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1these are some
2visionaries aren't they I mean really
3incredible incredible and I don't have
4all the answers so I'm just gonna say
5that but I might have some good
6questions going back to the president's
7welcome so when something is the first
8that means that there's no precedent
9there's no tradition that you have to
10follow so you can break up the
11traditional keynote and do it how you
12want to do so that's what I'm gonna do
13and I'm gonna ask you to give me your
14energy to participate to talk back you
15already started some of that already
16but don't be quiet get off your hands
17say it again that is your girl I love it
18that's what I'm asking for so can we do
19something a little more participatory
20all right top back holler interrupts
21because in part that's what we're doing
22we're interrupting a dominant narrative
23about technology and society and so one
24of the things we have to realize is that
25we're not gonna focus narrowly on data
26because that already circumscribes the
27conversation we're gonna zoom our lens
28out and we're going to talk about the
29fact that an interpretation is required
30to make sense of data stories narratives
31are important context is important we
32don't find the data we produce it right
33and so the context in which us produce
34matters who is doing the producing
35matters and so we're gonna get into all
36of that and so I'm not gonna be very
37disciplined in terms of focusing
38narrowly on data for a reason because
39that's part of the zooming the lens out
40so let me just start just to give you a
41little taste of the backdrop in which my
42own thinking around this formulated and
43I think something that we may take for
44granted
45is that not everyone is on board with
46this kind of conversation and
47intervention all right and it's not
48necessarily a malicious kind of
49antagonistic relationship to the
50conversation but a taking for granted
51about what good knowledge production
52means for many people the best knowledge
53is a social and a historical right so
54here you have an example from a part of
55my research where there's a group
56working on a genetic atlas mapping
57project and the way that it's reported
58not necessarily the way it's done but
59the way that it's reported by a
60notorious science journalist Nick Wade
61in which he says that in this case the
62the researchers hopes historians would
63find their work useful but that they had
64not collaborated with historians in some
65sense we don't want to talk to
66historians there's a great virtue in
67being objective you put the data in and
68get the history out we do think this is
69a way of reconstructing reconstructing
70history by just using DNA so here we
71want to think about how part of our
72conversation is troubling this idea of a
73social and a historic knowledge
74production or scientific research in
75part what we're getting at is this
76notion of technological determinism
77right and so here you have some
78headlines that give you a taste of that
79how genetic engineering will change
80everything is Facebook making us lonely
81and I could list probably a dozen
82headlines just from the last week in
83which the framing is one where
84technology is driving us we are ponds we
85are puppets but human agency human
86motivation and values and politics that
87is downstream that comes after the fact
88all right and so what part of what we're
89doing is we're questioning the framing
90of technological determinism and we're
91saying in fact human beings are
92developing are creating are imagining
93our technological infrastructure right
94and so if that's the case and only a
95small sliver of you
96Jannetty is taking part in that we are
97trying to broaden that and make it more
98participatory data for black lives I
99knew in a room full of geeks yahwah
100filming yahwah filming so what we're
101saying when we're questioning
102technological determinism is that we are
103partnering with our algorithms we are
104enrolling our robots we are in
105solidarity with this infrastructure
106right it's not something that we're on
107tagging istic - it's not something that
108we're against but we're thinking about
109what it means to actually be in
110partnership with technology enroll our
111androids in the struggle can you feel me
112all right so the the zooming out the
113larger context we also have to come to
114grips with the deadly underpinnings of
115so much data you talked about being a
116statistic in this case we're gonna put a
117face to the statistic we see here some
118images of Miami PDS target practice now
119what we're what we're talking about is
120the fact that well before the shooting
121that makes the headline that becomes a
122hashtag there is a simmering there is a
123substrate of violence of anti-black
124racism that gives rise to then what
125makes the headlines so what we're doing
126is we're peeling back the veneer we're
127looking backstage right we're not
128waiting for the spectacular what we in
129this room are interested in is the
130mundane the everyday the things we take
