• Provoking Alternative Visions of Technology

  • Oct 5 2022
  • Length: 17 mins
  • Podcast

Provoking Alternative Visions of Technology

  • Summary

  • Host Kirsten Martin is joined by Daniel Susser, an assistant professor in the College of Information Sciences and Technology and a research associate in the Rock Ethics Institute at Penn State University. A philosopher by training, he works at the intersection of technology, ethics, and policy, with his research currently focused on questions about privacy, online influence, and automated decision-making.

    Daniel came on the show to talk about his short essay “Data and the Good?” that recently appeared in Surveillance & Society.

    Considering the intersection of scholarship in privacy law and surveillance studies, he notes how research in these fields tends to focus on critiques of existing technologies and their potential harms. While he and Kirsten are quick to emphasize how necessary this kind of work is, Daniel describes his paper as a provocation meant to push researchers, himself included, to at the same time put forward substantive alternatives for how technology could or should be used. He says there are understandable reasons why this doesn’t happen more often, but that absent competing visions for our technological future, we are beholden to those crafted by the technology industry.

    Episode Links

    • Paper Discussed in the Episode: “Data and the Good?”
    • Daniel’s Bio
    • Episode Transcript

    At the end of each episode, Kirsten asks for a recommendation about another scholar in tech ethics (or several) whose work our guest is particularly excited about.

    In addition to citing classic texts in science and technology studies by Langdon Winner and Phil Agre as well as The Convivial Society blog, which applies classic writing in philosophy of technology to contemporary problems, Daniel highlighted three people working to advance alternative visions of technology: 

    • Ruha Benjamin (Princeton University)
    • Salomé Viljoen (University of Michigan)*
    • James Muldoon (University of Exeter)

    *Salomé was also the guest for episode 10 of TEC Talks, “Moving Data Governance to the Forest From the Trees.”

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