Date: Tuesday, February 18, 2025
Time: 2-3:30 p.m.
Location: DGP Seminar room, Suite #5166
There is no registration required to attend this event in person. However, seating is limited, so arriving early is recommended.
Speaker: Naseem Ahmadpour
Talk title: “Ethics, epistemic tension, and knowledge production in sociotechnical systems”
Abstract:
This talk analyzes the thriving yet ambiguously complex domain of ethical innovation. Ethics is often associated with preventing harm and adhering to a moral choice. Through analyzing cases and research projects, I problematize ethics as is known in the tech industry and education. I provide an overview of research on the emergence of ethical tensions in these areas due to a mismatch between what one believes to be the right thing to do and what they feel they ought to do. I present research suggesting that legitimizing such tensions and using care-full approaches such as community building would contribute to addressing ethical tensions productively. I argue that even in such caring environments where innovators set intentions to address ethics, there exists an epistemic tension due to asymmetry between the knowledge they use to speculate harm and how harm is experienced in real world. I draw attention in particular to innovation in and through generative AI and demonstrate that a lack of epistemic vision influences relations, decision making, and norms of knowledge production in sociotechnical systems.
Bio:
Naseem Ahmadpour is an associate professor in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney. She leads the Affective Interactions lab where she conducts research on human-computer interaction (HCI). Her research is interdisciplinary and broadly explores and critiques new imaginaries in the future of care and work, as well as ethical approaches to innovating sociotechnical systems that increasingly shape those futures.