131for granted we're looking at the fine
132print right we're looking at the
133protocols we're looking at what's taken
134for granted because all of that
135simmering is what gives rise to whatever
136makes the headlines we're moving beyond
137only the kind of downstream police
138brutality and we're looking at where so
139much of this starts in the
140criminalization of young young people
141you have some students in the room here
142so we're talking
143before you can read we have preschool
144teachers who are already forming
145subconscious and in some cases conscious
146forms of bias and racism in which in
147this case the Yale study says they put
148some eye tracking technology the kids
149are engaged in the same behavior and
150their I their their vision keeps going
151to the little black boys in the class
152right and so we really can't talk about
153police without talking about preschool
154teachers it's on a continuum right one
155is not more egregious than the other and
156so here we have to zoom the lens out and
157we have to refuse the kind of
158circumscription the kind of inattention
159to this continuum that so many of the
160sound bites have us focus on the fine
161print does anyone know what this is that
162you're looking at
163it's the ambulance bill that the city of
164Cleveland sent the family of Tamir rice
165after that officer shot him the child is
166dead and the family receives a bill for
167his last ambulance ride so what we're
168talking about is low-key violence before
169the spectacular and after it the banal
170the bureaucratic the everyday the
171business is usual that's not only in our
172legal codes but in our financial codes
173and our computer codes we don't want to
174talk about one without the other we're
175going to employ some integrative
176thinking this evening and make
177connections where people don't want us
178to make connections the fine print and
179that's why we need people who are
180willing and able to look at this at fine
181grained detailed and not just be taken
182by the headlines right Black Death is
183intimately related to black debt in a
184recent survey of municipalities across
185the country they found that the one
186factor that explained the extent to
187which cities find their citizens to
188death was the proportion of
189african-americans in that municipality
190not class more impoverished places that
191were predominantly white and Hispanic
192didn't have this level of fining black
193citizens we have documentation now have
194been living with a form of economic
195terrorism that precedes the more violent
196physical displays of state sanctioned
197violence that we have become accustomed
198to paying attention to so when you
199wonder why why are the citizens
200protesting why are they so angry it was
201before Michael Brown got shot that this
202community was undergoing this form of
203economic terrorism so it shouldn't be
204surprised us the data bears it out right
205so we have to use this in order to
206create a different story about what is
207wrong and what needs to get fixed it
208isn't simply about firing a few cops
209because if entire city budgets are based
210on finding black people to debt then we
211need that as part of the conversation
212doing that cities most likely to exploit
213residents for fine revenue are those
214with the highest african-american
215populations so we can't just talk about
216black death
217without also talking about data for
218black life mapping what we want not only
219what we do not want right so when we're
220sort of broadening our cart of
221cartographic imaginary it's not enough
222only to heed the data points that
223demonstrate our immiseration or
224exploitation but also the data points
225that point to where we want to go how we
226want to live what our liberating
227technologies that we can design and who
228and what do we need in that journey to
229get there so we're we are going to
230balance out the the attention in terms
231of producing data for black life all
232right and so I want to ask you now to
233join with me in a kind of roll call
234we're gonna call some people in the room
235who may not be here physically but who
236we need on this journey because we have
237some skills here we have some talents we
238have some smart people you know we have
239some creative folks but there's a lot of
240people outside of this room that we need
241to call forth now and so will you join
242me in a bit of a roll call we're gonna
243start with some ancestors who were data
244scientists shall we say alright we go we
245don't we gonna call some people in the
246room who knew about some astronomy all
247right
248knew how to get free using the Stars and
249the rivers and you had a read and map
250their way to freedom fugitive scientists
251in the words of Britt Russell fugitive
252scientists all right any other ancestors
253you can think of you want to call in a
254room call him out who you want to call
255all right Maria store can we can we say
256what's up to I to be Wells all right now
257with those statistics on lynching she
258wasn't planned she was traveling all
