The Behavioral Data Debate We Need
Our Executive Director Stephanie Hankey writes for Project Syndicate about how we use systems driven by big data in crises such as the coronavirus pandemic.
Efficiency and Madness
'This essay is a kind of call to action to experts from different disciplines, and to techies and non-techies alike, to find different ways of thinking about data-driven technologies and how they change the way we live. It is a call to approach them with both enthusiasm and caution, to recognise them as both efficiency and madness and to see them as an integral part of broader politics, power dynamics and worldviews.' Efficiency and Madness
Commissioned and published by the Heinrich Böll Foundation and written by Tactical Tech co-founders Stephanie Hankey and Marek Tuszynski, this essay explores the concept of 'technofixes' - using digital technologies and data to solve the world’s biggest problems.
Starting with a broad conceptual analysis of the field as it stands, the essay then takes a more detailed look at data-driven technologies and how they are being used to solve problems. To conclude, it makes a case for why we cannot leave the challenges posed by data-driven technologies to technologists.
The essay can be downloaded as a free PDF here.
Related content
La technologie est stupide : comment choisir la technologie pour le travail à distance
Cet article aborde les questions de savoir quelle technologie est bonne, sûre et appropriée à utiliser en ces temps complexes si nous voulons agir et travailler de manière responsable et à distance. Comment décider de la technologie à laquelle nous devons faire confiance ? Il examine également ce qui pourrait être fait à l'avenir pour répondre à cette question beaucoup plus facilement qu'aujourd'hui.
→︎ Read more
"Technology is Stupid": How to Choose Tech for Remote Working
Tactical Tech's co-founder Marek Tuszynski addresses the question of which technology is good, safe and appropriate to help us act and work responsibly and remotely during the coronavirus pandemic - and how to make answering this question easier in the future.
→︎ Read more
Shrinking Civil Space: A Digital Perspective
This paper looks at shrinking civic space in terms of the digital, in particular the role that digital technologies can have on restricting the spaces of civil society organisations and their activities.
→︎ Read more
Machine Learning Harassment
Caroline Sinders explains how machine learning is already changing product design and software and how this might impact ethics and the agency of humans.
Victim blaming meets technological objectivity: Anti-rape technology and its design
Kate J. Sim examines how the prevailing cultural notion of sexual assault survivors as liars, and the widely held belief of technological objectivity, converge to instruct the design of anti-rape technologies.
On Weaponised Design
Weaponised design is a process that allows for harm of users within the defined bounds of a designed system. This article takes a look at how it can be faciliated by designers who are oblivious to the politics of digital infrastructure or consider their design practice output to be apolitical.
Quantifying Homosexuality: A Critique
This article examines a few moments related to the history of homosexuality and its categorisation. It starts with recent facial recognition algorithms to distinguish straight and gay faces and ends with Alan Turing’s questions about gender and The Imitation Game.
