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NYC Tech
Events Weekly
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Science & Society - AI & Us
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| With Joshua Jelly-Schapiro (Dir. Publishing, Pioneer Works), Kate Crawford (AI Researcher), Ruha Benjamin (Sociologist). |
| Pioneer Works, 159 Pioneer St, Brooklyn
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Mar 12 (Wed) , 2025 @ 07:30 PM
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FREE |
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/-74.01215363,40.67924881,13,0,0/550x200?access_token=pk.eyJ1IjoiZ2FyeXNndWlkZSIsImEiOiJjamtobmRiYmgwb3gwM3F1a2o2Mmd0YWw3In0.DinA62CR3-OKtf3axa5O7Q)
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| DETAILS |
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Join us for a very special conversation with two of the world's leading voices on AI: Professor Ruha Benjamin & Professor Kate Crawford. Benjamin is a sociologist & scholar of race, technology, & justice, while Crawford is an AI researcher & expert on the social & political impacts of artificial intelligence. Hosted by our Director of Publishing Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, they will discuss the growing prevalence of AI, & its impact, for the next session of Science & Society.
In an age of rampant techno-optimism (and growing techno-anxiety), AI is playing an ever-more central role in how we live, work, think & play: in the conduct of government, in the futures we imagine for ourselves & our species. How should we understand the biases baked into large language models, & other large data sets? How can we best demystify & account for the real & human costs of new technologies & the infrastructures they need? Who controls our data, & governs its use? What potentials exist for using AI, & other technologies, as tools not for bolstering extant iniquities but advancing justice?
After the conversation, join us in the garden for stargazing with the Amateur Astronomers Association. Eritrean-Ethiopian food will be available for purchase throughout the evening by Makina Cafe. Please note that seating is limited & will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis.
About the speakers
Ruha Benjamin is a distinguished sociologist & transdisciplinary scholar at the intersections of science, technology, medicine, & society, with a particular focus on how innovation can perpetuate or mitigate social inequities. She holds the position of Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University & is the founding director of the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab, an initiative that seeks to harness data as a tool for justice. Her postdoctoral work includes fellowships at UCLA's Institute for Society & Genetics & Harvard University's Science, Technology, & Society Program. Throughout her career, Benjamin has authored several impactful books that explore the complex relationships between race, technology, & justice, including People's Science: Bodies & Rights on the Stem Cell Frontier (2013), Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code (2019), Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want (2022), & Imagination: A Manifesto (2024). Benjamin was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2024.
Kate Crawford is a research professor at USC Annenberg, a Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research New York, & a leading scholar on the social & political impacts of artificial intelligence. She is the author of Atlas of AI: Power, Politics & the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence (winner of the Sally Hacker Prize), which explores how AI systems are shaped by history, power, & material resources. Crawford is also a co-founder of the Knowing Machines Project, investigating the epistemology of machine learning. Her latest work, Calculating Empires, spans exhibitions in Tokyo, Paris, Barcelona, Gijn, & Prague, examining the intersections of AI, governance, & global infrastructures.
Ruha Benjamin & Kate Crawford will be in conversation hosted by Joshua-Jelly Schapiro.
Joshua Jelly-Schapiro is a geographer & writer, & he is Director of Publishing at Pioneer Works & the Executive Editor of Pioneer Works Broadcast. His books include Names of New York: Discovering the City's Past, Present, & Future Through Its Place-Names & Island People: The Caribbean & the World.
The Science & Society series grapples with our relationships with nature & each other. Each leads us deep into humanity's timely & intersectional challenges, from biodiversity, to plastics, public knowledge, the high seas, farming, climate, & love. The series is supported by the Simons Foundation, & the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Program in Public Understanding of Science & Technology, bridging the two cultures of science & the arts.
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