A Usable Past for a Democratic Future: How Looking Backward Can Help Us Navigate the Digital Revolution

Wednesday, October 27, 5:00pm - 6:30pm (EDT)

Time shown in-04:00 America, New York

Lizzie O’Shea
Lawyer and writer
Founder of Digital Rights Watch

Abstract: Too often, technology is presented without context. It is treated as a natural phenomenon or a force of nature, inevitable and unstoppable. To make sense of our digital present, there is an instinctive sense that we need to imagine the future, and bend society around the path determined for us by tech.

But making technology is a human activity, and the technological problems we face are human problems. An understanding of history, philosophy, sociology and the arts is invaluable to making sense of technological problems. If we want to reclaim the present as the cause of a different future, we don't just need coders and engineers, we need people from all different disciplines to collaborate and make the most of the potential of the digital revolution.

Through this collaboration, we can create a digital future in which we are not treated as nameless cohorts to be processed by machines, or raw data for analyzing, but instead understood as people with agency, dignity, curiosity and desire to shape our own destiny. The stakes could not be higher: as we face problems like the climate crisis, wealth inequality and the decay of social democracies, it is vital that we find ways to make technology work for the many, not the few.

Register here.

Add to Calendar 2021/10/27 17:00:00 2021/10/27 18:30:00 America/New_York A Usable Past for a Democratic Future: How Looking Backward Can Help Us Navigate the Digital Revolution Lizzie O’Shea
Lawyer and writer
Founder of Digital Rights Watch

Abstract: Too often, technology is presented without context. It is treated as a natural phenomenon or a force of nature, inevitable and unstoppable. To make sense of our digital present, there is an instinctive sense that we need to imagine the future, and bend society around the path determined for us by tech.

But making technology is a human activity, and the technological problems we face are human problems. An understanding of history, philosophy, sociology and the arts is invaluable to making sense of technological problems. If we want to reclaim the present as the cause of a different future, we don't just need coders and engineers, we need people from all different disciplines to collaborate and make the most of the potential of the digital revolution.

Through this collaboration, we can create a digital future in which we are not treated as nameless cohorts to be processed by machines, or raw data for analyzing, but instead understood as people with agency, dignity, curiosity and desire to shape our own destiny. The stakes could not be higher: as we face problems like the climate crisis, wealth inequality and the decay of social democracies, it is vital that we find ways to make technology work for the many, not the few.

Register here. Online - Registration Required ( see below) false MM/DD/YYYY 30 OPAQUE aomuBSIqfzhKxWLGPmQv111967

Online - Registration Required ( see below)

Jody L Stockdill, joc10@pitt.edu

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