Research

Abstract:

Facial biometric systems potentially allow for the overt and covert detection of a person for a range of use case scenarios. This article considers a human resource management (HRM) workplace scenario where employees are monitored through cameras on personal electronic devices for the purposes of facial emotion recognition. The applications described pertain broadly to the “future of work” context. The article considers how employers, would use employee facial emotion data for data-driven decision-making in, for example, the construction and optimization of virtual teams, appropriateness for promotion to leadership positions, and fitness-to-task in mission critical work. Building on the outcomes of a socio-technical study, the initial component of which was an FER prototype, this paper considers the social implications and policy recommendations of the deployment of the technical system. Findings indicate that coded biases in determinations of FER include possible discrimination against women, racial minorities, undocumented immigrants and refugees, and people with visible and invisible disabilities.

Abstract: In this paper, we propose the concept of cyberpositionality in order to reconceptualize our social positions in the hybridized and multidimensional realities of the digital age. Drawing deeply from critical feminist science and technology studies and feminist epistemologies, we articulate cyberpositionality as the fluid relationship between information systems and the cultural, social, and political dimensions of their users. We articulate three key tensions at the heart of cyberpositionalities: 1) Our digital positions are not neutral nor mimetic reflections of our analog social locations, 2) Time and place in digital systems have unique rhythms, 3) Digital social relations are always mediated and surveilled. We elaborate on each of these tensions, exploring implications related to ontology, geography, temporality, authenticity, and identity. We close with a call to invite other scholars to reimagine the complex entanglements of colliding digital and physical realities through the lenses of cyberpositionality.

Abstract: The inception of artificial intelligence (AI) dates back to the 1950s, with the latest wave of AI featuring unprecedented “machine learning” capabilities, including “deep learning.” With these increased capacities, AI is disrupting society in both beneficial and disempowering ways, exemplified in medical and scientific advances and enabling oppressive surveillance [1]. The rate of adoption and potential of this wave of AI are novel, as are the socio-technical problems developing with emerging technologies powered by AI.