259over traveling all over employing data
260for black lives
261anybody else you want to call in a room
262all right can we get the boys in the
263room
264all right now working around the corner
265prolific talk about some data
266visualizations before y'all had a word
267for it the boys was up there drawing and
268coloring and employing a whole team
269taking himself to the World Fair
270wherever he did with his data
271visualizations now there's a new book
272coming out next year by Brit Russert and
273colleagues that is about Du Bois and
274data visualizations showing how he was
275ahead of his time all right
276data scientists data for black lives
277anybody else you want to call in the
278room come on come on now come on all
279right
280ancestors now can we talk about
281activists and organizations that we want
282to call and acknowledge those past and
283those present all right bring them in
284the room come on come on
285exactly all right bring them in the room
286you have some more contemporary ones but
287you see there's a genealogy we're
288building on a tradition we not starting
289something new
290no we're building on a tradition we're
291calling it forth and reminding ourselves
292how we have always employed data for
293black lives all right and so now we're
294going to talk about some of the scholars
295these are some of the more contemporary
296ones we've talked about some of the you
297know the precedents can you recognize
298anybody on the screen anybody else you
299want to include I couldn't fit everybody
300all right bring her in the room dr.
301Cohen so anybody else scholars teachers
302and now let's not forget that there are
303people producing data all around us they
304might not have the fancy titles here's
305my grandma working at the El ala
306Department of adoptions and we want to
307think about who around us often is not
308recognized who's producing knowledge
309that has always sustained us right in
310our institutions in our communities is
311there anyone else any other your
312relatives you want to call in a room as
313we go forth all right so this is the
314roll call this is acknowledging that
315it's not just us because if we think
316about what we're up against
317if we think about what we're up against
318and we think it's just all little bit
319yes then we get disillusioned we don't
320know what we can do but we are legion
321there are so many who are waiting to aid
322us right both physical and spiritual and
323our artists and our storytellers are
324crucial our crucial this is too
325important to leave it just to those who
326have the technical proficiency right and
327so I'm gonna give you some examples just
328to show you how important it is around
329the framings and the narratives of data
330we can't they don't speak for themselves
331they're not transparent right and even
332when the people producing it don't
333acknowledge the stories that are
334embedded in it that they still exist
335right the narratives are there and so
336one of the things that I've come to is
337that the facts alone will not save us
338just producing statistics on black death
339and violence and disparities truly truly
340that's not gonna free us right just
341handing over the evidence as we see
342because that evidence is not interpreted
343the same way by everyone and I'm gonna
344share with you a few examples that just
345I know you know but I'm just gonna I
346just want to provide the data right just
347to show you that it's not gonna save us
348alone all right and so one thing I want
349us to do is expand our imagination right
350to think about imagination as a
351battlefield and imagination and data
352production go hand-in-hand
353there's not one without the other
354Claudia rankin's incisive line from
355citizen because white men can't police
356their imagination black men are dying
357and here I sense that she's really
358focused on you know the the words the
359testimony of the officer who shot
360Michael Brown who saw him as a monster
361that imagination of another human being
362justifies murder right and so
363imagination is a battleground we have to
364embolden
365and grow our own counter imaginary right
366we can't just sit and watch and call it
367out we have to have our own imagination
368of how we want the world to work and to
369be all right we can't leave it to others
370and I and my sense is that there's a
371growing acceptance that shall we say or
372at least acknowledgement at some level
373that there are various kind of values
374and assumptions and politics embedded in
375technology this often in the headlines
376gets the framing around racists to
377robots right thinking about the design
378decisions that go into so much machine
379learning and artificial intelligence so
380in some ways it's heartening that
381there's a kind of growing consensus that
382sort of started out like what and then
383was like yeah and that's like duh and so
384it's eat it like in the last couple
385years just kind of evolved like shock
386and then okay and then like everybody
387knows it now and so this is us in some
388ways heartening to see and what I want
