Algorithms & Data Literacy

Track:

Host:

Esko Reinikainen

Place:

Hall H

Time:

15:15 - 16:30 Thursday

Perspective:

Business:

Legal:

Tech:

Society:

This session includes the following presentations:

  • Algorithmic Literacy, by Ansgar Koene

As part of the increasingly personalised service offering of online platforms, algorithmic systems that mine personal data such as personalised product recommendations, news feeds and search results have come to dominate the online experiences of many users. Despite the ubiquity of their application however, awareness about algorithmic systems remains very low, and often confused. This hands-on workshop will be an interactive session aimed at exploring awareness building around algorithms in online platforms, through the use of the “UnBias Awareness Cards”. We will introduce the awareness cards and invite everyone to take part in activities designed to encourage critical and civic thinking for exploring how decisions are made by algorithms, and the impact that these decisions may have on our lives and the lives of others.

  • Bad Data Challenge, by Victoria Peuvrelle

We propose a challenge for the participants to investigate and communicate bad data problems (data-sets of -or containing- lost data, incompatible data, corrupted data, out-of-date data, etc…). Oriented towards committed individuals working together, the ideal participants would be teams combining both engineers, data scientists, storytellers, investigative reporters… But anyone interested is very welcome. We’ll be digging into the everyday life costs of biased algorithms, seeing how related work already exists in the context of policing and sentencing software. The objective is to collect and document examples of how bad data is affecting everyday life in order to advocate for the necessary measures to minimize and avoid this negative impact.

Presenters and host: