Dissonance Event Series
Conversations at the confluence of technology, policy, privacy, security, and law
The Dissonance Event Series explores the confluence of technology, policy, privacy, security, and law from a global and national perspective. It seeks to increase universitywide, multidisciplinary discourse, and support university initiatives, including those related to data science. Recordings of past Dissonance events are available.
Joy Rankin: Old, Raw, or New: A (New?) Deal for the Digital Age
Thursday, April 11, 2019, Noon–1 p.m. Ehrlicher Room, 3100 North Quad
In this CRITICAL x DESIGN talk, Joy Rankin turns her attention to American computing in the 1960s and 1970s to consider whether the academic networks of that era may be inspiration for a Digital New Deal.
Learn more at Joy Rankin: Old, Raw, or New: A (New?) Deal for the Digital Age.
Understanding the Social Implications of AI
Wednesday, April 17, 2019, 6–7 p.m. Michigan Room, 2nd floor of the Michigan League
"If we are going to augment humanity with the machine, we need to do it in a way that doesn’t bring along our mistakes of the past."
— Gregory Simpson, Chief Technology Officer for Synchrony Financial
Through mobile phones, the Internet of Things, and web computing, every single day around the globe we create a quintillion bytes of data. Pairing that trove of data with enormous computational power, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is making strides into every aspect of everyday living, from emails and targeted advertising, to healthcare and education. But with great power comes great responsibility. This Dissonance Event Series discussion will take a multidisciplinary look at the social implications of artificial intelligence and consider the promises and potential pitfalls we may look forward too.
Learn more at Understanding the Social Implications of AI.
Apparatuses of Recognition: Google, Project Maven, and Targeted Killing
Friday, April 19, 2019: Noon–1 p.m. Ehrlicher Room, 3100 North Quad
A CRITICAL x DESIGN event featuring Lucy Suchman.
In June of 2018, following a campaign initiated by activist employees within the company, Google announced its intention not to renew a US Defense Department contract for Project Maven, an initiative to automate the identification of military targets based on drone video footage. Defendants of the program argued that that it would increase the efficiency and effectiveness of US drone operations, not least by enabling more accurate recognition of those who are the program’s legitimate targets and, by implication, sparing the lives of noncombatants. But this promise begs a more fundamental question: What relations of reciprocal familiarity does recognition presuppose? And in the absence of those relations, what schemas of categorization inform our readings of the Other?
Learn more at Apparatuses of Recognition: Google, Project Maven, and Targeted Killing.
Privacy@Michigan Symposium & Research Showcase
Celebrating International Data Privacy Day on January 28
Monday, January 28, 2019, 1–6:30 p.m. Rackham Amphitheatre (4th floor)
The Privacy@Michigan event was recorded, and the recording will be posted on Safe Computing when it is available.
Privacy is an inherently interdisciplinary research topic that touches many disciplines at U-M. U-M faculty, researchers, students and staff, across many fields, either face or address privacy issues in their work. Privacy@Michigan celebrates International Data Privacy Day and aims to bring together faculty, researchers, students and staff from different colleges, schools and units across campus with the goal of sparking ongoing, multidisciplinary conversations about privacy's role in society—here at U-M and worldwide.
Cybersecurity Awareness Month (October)
IA marks National Cybersecurity Awareness Month with special events, featured information about IT security, and more. See Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2018 for information about the most recent recognition of the month.
Annual Events
SUMIT 2018
The Security at University of Michigan IT (SUMIT) conference is a free annual symposium held every October to raise awareness and educate the community about important cybersecurity and privacy issues. Information about past SUMIT conferences, including recordings of previous presentations, are available at the SUMIT archive page. Video is now available for SUMIT 2018, which was held on October 25, 2018.