Culling for egg production

"May, 1945

Missouri poultry record report

"February, 1948

Frankenstein’s problem

This text is based on an invited address presented at IFIP 8.2 ‘Living with Monsters’ in San Francisco, CA, 11 December 2018. Taking the 200th anniversary of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein as a starting place, I explore questions of autonomy and control with respect to human/technology relations. I consider the ambivalence of these agencies, and recent initiatives in science and technology studies and related fields to reconceptualize the problem as matters of relation and care. While embracing this turn, I reflect as well upon the ambivalences of relation and care, and the need to address the resilient politics of alterity in our figurations (and celebrations) of the monstrous

Complex ecologies of trust in data practices and data-driven systems

Trust in data practices and data-driven systems is widely seen as both important and elusive. A data trust deficit has been identified, to which proposed solutions are often localised or individualised, focusing either on what institutions can do to increase user trust in their data practices or on data management models that empower the individual user. Scholarship on trust often focuses on typologies of trust. This paper shifts the emphasis to those doing the trusting, by presenting findings from empirical research which explored user perspectives on the data practices of the BBC. These findings challenge the assumption that localised or individualised solutions can be effective. They also suggest that conceptualisations of trust in data practices need to account for the complex range of factors which come into play in relation to trust in data and so move beyond the production of typologies. In this paper, we propose the concept of ‘complex ecologies of trust’ as a way of addressing all of these issues

The moral-IT deck:A tool for ethics by design

This paper presents the design process and empirical evaluation of a new tool for enabling ethics by design: The Moral-IT Cards. Better tools are needed to support the role of technologists in addressing ethical issues during system design. These physical cards support reflection by technologists on normative aspects of technology development, specifically on emerging risks, appropriate safeguards and challenges of implementing these in the system. We discuss how the cards were developed and tested within 5 workshops with 20 participants from both research and commercial settings. We consider the role of technologists in ethics from different EU/UK policymaking initiatives and disciplinary perspectives (i.e. Science and Technology Studies (STS), IT Law, Human Computer Interaction (HCI), Computer/Engineering Ethics). We then examine existing ethics by design tools, and other cards based tools before arguing why cards can be a useful medium for addressing complex ethical issues. We present the development process for the Moral-IT cards, document key features of our card design, background on the content, the impact assessment board process for using them and how this was formulated. We discuss our study design and methodology before examining key findings which are clustered around three overarching themes. These are: the value of our cards as a tool, their impact on the technology design process and how they structure ethical reflection practices. We conclude with key lessons and concepts such as how they level the playing field for debate; enable ethical clustering, sorting and comparison; provide appropriate anchors for discussion and highlighted the intertwined nature of ethics.Comment: Governance and Regulation; Design Tools; Responsible Research and Innovation; Ethics by Design; Games; Human Computer Interaction, Card Based Tool

Nurturing the young shoots of talent: Using action research for exploration and theory building

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 19(4), 433-450, 2011, copyright Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/1350293X.2011.623515.This paper reports the outcomes of a set of action research projects carried out by teacher researchers in 14 local education authorities in England, working collaboratively with university tutors, over a period of three years. The common aim of all the projects was to explore practical ways of nurturing the gifts and talents of children aged four–seven years. The project was funded by the Department of Education and Skills in England as part of the government's gifted and talented programme. The project teachers felt that their understanding of issues relating to nurturing the gifts and talents of younger children was enhanced through their engagement in the project. It was possible to map the findings of the projects to the English government's National Quality Standards for gifted and talented education which include: (1) identification; (2) effective provision in the classroom; (3) enabling curriculum entitlement and choice; (4) assessment for learning; (5) engaging with community, families and beyond. The findings are also analysed within the framework of good practice in educating children in the first years of schooling. Participating practitioners felt that action research offered them a suitable methodology to explore the complexity of the topic of giftedness through cycles of planning, action and reflection and personal theory building

The golden circle: A way of arguing and acting about technology in the London ambulance service

This paper analyses the way in which the London Ambulance Service recovered from the events of October 1992, when it implemented a computer-aided despatch system (LASCAD) that remained in service for less than two weeks. It examines the enactment of a programme of long-term organizational change, focusing on the implementation of an alternative computer system in 1996. The analysis in this paper is informed by actor-network theory, both by an early statement of this approach developed by Callon in the sociology of translation, and also by concepts and ideas from Latour’s more recent restatement of his own position. The paper examines how alternative interests emerged and were stabilized over time, in a way of arguing and acting among key players in the change programme, christened the Golden Circle. The story traces four years in the history of the London Ambulance Service, from the aftermath of October 1992 through the birth of the Golden Circle to the achievement of National Health Service (NHS) trust status. LASCAD was the beginning of the story, this is the middle, an end lies in the future, when the remaining elements of the change programme are enacted beyond the Golden Circle

When algorithms shape collective action: Social media and the dynamics of cloud protesting

How does the algorithmically mediated environment of social media restructure social action? This article combines social movement studies and science and technology studies to explore the role of social media in the organization, unfolding, and diffusion of contemporary protests. In particular, it examines how activists leverage the technical properties of social media to develop a joint narrative and a collective identity. To this end, it offers the notion of cloud protesting as a theoretical approach and framework for empirical analysis. Cloud protesting indicates a specific type of mobilization that is grounded on, modeled around, and enabled by social media platforms and mobile devices and the virtual universes they identify. The notion emphasizes both the productive mediation of social and mobile media and the importance of activists’ sense-making activities. It also acknowledges that social media set in motion a process that is sociotechnical in nature rather than merely sociological or communicative, and thus can be understood only by intersecting the material and the symbolic dimensions of contemporary digitally mediated collective action. The article shows how the specific materiality of social media intervenes in the actors’ meaning work by fostering four mechanisms—namely performance, interpellation, temporality, and reproducibility—which concur to create a "politics of visibility" that alters traditional identity dynamics. In addition, it exposes the connection between organizational patterns and the role of individuals, explaining how the politics of visibility is the result of a process that originates and ends within the individual—which ultimately creates individuals-in-the-group rather than groups