389to suggest is that one way to think
390about our relationship to technology you
391know and what we can't take for granted
392in designing technology is the same kind
393of exercise that we might think about
394raising anti-racist children when you
395don't talk to your children about it
396they inhale the smog that exists they
397will be racist right the default setting
398of our society is among other things
399anti black racism right so if you don't
400process and and and design and and raise
401your children to constantly be you know
402countering that small that's what we're
403gonna have right in this case an Italian
404tech lab this is how they dress their
405resident robot right and you say you can
406see it's kind of all in good fun you
407know in the same way that dressing up as
408our indigenous brothers and sisters is
409all in good fun you taking it too
410seriously right and so we need to
411question
412the same way that we do around parenting
413right are the same way we need to start
414thinking about our relationship with our
415other designs our other creations so I
416created a little friend here Anna Lobby
417Wells she she down for the cause she
418likes to go by Anna for sure and Anna
419helps me reckon with the fact that we
420can design differently right we can
421embed new values into our designs and
422our technology right we can change the
423default settings if we don't think we
424can we're kind of adopting a techno
425deterministic view that we we have no
426say it's just going the way it's going
427we can't talk back and and us like no we
428gonna talk back right we're gonna stand
429with the sign and so I like to write
430with her by my side to remind me about
431the imagination I'm trying to cultivate
432so it's not all diagnosing what's wrong
433but also imagining what can be alright
434and she does that one of the stories
435that I often tell that illustrates for
436me the design possibilities and what it
437means to just accept the default
438settings except what we've inherited is
439the story of the bench right we think
440about the bench as a metaphor for other
441much more complex objects and
442technologies and so this bench is in
443Berkeley California which is where I
444went to grad school and since I moved I
445first moved to Boston and so I was here
446for a few years and getting used to
447those winners so when I would travel I
448would look for a little spot in the Sun
449anytime I was traveling and I was ended
450up on this bench on one work trip and I
451wanted to lay down on the bench just for
452like 30 minutes between meetings it's
453near one of the flea markets that I like
454to go to but I couldn't lay down on the
455bench couldn't get my vitamin D why
456couldn't I lay down on the bed armrest
457and I thought okay why are the armrests
458there why do you think they might be
459there
460okay that's what I thought trying to
461prevent home homeless people from laying
462down on it there might be other more
463functional reasons okay I think might
464help you prop up or when I was nine
465months pregnant helped me get down
466either way what else might be at play oh
467skateboarding okay and then also I was
468thinking maybe that kind of like air of
469privacy maybe you're more likely to sit
470down next to someone with that invisible
471wall of air there as opposed to just a
472bench with no armrests what you know I
473my my sociological imagination kicked in
474I said oh it's probably has to do with
475trying to deter loiters from using the
476bench right so I did a little digging
477Google is your friend and found that in
478fact it's a worldwide phenomenon this
479idea of designing public spaces right to
480try to keep people from not laying down
481and sleeping on it okay so I found
482single occupancy benches in Helsinki so
483only one booty at a time and don't let
484it be big because you would not be but
485you definitely not land down on that
486bench all right that I found caged
487benches in France alright so let me tell
488you about this one they put it out on
489Christmas Eve town-folks was so angry so
490angry they contacted the mayor and he
491had to have him removed within 24 hours
492so it shows you that there may be
493discriminatory design but the power of
494the people can get that design changed
495or removed or in this case and so you do
496not just accept what's there but you
497speak back right and you tell them how
498you want the public space to be but my
499favorite my favorite bench sitting on
500the data is the metered bench where you
501actually put a few coins to sit down on
502it and I believe it works for about 15
503minutes so don't get lost in your
504favorite book because again your booty
505will be hurtin and so in this case the
506German artist
507created this bench he created the bench
508to just to get us thinking about the
509privatization of public life he wanted
510us to think okay you know what does it
511mean to design something in the public
512sphere that is you nominally for
513everyone
514but that in practice actually excludes
515and discriminates right and although it
