Events

NLM Science, Technology, and Society Lecture | Taking on Big Tech: New Paradigms for New Possibilities

Date: Tuesday, March 15, 2022
Time: 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET
Type of event: NLM Science, Technology, and Society Lecture
Location: Virtual; the lecture will be accessible via NIH VideoCast.

Speaker(s)

Dr. Safiya U. Noble is an internet studies scholar and Professor of Gender Studies and African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where she serves as the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (C2i2). She holds affiliations in the School of Education & Information Studies, and is a Research Associate at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford where she is a Commissioner on the Oxford Commission on AI & Good Governance (OxCAIGG).

In 2021, Dr. Noble was recognized as a MacArthur Foundation Fellow (also known as the “Genius Award”) for her ground-breaking work on algorithmic discrimination, which prompted her founding of a non-profit, Equity Engine, to accelerate investment in companies, education, and networks driven by women of color. She is the author of a best-selling book on racist and sexist algorithmic bias in commercial search engines, entitled Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism (NYU Press), which has been widely-reviewed in scholarly and popular publications.

Event Description

The landscape of information is rapidly shifting as new demands are increasing investment in digital technologies. Yet critical scholars continue to demonstrate how many technologies are shaped by and infused with values that are not impartial, disembodied, or lacking positionality. Technologies hold racial, gender, and class politics. In this talk, Dr. Safiya Noble from the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry will discuss new insights stemming from her recent book, Algorithms of Oppression, and posit emerging work that explores the impact of commercial technologies on the public.

The annual NLM Lecture on Science, Technology, and Society aims to seed conversations across the library, the NIH, and the broader biomedical research community as we seek to fulfill our commitment to advance biomedical discovery and human health for the benefit of all.

The lecture will be available via NIH VideoCast.