Lecture on June 11, 2024
Growing Up in the Midst of the AI Goldrush: from Data Scares to Data Scars
Prof. Dr. Andra Siibak (University of Tartu, Estland)
About the lecture [poster, pdf]
Present day children’s futures are decided by algorithms predicting their probability of success at school, their suitability for a job position, their likely recidivism or mental health problems. Advances in predictive analytics, artificial intelligence (AI) systems, behavioral-, and biometrics technologies, have started to be aggressively used for monitoring, aggregating, and analyzing children’s data. Such dataveillance happening both in homes, schools, and peer networks has a profound impact not only on children’s preferences, social relations, life chances, rights and privacy but also the “future of human agency - and ultimately, of society and culture “ (Mascheroni & Siibak 2021: 169).
Building upon the findings of my different empirical case studies, I will showcase how the popular digital parenting practices and the growing datafication happening in the education sector, could create not only hypothetical data scares but also lead to real data scars in the lives of the young.
About the speaker
Andra Siibak is a Professor of Media Studies, a Deputy Head of Research and Development and a Program Director of the Doctoral Curriculum in Media and Communication at the Institute of Social Studies, University of Tartu. Her research focuses on opportunities and risks surrounding internet use, digital childhoods, datafication of education and privacy. Together with Giovanna Mascheroni she co-authored a monograph “Datafied Childhoods: Data Practices and Imaginaries in Children’s Lives” (2021, Peter Lang). Andra is a member of Film, Media, and Visual Studies section of Academia Europaea and serves as the General Secretary of European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA). From April-June 2023 Andra is a Fellow at the Hamburg Institute of Advanced Study (HIAS).
photo credit:private
Tuesday, 11. June 2024, 18:15-19:45 (CEST)
Address for joining us on-site:
Flügelbau West, 2. OG, Raum W221
Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1
20146 Hamburg
