The Record

Sonic Privacy

Advances in data collection and processing have facilitated ultra- and infra-sonic machine-listening and learning. This requires the recognition of sonic privacy, protection for our “sonic data:” those representations or observations that define the characteristics of sound and its cognitive and emotive forces. This right would protect (non)participation in the public sphere.

Seeing Like an Algorithmic Error: What are Algorithmic Mistakes, Why Do They Matter, How Might They Be Public Problems?

Algorithmic “mistakes” are windows into the social and technological forces that create computational systems. They reveal the assumptions that drive system designers, the power that some people have to define success and call out errors, and how far institutions are willing to go to fix failures. Using a recent case of facial detection and remote proctoring, I suggest “seeing like an algorithmic error” as a way to turn seemingly simple quirks and individually felt glitches into shared social consequences that shape social life— that is, into public problems.

If Research Agenda Were Honest

Aspiring scholars are often asked: What is your research agenda? If my research agenda were honest, my response would unapologetically be that I have no research agenda and that I, like Toni Morrison and possibly many others, mostly write about what I want to read but have yet to be written. As one’s own ideas, especially on perspective and whole view, change as she gains experience, her writings after all become just little fragments of her fleece left upon the hedges of life.

Is Spotify Bad for Democracy?

Much scholarly attention has recently been devoted to ways in which artificial intelligence (AI) might weaken formal political democracy, but little attention has been devoted to the effect of AI on “cultural democracy”—that is, democratic control over the forms of life, aesthetic values, and conceptions of the good that circulate in a society. This work is the first to consider in detail the dangers that AI-driven cultural recommendations pose to cultural democracy.

Access to A.I. Justice: Avoiding an Inequitable Two-Tiered System of Legal Services

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been heralded for its potential to help close the access to justice gap. It can increase efficiencies, democratize access to legal information, and help consumers solve their own legal problems or connect them with licensed professionals who can.