? This talk analyzes early experiments with drone aircraft to show how machine autonomy is predicated on the contradiction of “unmanning,” in which pilotless planes are defined by the “man” the technology claims to negate. This is highlighted in the ways race and colonialism are enmeshed with early drone experiments. I detail these early drone experiments through two archives: the autobiography of an American drone pilot from World War II, self-published with…
Find out more »