[Air-L] Any sociological or STS research on machine learning?

Josh Scannell joshua.scannell at gmail.com
Sat Jan 13 13:46:12 PST 2018


I also agree with this!

This has been shared before, but it may be worth reposting: The SMC's
breakdown of critical algorithm studies reading is totally clutch
https://socialmediacollective.org/reading-lists/critical-algorithm-studies/

On Sat, Jan 13, 2018 at 4:32 PM, Stephen Paff <stephen.paff at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Thank you, Dan and Josh, and thank you Dr. Burrell for sharing your work
> and other work. As I have been looking through it, I am starting to see
> what you two are saying: it is phenomenal.
>
> Thank you everyone else who responded with sources and scholars. These
> have been really thought provoking and beneficial for my research. If
> anyone comes across anything else in the anthropology of machine learning
> or related broader topic areas like the anthropology of algorithms, data
> science, data analysis, big data, statistics, etc., please send them my
> way. Any related topics from other disciplines like sociology, STS, media
> studies, computer science, math, etc. would be helpful as well.
>
> Sincerely,
> Stephen
>
> On Sat, Jan 13, 2018 at 2:01 PM, Josh Scannell <joshua.scannell at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I agree with this ^
>>
>> On Sat, Jan 13, 2018 at 2:52 PM Dan L. Burk <dburk at uci.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> Dr. Burrell is being very modest here -- her recommendations are all
>>> great stuff of course, but her piece is really required reading --
>>> extraordinarily thoughtful and useful.
>>>
>>> Cheers, DLB
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> Dan L. Burk
>>> Chancellor's Professor of Law
>>> University of California, Irvine
>>> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>>> 2017-18 Fulbright Cybersecurity Scholar
>>>
>>> On 2018-01-12 09:25, Jenna Burrell wrote:
>>>
>>> > Hi Stephen and AIR-L,
>>> >
>>> > Yes, there's a lot of work by sociologists and STS researchers on
>>> machine
>>> > learning, including books published in the last year or about to come
>>> out...
>>> >
>>> > Virginia Eubanks book *Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools
>>> Profile,
>>> > Punish and Police the Poor* is about to come out. I believe it's an
>>> > ethnography and that it deals, at least in part, with applications of
>>> > machine learning (in areas like predictive policing).
>>> >
>>> > There's a new book out by STS scholar Adrien Mackenzie *Machine
>>> Learners* -
>>> > https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/machine-learners
>>> >
>>> > Also look at what Nick Seaver has written. He has an ethnography
>>> coming out
>>> > on music recommendation systems/algorithms (http://nickseaver.net/)
>>> >
>>> > Malte Ziewitz did an ethnography of the search engine optimization
>>> industry
>>> > and has done lots of work in this space - http://zwtz.org/
>>> >
>>> > Marion Foucade has a deeply sociological read on this topic and has
>>> written
>>> > a great piece about the "mechanisms" that produce "classification
>>> > situations" which are consequential to life circumstances (she doesn't
>>> use
>>> > the phrase machine learning, but certainly ML compose some of the
>>> > underlying 'mechanisms' she is concerned with) - http://www.
>>> > sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0361368213000743
>>> >
>>> > I've also written something in this space: "How the machine 'thinks':
>>> > Understanding opacity in machine learning algorithms"
>>> > http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2053951715622512 - I'm a
>>> > sociologist and an ethnographer, though this particular piece isn't
>>> > ethnographic.
>>> >
>>> > This list just scratches the surface ... there's just so much work
>>> coming
>>> > out in this space so I'll just offer some names of other people to look
>>> > into: Solon Barocas, Karen Levy, Kate Crawford, Christian Sandvig,
>>> Tarleton
>>> > Gillespie, Angele Christen, Mike Ananny, Nick Diakopolous, Luke Stark.
>>> Plus
>>> > lots of people doing work in this space at Data & Society (
>>> > https://datasociety.net/).
>>> >
>>> > Jenna Burrell
>>> > Associate Professor
>>> > School of Information
>>> > UC-Berkeley
>>> >
>>> > On Fri, Jan 12, 2018 at 8:29 AM, Yosem Companys <ycompanys at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> >
>>> >> From: Stephen Paff <stephen.paff at gmail.com>
>>> >>
>>> >> Hello everyone,
>>> >>
>>> >> I am conducting research into the anthropology of machine learning.
>>> Does
>>> >> anyone know of ethnographies of the development, implementation,
>>> and/or use
>>> >> of machine learning algorithms? Are there any sociologists, STS
>>> >> researchers, or scholars from other related fields studying machine
>>> >> learning whose work I should look into as well?
>>> >>
>>> >> Sincerely,
>>> >> Stephen Paff
>>> >> _______________________________________________
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>> --
>> Sent from my transhuman digital interface
>>
>
>


-- 
R. Joshua Scannell /  Sociology Ph.D. CUNY Graduate Center / Adjunct
Lecturer, Sociology and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Hunter
College / Email: Joshua.Scannell at gmail.com / Cell: (860) 759-2304



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