Beyond Ethics in Data Mining. For a Political Discussion of a Political Issue

16 January 2020

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In his talk on January 16, 2020, Professor Bernhard Rieder will discuss data mining - understood as the purpose driven reading of empirical reality - in relation to recent debates about the "ethical issues" raised by these practices. While the identification of such issues - and proposals for possible "solutions" - certainly has merit, we should ask what the focus on codes of conduct and on values such as privacy, transparency, and accountability leaves unsaid and unexamined. Such an interrogation must engage the epistemological specificities of data mining practices as well as their embedding in larger technical systems, regulatory regimes, and systems of value. Through this, Bernhard Rieder hopes to frame data mining as a political problem that requires a broader scope than ethical reasoning alone can provide.