17.806 Quantitative Research Methods IV: Advanced Topics
Author: In Song Kim
Lecture Module: “Analyzing the Impact of Police Stopping in Political Behavior”
Keywords: policing, stop-question-and-frisk, racial minorities, political behavior
Module Goals: This problem set explores how/whether policing against citizens and against racial minorities affects political behavior by leveraging a variety of data sources available online, including micro-level administrative data on policing.
Considered Design Cards
Authors: Mikaela Springsteen, Madhurima Das, Swati Gupta
The activities which these cards contain are designed to subvert expectations and elicit conversation regarding the social and ethical responsibilities associated with design. They are organized into five categories: inputs, processes, outputs, feedback loops, and ecosystems, each of which focuses on a different part of the design or product lifecycle.
These cards are intended to help foster in users a creative and flexible approach to the potential impacts of a design process, rather than treating any such outcomes or impacts as a formulaic “check-box” aspect of design. Indeed, flexibility is built into the very nature of the cards themselves—these cards can be used in a variety of settings, and while the cards may have specific time and material requirements listed, they can often be adapted and “remixed” to suit specific learning environments and contexts.
MIT Case Studies in Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing
Brief, specially commissioned and peer-reviewed cases intended to be effective for undergraduate instruction across a range of classes and fields of study.
Summer 2024
From Mining to E-waste: The Environmental and Climate Justice Implications of the Electronics Hardware Life Cycle, by Lelia Hampton, Madeline Schlegel, Ellie Bultena, Jasmin Liu, Anastasia Dunca, Mrinalini Singha, Sungmoon Lim, Lauren Higgins, and Christopher Rabe
Keywords: environmental justice, climate justice, electronics, mining, manufacturing, e-waste, life cycle assessment, circular economy
Winter 2024
AI’s Regimes of Representation: A Community-Centered Study of Text-to-Image Models in South Asia, by Rida Qadri, Renee Shelby, Cynthia L. Bennett, and Remi Denton
Keywords: human-centered AI, AI harms, text-to-image models, generative AI, non-Western AI fairness, South Asia
Winter 2023
Emotional Attachment to AI Companions and European Law, by Claire Boine (University of Ottawa)
Keywords: AI law, AI companions, human-machine interactions, data privacy, consumer protection
Twitter Gamifies the Conversation, by C. Thi Nguyen (University of Utah), Meica Magnani (Northeastern University), and Susan Kennedy (Santa Clara University)
Keywords: social media, social epistemology, Twitter, gamification, value capture, technology ethics
Summer 2022
Patenting Bias: Algorithmic Race and Ethnicity Classifications, Proprietary Rights, and Public Data, by Tiffany Nichols (Harvard University)
Keywords: racial and ethnic classifications, algorithmic bias, patents, public data
Winter 2022
The Cloud Is Material: On the Environmental Impacts of Computation and Data Storage, by Steven Gonzalez Monserrate (MIT)
Keywords: climate change, Anthropocene, data centers, data storage, digital ecology, materiality of computation, sustainable computing
Algorithmic Redistricting and Black Representation in US Elections, by Zachary Schutzman (MIT)
Keywords: redistricting, algorithms, race, politics, elections
Summer 2021
Understanding Potential Sources of Harm throughout the Machine Learning Life Cycle, by Harini Suresh and John Guttag
Keywords: fairness in machine learning, societal implications of machine learning, algorithmic bias, AI ethics
Public Debate on Facial Recognition Technologies in China, by Tristan G. Brown, Alexander Statman, and Celine Sui
Keywords: facial recognition, Chinese law, social media
Protections for Human Subjects in Research: Old Models, New Needs?, by Laura Stark (Vanderbilt University)
Keywords: human-subjects research, informed consent, institutional review boards, big data
