Lecture on January 16th, 2020
Beyond Ethics in Data Mining. For a Political Discussion of a Political Issue
Bernhard Rieder (University of Amsterdam)
About the lecture
This talk 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, I hope to frame data mining as a political problem that requires a broader scope than ethical reasoning alone can provide.
About the speaker
Bernhard Rieder is Associate Professor of New Media and Digital Culture at the University of Amsterdam and a collaborator with the Digital Methods Initiative. His research focuses on the history, theory, and politics of software and in particular on the role algorithms play in social processes and in the production of knowledge and culture. This includes work on the analysis, development, and application of computational research methods as well as investigation into the political and economic challenges posed by large online platform.
photo credit: private
Thursday, 16. January 2020, 18:15-19:45
Main Campus, lecture hall H
Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1
20146 Hamburg
poster lecture Bernhard Rieder [pdf]
programme "Taming the Machines" [pdf] in winter 2019/20
site plans:
lecture halls at Edmund-Siemers Allee 1: ESA1 [pdf]
University of Hamburg (Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1 is number 12 in C3 of the map): UHH [pdf]