516started as art it was adopted by a few
517municipalities as good public policy and
518so be careful what you create my artists
519please I know you want us to think but
520people are getting ideas from you but
521let's think about this metaphor of the
522metered bench because remember what I
523said before about finding black debts so
524we want to think about the metering of
525public life how there's this constant
526extraction extraction of economic value
527so we go back to that map of
528municipalities and the proportion of
529black folks in there we want to think
530about how our health is being metered in
531terms of public health we want to talk
532about how education is being meter we
533live in an apartheid system with our
534public education and so we want to take
535this provocation of the metered bench
536and try to think about how so many
537things in public life are being
538privatized and how people are being
539excluded and being exploited through the
540process even as things are nominally for
541everyone all right what are the values
542and assumptions and politics that are
543being embedded in these artifacts
544whether it's as simple as a bench or as
545complex as a scientific initiative right
546we want to think about how we can design
547differently it's not enough for us to
548discuss technology as the downstream as
549everyone having access to certain things
550when so few people have a say in what
551gets produced in the first place
552right so what we are doing is we're
553taking the
554conversation up to the design side of
555things right the backstage where people
556don't necessarily want you to look or
557have a say yes they want you to consume
558right but to have a say in what's
559produced in the first place
560this is where we want to begin the
561conversation all right
562there are people doing this work and I
563want to give a shout out to a number of
564organizations too many to list this is
565just one allied media conference right
566and so if there's anyone who goes to
567allied here in the room but people lots
568of people are theorizing and writing and
569and org and working you know in terms of
570organizations to try to think about how
571we can develop something like a design
572justice all right and so I just want to
573add to that conversation and share with
574you just a few of the things that I
575think should go in our toolkit right we
576think about is just data but just data
577right how to create just data what do we
578need in that toolkit all right and I'm
579just gonna share five things with you
580there are many more and I hope that's
581what we use the conference for is to add
582to the toolkit right so we all go home
583in a couple days having some things to
584work with in our various in our various
585capacities the acronym for the five
586tools I'm going to share with you or in
587some ways the five dispositions towards
588technology that I'm gonna share with you
589is shout okay they each stand for one of
590the one of the dispositions and the
591ideas that thou shalt use this toolkit
592alright so I'm sharing it with you in
593that light social literacy so I'm a
594sociologist so this comes first right
595this idea that we are constantly reading
596the world and technology as part of that
597reading we have different lenses that
598we're employing but not all lenses are
599necessarily created equally right if the
600world was designed for you you likely
601have rose tinted lenses you may not see
602the fault lines and the cracks and the
603earthquakes that are coming whereas
604those for whom the world was designed
605against it requires honing greater
606insight into how this thing was put
607together so you can avoid being shot
608or Boyd being expelled or harmed right
609and so these lenses that we have one of
610the things we have to begin to do is
611learn from each other and especially
612learn from those who have often been the
613targets of various kinds of violence's
614including those that employ technology
615right so we are learning from that
616experience abase of those who are often
617the underside of modernity quick example
618how many of you recognize the young man
619all right what's his name um ed Mohammed
620a few years ago you recall in Texas he
621was 14 at the time went to school very
622ingenious young man very resourceful
623took his pencil box and what did he make
624a clock very very resourceful but what
625did they think it was a bomb oh yeah I
626got you I got you yeah I got you yeah
627now if his name was Adam all right
628it would have been a great clock sure
629what he would have won like some award
630and assembly over the intercom right so
631here we have akhmad and what are the
632things that happens with stories like
633ahmed is we have this we have this
634phrase in popular discourse isolated
635incident right I think we need to take
636that needs to go and one in the dust
637pile right because what I'm talking
638about is attached incidents all right AI
639another thing for AI is attached
640incidents because it's connected to a
641larger pattern social literacy requires
