The Automated Society Working Group
The Automated Society Working Group
Could we be replaced by a robot or AI in our workplaces? What might happen if our personal data gets fed into a machine intelligence? Can we even trust the videos that we see of major political leaders?
We use interdisciplinary research approaches to explore aspects of digital automation and subsequent potential complications. We use our knowledge of historical shifts in industry and computing, our knowledge of infrastructure and policy, our technical capacities in digital media research methods, and ethnographic research methods to investigate real experiences of automated systems. We address issues faced by the public and contribute to public debate and policy on the automated society.
Professor Mark Andrejevic has been announced as Chief Investigator for the new ARC Centre of Excellence on Automated Decision Making and Society. This Centre has been awarded a $31.8m grant, led by RMIT, and will help lead the conversation on the intersections between humanity and technology. Read the ARC press release here.
Methodological innovations
Our research assesses both cases and general society-wide developments. We use quantitative research methods including data analytics, data capture and analysis; humanistic and qualitative methods including survey, interview, and case study approaches; and analytical methods built from our research experience, including policy analysis, platform and infrastructure studies, and intercultural communication.
Research interests
Our research interests cover a range of exciting new technologies:
- Smart cities – technologically-enhanced urban environments, internet-linked services and spaces, built for citizens and built for fairness
- Autonomous Intelligences – driverless cars, automatic safety services, risk-mitigation strategies, intelligent agents and interfaces, and responsive tracking systems
- Machine learning – the creation and training of machine intelligence, purposive and appropriate learning systems for creative and pragmatic ends, awareness of biases and risks
- Big Data – big social data: its collection, storage, and use in Australia and internationally
- VR, AR, and 3D printing – digital worlds as mapped on to reality, reality mapped into digital worlds, and printing out digital objects as physical artefacts
- Sensors and biometrics – driverless cars, automatic safety services, risk-mitigation strategies, intelligent agents and interfaces, and responsive tracking systems
- Automated decision-making – robot lawyers, employment tools, navigation systems, and recommendation services.
Research agendas
Our research agendas address a range of specific concerns about how the automated society could work best for people. These are lens that we consider to be crucial for developing the best possible outcomes for public, private, and civil society into the future.
- Access and empowerment – Ensuring that automation is implemented in a way that empowers people, with emphasis on equitable and affordable access as automation could greatly improve our lives as a public good and commercial service.
- Egalitarian social values – Prioritising technology that improves people’s lives; reduces the capacity for automated harassment, abuse, or targeting based on individual or group characteristics; and work to distribute the benefits of technological empowerment as equitably as possible.
- Built humanity – Privacy, safety, wellbeing, trust, and society taking a priority in any analysis.
- Policy for people – Working to ensure that the policy, regulation, and responsibility are managed in the best interest of the public.
- Automation literacy – Aiding the education of the public in the use and knowledge of automated systems, in particular in terms of application and the consequences of inclusion and exclusion within diverse types of automated systems.
- Digital ethics – Providing commentary and insight into the how our practices with new technology will integrate with existing social expectations and standards, as well as moral expectations and ‘doing good’.
- Alternative values – Thinking about forms of human value other than monetary systems, for instance health, well-being, and inclusion.
- Future-facing – Ensuring that implemented systems are properly safeguarded against future developments in technology and society, and that public expectations are properly managed.
Whitepapers and industry reports
Capabilities
We have a number of research snapshots indicating our prior research successes:
- Big Data and Surveillance – SSHRC (Canada). A $2.5 million grant to study potentials and pitfalls of data driven forms of monitoring and surveillance.
- Australian Research Council’s QEII Fellowship and Discovery Grant – DP1092606. This $390,000 grant project researched Australians' attitudes toward the collection and use of their personal information online.
- New Transparency – SSHRC (Canada). A major $1.2 million Collaborative Initiative Grant to build capacity in the study of emerging forms of data collection and data mining.
- 3D Printing Initiative – ACCAN project. This $100,000 project investigated the risks and barriers involved in 3D printing use by interested Australians.
- Cycling in Melbourne – AMSI-funded project. $20,500 funding research into socio-cultural aspects of equality in cycling in Melbourne.
- eSports Australia – Internally-funded project investigating the habits of Australian eSports consumers and producers in the context of a global market.
- Dark ads and experiences – Category 2 funding being sought for research into Australians’ experiences of automated advertising in their social media feeds.
Contributions
Our team is especially interested in connecting with industry and government groups, particularly those interested in humanistic or user-orient services, or the impact of social services. We are interested in making contributions to public knowledge through submissions to official government bodies and/or reviews at the federal and state level. We have an ambitious plan for publication that we believe will be well received in the international academic community, and seek to bridge conventional disciplinary divides in our work.
Research team
Professor Mark Andrejevic
Professor of Digital Media Studies
Professor Andrejevic researches the social and cultural aspects of digital media technologies, with a particular emphasis on automated data collection and decision-making. His work explores the intersection of popular culture, surveillance, and media technology. He is the author of three monographs, more than 70 journal articles and book chapters, and co-edited two books.
Dr Luzhou (Nina) Li
Lecturer in Media Industry Studies
Dr. Li's work focuses on digital culture, global media and cultural industries, media history and political economy, television studies, Chinese media, among others. Her recent project examines how online video emerged as an alternative cultural institution to television in China and its consequences for cultural politics and global communication.
Dr Verity Trott
Lecturer in Digital Media Research (Methods and Tools)
Dr. Trott’s research combines big data analytics with an ethnographic approach to examine the political, cultural and social dimensions of digital technologies from an intersectional and feminist standpoint. Her recent research explores digital feminist activism and expressions of masculinity online.
Dr Robbie Fordyce
Lecturer in Big Data, Quantitative Analytics, and Research Methods
Dr. Fordyce’s work is focused on the use of digital media technologies by the general public, examining what barriers, concerns, and risks people encounter with new technology, and how these technologies can empower or enhances our everyday lives.