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KINGSTON, R.I. – February 19, 2024 – Ruha Benjamin, Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, will explore “Utopia, Dystopia, or…Utopia: Thinking about Technology and The Future of Society, University of Rhode Island Thursday, February 22, 5 p.m.
In a talk held in the Hope Room of the Higgins Welcome Center on the Kingston campus, Benjamin will draw on historical and sociological information to decode whether advanced technology will be more akin to The Matrix or The Jetsons. The lecture is free and open to the public and will be streamed live on Facebook, X, LinkedIn and YouTube. Registration is required to attend the talk or receive a link to the live broadcast.
“I am excited to host an internationally renowned author and speaker on campus to discuss the impact of technological advancements on our society,” said Ammina Kothari, dean of Harrington’s School of Communication and Media. “While Dr. Benjamin’s research addresses complex issues, her work is highly accessible and often provides practical recommendations for addressing some of the inequalities created by technological innovation.”
Benjamin’s work looks at the relationship between science, technology, medicine and society, addressing debates about how science and technology shape the world and how people can, should and critically engage with technoscience – as they face what can Bringing knowledge of health and longevity to mankind. Some may threaten the dignity and rights of others.
Her speech at URI is important because there appear to be two camps: those who protest the loss of privacy or inherent racism, and those who see new technological developments as key to solving some of the world’s most difficult challenges.
Benjamin will introduce viewers to the world of biased tools, altruistic algorithms, and their many entanglements, and provide tools for decoding technological predictions with historical and sociological insights.
“How do we develop approaches to health and well-being that do not simply replace wider social change with technological fixes?” she writes on her website. “Does more need to be done to widen the deep inequalities that already stratify life chances? How do we advance the life sciences without reinforcing popular notions of race… as biology? Gender… as destiny? Or disability… Equally tragic? After all, as we use science and technology to push the boundaries of ‘humanity’, we are also reinforcing (and sometimes redrawing) social fault lines in unexpected ways.”
Benjamin is the founding director of the Ida B. Wells Just Data Laboratory and a faculty member in Princeton University’s Information Technology Policy Center, Center for Health and Well-Being, and Gender and Sexuality Studies Program.
She has published numerous essays and four books, including Imagination: A Manifesto, Viral Justice: How We Develop the World We Want, and The Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code.
The lecture is sponsored by the Harrington College of Communication and Media, the Center for Computing Research, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Office of the Provost, the College of Health Sciences, the College of Pharmacy, the College of Engineering, the College of Business, and the Department of Political Science.
The author of this story is Hugh Markey.
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