642that we look at that larger pattern we
643look at the context in which something
644like our med story takes place all right
645part of that context is the fact that
646one in two Americans believe that Ava
647Arab Americans should carry special ID
648cards right this is the milieu that
649gives rise to our med right too often
650we're focused on the bad apples in this
651case the teacher who jumped to the
652conclusions the principal the five
653officers who interrogated him the fact
654that he got expelled his family had to
655go back to Kuwait they just came back
656last year so in all of that we could
657point to a bunch of bad apples and we
658could try to pluck them all out right
659then we were we would feign shock that
660it happens at another school
661the next month and another school the
662next month and all different ways in
663which the brilliance of young people is
664stamped out right it may not take the
665form of a clock but every single day in
666this country the brilliance and and
667ingenious of young people is miss
668recognized misconstrued and you know
669really crushed and so it we do ourselves
670a disservice not to employ social
671literacy with respect to reading the
672reality that we're living in another
673story you may recognize this photo less
674well publicized but do you remember
675where this happened
676Charleston South Carolina
677all right student Rosen's in class I
678believe she was on her cell phone having
679some issues with foster family etc
680and they called the officer in the
681school resource officer another
682euphemism and so in this case too we
683could point to a number of bad apples
684right the teacher the cop the principal
685not that they shouldn't be held
686accountable of course they should but
687let's not pretend that there's not a
688larger orchard that's been rotting away
689that gives rise to these apples okay and
690so in this case we would have to reckon
691with the fact of the the expulsion rate
692and suspension rate of young people in
693this country and the way that it's so
694racially skewed all right and so we have
695to reckon and use this and it's not a
696coincidence that both of these incidents
697these attached incidents has to do with
698young people in their relationship to
699technology right the clock the phone and
700so this idea that we our society that
701just Fosters and engenders technological
702prowess and we want our students to be
703connected and we want them to do all of
704these things not all students right and
705so even in the way that we sort of you
706know think about who gets to experiment
707remember the young girl in Florida who
708was doing an experiment in the fire yes
709Kiara Wilma again if
710if that was another she was a little
711white student right then that would have
712been seen as Oh unfortunate little
713mishap right and so we have to think
714about when young people are trying to
715experiment and grow their technological
716imaginary how that's often you know
717crushed in the process tool number two
718when we think about historical literacy
719we want to think about how the past is
720not past right so in many ways one of
721the one of the phrases I love I think
722Donna Haraway came up with it she talks
723about technology as frozen moments right
724where we can see our values in our
725histories congealed in an object and we
726can use that in order to read this more
727fluid process that we live with right in
728this case Hank Willis Thompson Thomas is
729getting us to think about what is the
730relationship between past and present is
731it a mirror perhaps not but there is a
732relationship a continuity that we want
733to explore and reckon with because when
734we don't reckon with how history becomes
735embedded in various kinds of
736technological efforts we get things like
737this where you know people can go and
738sign up for targeted advertisements on
739Facebook and it can seem very benign I'm
740just gonna choose the demographics that
741I want to see this targeted
742advertisement right in choosing that
743that means implicitly you can also
744exclude certain groups from seeing your
745advertisements and say if your
746advertisement has to do with housing
747then what you have is a high-tech form
748of redlining do we not and so in this
749case we have Congress having to write
750Zuckerberg and say you know these ethnic
751affinity labels there's a problem with
752that and so they had to get rid of it
753well what if we could have those
754conversations and begin to design
755differently from the beginning right and
756part of that has to do with what
757sensibilities what historical literacies
758do we have at the table again it's too
759important for only those who have the
760technological know-how to be the only
761ones making the
762decisions right without all of these
763other ways of reading and understanding
764the world the third tool that I'm going
765to add to our toolkit has to do with the
766role of our emotional and intelligence
767right a fancy way that academics talk
768about it is affect right so what does it
769mean to incorporate understand that our
