Program
VLDB 2020 Tokyo 46th International Conference on Very Large Data Bases

VLDB2020: Special Session on Racism & Technology, Invited Talk

Title
2020 Vision: Reimagining the Default Settings of Technology & Society
Speaker
Ruha Benjamin
Primary
2020-09-02T19:00:00Z

Abstract

From everyday apps to complex algorithms, technology has the potential to hide, speed, and deepen discrimination, while appearing neutral and even benevolent when compared to racist practices of a previous era. In this talk, Ruha explores a range of discriminatory designs that encode inequity: by explicitly amplifying racial hierarchies, by ignoring but thereby replicating social divisions, or by aiming to fix racial bias but ultimately doing quite the opposite. This presentation takes us into the world of biased bots, altruistic algorithms, and their many entanglements, and provides conceptual tools to decode tech promises with historically and sociologically-informed skepticism. In doing so, it challenges us to question not only the technologies we are sold, but also the ones we manufacture ourselves.

Bio

Ruha Benjamin is Associate Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, Founding Director of the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab, and author of the award-winning book Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code (2019) among numerous other publications. For more info visit www.ruhabenjamin.com.