Our 2021 theme art, titled ‘Intersection’, was created by creative technologist and artist, Kerry Harrison, using a combination of machine learning and traditional art-making techniques. Read the behind-the-scenes story of how this image came to be.
How do we respond to the problems in tech using our abilities?
Digital technologies, devices and data are woven into the fabric of contemporary societies. The digital and the social are now co-evolving — in a ‘sociodigital’ world — with emergent consequences that raise profound challenges for equality, social cohesion and sustainability. Most of the time we are left wondering how we got here. And fearful for what will happen next.
The big question is: how can we be response-able for this world in the making?
How do we create technology that doesn’t exacerbate or reinforce existing social and economic inequalities? This question has been central to the conference since it was inaugurated in 2019. The tagline for the conference, ‘Championing socially-responsible tech’, invites the tech industry and researchers to reflect on what actions we can take to address inequalities.
Companies building technology “have a right to advance the art of technology in many different ways and use what they can to best advantage”, but they also have a “responsibility to the people who will be affected by it”. In developing tech, we must always bring the focus back to people and society and create technology that augments human capabilities rather than replacing them, and build tech that works for people, demonstrably and measurably.
From the many articles and papers published over the past few years, we know what the critiques are. The question is: what do we do?
From the many articles and papers published over the past few years, we know what the critiques are. The question is: what do we do? We must instead focus on achieving actual change.
How do we respond to problems that have already arisen? And how do we create technologies that guard against future problems? What kind of collaborations does this demand across different forms of expertise and different sectors? How can we work together to create the response-abilities we need to shape our sociodigital futures? How do we respond to the problems in tech using our abilities?
The Anthropology + Technology Conference has been renamed the Response-ability Summit to reflect this focus on action, and broaden the conversation beyond anthropology to the social sciences generally.
The 2021 Call for Presentations is now closed.