770intelligence around all kinds of things
771including technology has to reckon with
772and take seriously how we feel about the
773world right in fact and this is a kind
774of footnote to this what we know now is
775that our hearts have all kinds of neural
776circuits that it speaks to our brain
777right that there's a two-way
778relationship with that right and so now
779we've even come to talk about as the
780heart brain right so we have to think
781about what we know in our hearts how
782that is a source of knowledge about the
783world that we have to reckon with it's
784not a separate conversation because when
785we don't reckon with that we get results
786like this Stanford study decided they
787wanted to find out what happens when you
788introduce white Americans to racial
789disparities around criminal justice
790right so a very simple scenario would
791say the more people understand these
792racial disparities the more they will
793understand the problem and want to
794change it right the data knowing the
795data makes you realize you're
796enlightened now you want to change it
797what they found when they approached
798people coming off of the BART first in
799California they wanted to see okay how
800would these people we're gonna show them
801images some people are gonna see images
802with a lower proportion of black faces
803mug shots some are gonna see a higher
804proportion the higher proportion is
805actually more in line with how many
806people are incarcerated in Calif mean
807black people are incarcerated in
808California so there's a deeply skewed
809you know ratio there and so they said
810let's see how these people respond how
811will they respond to signing a petition
812to get rid of or to somehow
813intervene in the three-strikes law right
814one two three strikes you're in jail for
815life so they said okay let's see maybe
816if they understand the greater you know
817disparity they would be willing to sign
818the petition and they found actually no
819the people the white individuals who
820were proposed for this survey the more
821that they saw the images that reflected
822reality which is a deep racial disparity
823in incarceration the less likely they
824were to sign the petition to get rid of
825three strikes right so the researchers
826are trying to understand what's going on
827here so they went to New York they said
828let's approach people you know about the
829stop and frisk law let's see if they're
830willing to try to change a
831stop-and-frisk law again they showed
832them you know some people saw the the
833the statistics that show that the deep
834racial disparity and some people saw a
835lower proportion and the more they were
836exposed to data about the racial
837disparity the less likely they were to
838support the law so we have to ask
839ourselves or change in the law we have
840to ask ourselves what are the
841interpretive lenses what are the stories
842they're telling themselves about why
843these people deserve to be in jail right
844because they're understanding that
845they're more likely to be locked up
846right and oppressed by this law but less
847likely to support it so it's not enough
848for us just to present statistics and
849say here now good now do something
850because people have all kinds of ways in
851which they make sense of that and often
852it just maintains the status quo right
853and it continues to underline the anti
854black racism that's part of this orchard
855that we live in so in this case the
856researchers say that exposure to extreme
857racial disparities may make the white
858public more punitive and less responsive
859to attempts to lessen the severity of
860policies that help maintain those
861disparities so what else do we need what
862else do we have to foster in addition to
863data that complements that frames that
864impresses perhaps even upon the heart
865brain that something is deeply wrong
866right and so this is why we have to
867develop things outside of just our
868so-called IQ
869around this so forth tool in the toolkit
870and I'm wrapping up linguistic
871reflexivity the language we use we have
872to reflect on how we label things how we
873classify things you know I mean in
874sociology we might focus say on the way
875that racial labels are deployed and the
876kinds of common-sense that then take
877shape around you know group making right
878I love this slide because homegirl is
879just like I don't care if you can't
880understand I'm out here in these streets
881all right say you figure it out
882and I just love her so much all right
883but in all seriousness you know the
884words we use the language we use we have
885to do some deeper reflection right on
886that this kind of that our starting
887point if we just go open our computer go
888to your word processor type in two words
889your computer knows one of those words
890and don't know another one of those
891words what is that red line and imply
892it's not a word that means it's not a
893thing if one thing we know from our
894studies in the social sciences is this
895principle of relationality if there's a
