STS Circle - April 4 - Mary Gray

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From: Harvard Sts Program <s...@hks.harvard.edu>

View this email in your browser STS Circle at Harvard Mary Gray Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research and Faculty Associate at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society The Trouble with Dogfood: Towards a Theory of Mutuality in Computing Abstract:  12:15-1:30 pm Monday, April 4, 2022 Virtual via Zoom Register Here Abstract: This talk draws on Mary L. Gray’s current book project to ask: If computing begins with an idea, a rough sketch of something possible, it also triggers connecting to an imagined self and others. Friends in code may then share something they’ve built and circulate it among those willing to give it a try. But what happens when this gesture of friendly experimentation shifts to something less generous—a power move that pushes technologies to scale through imposition? The talk traces the history and tacit theory of power embedded in the practice of ‘dogfooding’ to argue for the need to develop an explicit analysis of power in computing. Using the case of building software with community healthcare workers, Gray will map out an alternate route to building sociotechnical systems, outlining what anti-racist, queer feminist critiques can offer computing as a different path forward for the future of socially-accountable tech.   Bio: Mary L. Gray is Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research and Faculty Associate at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. She maintains a faculty position in the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering with affiliations in Anthropology and Gender Studies at Indiana University. Mary, an anthropologist and media scholar by training, focuses on how people’s everyday uses of technologies transform labor, identity, and human rights. In 2019, Mary co-authored (with computer scientist Siddharth Suri), Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass, studying workers’ experiences of on-demand information service jobs—from content moderation and data-labeling to telehealth—work that is essential to the global growth of artificial intelligence and platform economies more broadly. It was named a Financial Times’ Critic’s Pick and awarded the McGannon Center for Communication Research Book Prize in 2019 and has been translated into Korean and Chinese. Mary earned her PhD in Communication from the University of California at San Diego in 2004, under the direction of Susan Leigh Star. In 2020, Mary was named a MacArthur Fellow for her contributions to anthropology and the study of technology, digital economies, and society. The Harvard STS Circle is run by the Program on Science, Technology and Society and co-sponsored by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and the Harvard University Center for the Environment.   Forward to a Friend