Algorithms and Us

FAIN: GA-255924-17

SUNY Research Foundation, Stony Brook (Stony Brook, NY 11794-0001)
Eliza J Reilly (Project Director: December 2016 to July 2018)

The proposed project is a symposium “Algorithms and Us” to be held in late spring 2017 at Stony Brook University. The convening of experts and educators from the humanities, social sciences and STEM fields, will explore, from the perspective of the humanities, the expanding technological phenomenon of “big data” and its impact on our social economic, political, and emotional lives. While the collection of personal data affects nearly every aspect of contemporary life, general knowledge and awareness of how this data is analyzed and used lags far behind the technology and its ethical, social, and civic implications are relatively obscure to most people. The outcome of this cross-disciplinary convening will be to identify potential resources, texts, models, and formats for future programming that would illuminate and investigate this phenomenon for the public.