896up there's a down there's a rich there's
897a poor right that these things actually
898grow in relation to one another not in
899isolation right our black/white binary
900was created in direct relation to one
901another they they needed one another you
902know Baldwin said you need to figure out
903why you need a nigger right he said I'm
904not one but you need to figure out why
905you need one that is a relational
906question right and so we need to think
907about what it means that in our everyday
908speech in our public discourse we really
909have an impoverished language to
910understand one side of this phenomenon
911right that is those who are unduly
912benefiting from our unjust design
913right until we can develop a language
914around that it's gonna be very hard to
915study it much less produce data around
916it if we don't even have a word for it
917right and so let's call our linguists
918into into the conversation let's call
919our poets if we need words where are our
920poets and that's what I mean by saying
921we can't leave it just to the data
922scientists right we need our poets in
923the room we need our creative writers in
924the room we have to develop a vocabulary
925to even begin to study right and so this
926is what linguistic reflexivity brings to
927the conversation then we have
928technological humility right again
929pushing back against determinism you
930know some forms of determinism say we
931are just oppressed by technology we're
932just downloading it right and some forms
933of determinism say we are liberated by
934technology we just need more technology
935right whether it's the euphoric utopian
936version or the pessimistic dystopian
937version both are forms of determinism
938right and so what we want to do is
939cultivate a more a more reciprocal
940understanding of how this operates fancy
941jargon word from science and technology
942studies is co-production right that
943science us technology and society are
944co-produced they grow together
945one doesn't precede the other so to
946begin to in some ways challenge our
947certainty about the fact that we're
948gonna be taken over by robots or
949liberated by robots both sides of the
950same coin what we have to do is engender
951an openness to uncertainty we don't know
952how this is gonna go but we are going to
953employ our faculties or our agency our
954insights and cultivate this relationship
955with our with our androids ok and so we
956had this example if you all recall a
957year or two ago where we we people were
958trying to understand how did
959happen you type in three black teenagers
960and then what you see and the images are
961mug shots mug socks mug shots you type
962in three white teenagers you see images
963of like little gap stock images right
964and other other racial groups other
965forms of stereotype so we have to
966understand that in some forms of you
967know machine learning where people are
968using training sets and kind of teaching
969the robots how to make assessments and
970decision-making it's a little more
971straightforward perhaps in terms of
972what's happening but here where it's
973learning from us right it's taking the
974associations that exist that we are
975making there's so much uncertainty both
976and how to intervene and how this how
977this was produced now if you you type
978this in you're gonna see all the stories
979about this so it's a little skewed in
980terms of that but in any case the point
981is that you know technological humility
982doesn't mean that you kind of just feel
983like you have no power right it means
984that you are exploring the uncertainties
985involved and trying to experiment and
986challenge and produce new ways of
987designing and relating with with our
988technical infrastructure so here again
989thou shalt use this toolkit it's
990thinking about it's not just data we're
991trying to produce
992justice and equity as values that we're
993embedding in the bench right we're
994thinking ahead about who it can
995potentially exclude who it potentially
996includes and what vision of social life
997and public life do we want to engender
998through our designs and so designing
999differently right in many ways I've
1000given you some big picture things to
1001think about but really what what has to
1002happen is we have to think about the
1003details and that's why it's so crucial
1004that we have these panels over the next
1005day and a half because what we get a
1006chance to do is to go into much closer
1007detail and think through the problems
1008and the possible solutions whether it
1009has to do with healthcare finance media
1010incarceration we have a whole host of
1011individuals who've been thinking hard
1012about
1013these things have more answers than I do
1014and so while I've been really happy to
1015provide some of these more sort of big
1016picture thoughts with you I'm gonna be
1017taking notes over the next day and a
1018half and I hope you'll join me in
1019looking at the details of this together
1020thank you so much for your attention
1021[Applause]
1022[Music]
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