Building a Future Where Technology Works for All

Originally published by the MacArthur Foundation.

Assistant Professor at Cornell University and Founder of the Citizens and Technology Lab (CAT Lab) J. Nathan Matias and MacArthur President John Palfrey address the need for industry-independent research about technology’s impact on society and how to build a relationship with technology that advances equity and justice.

Holding Digital Power Accountable

John

We have long supported research to improve policy and practice. One of our commitments is to support work related to technology in the public interest. Could you tell us a bit about how CAT Lab is doing research that helps us understand the impact of technology on society and improve our policies and practices accordingly?

Nathan

People are rightly worried about the effects of digital power in their lives. Digital technologies have become so basic to society that we now worry about their impact on our safety, politics, health, education, and having a fair chance. In 2018, Pew found that Americans trust tech executives even less than members of Congress.

CAT Lab works toward a world where digital power is guided by evidence and accountable to the public. Inspired by community scientists who pioneered food safety and environmental science, we work alongside communities to create usable evidence on digital life—independently from the tech industry.

We combine community organizing with novel software development, so the public can get answers, even when tech companies are indifferent or resist scrutiny.

What does that look like in practice? In 2016, CAT Lab tested ways to prevent online harassment with r/science, a community of over 1,200 volunteers who organize the world’s largest online conversation about science. Working independently from Reddit, we created software to conduct a field experiment. Together we discovered community ideas that reduced harassment by eight percentage points and broadened who participated in science conversations online. Our discoveries made a direct difference in the lives of millions of people and were also published in a leading scientific journal.

More recently, we have worked with communities to audit algorithmic decision makers and test concerns about phone addiction for people at the margins. In every case, we combine community organizing with novel software development, so the public can get answers, even when tech companies are indifferent or resist scrutiny.

Building Inclusive Ecosystems

As a leader and scholar, you have often developed initiatives that bring together communities of practice to make progress on societal challenges. One example is your work on child safety, youth empowerment, and tech policy, where solutions involve all levels of society, including children, parents, schools, civil society, companies, and governments.

Now in your role at MacArthur, you are leading an organization with a track record of ecosystem-building, including work on technology in the public interest. How can we think about the future of inclusive ecosystem-building on technology and society at a time when the power of tech companies is being re-negotiated?

John

Thanks much, Nate, for this invitation to reflect on how we build inclusive ecosystems. MacArthur has done several things quite well over the years, I think—certainly the Fellows program, in its 41^st year, has built a community of incredibly creative, diverse, stunningly productive individuals. Maybe less well known but equally apt as an example, MacArthur has funded and helped build research networks in a number of fields. One that is close to both of our work was the Digital Media and Learning network, led by Mimi Ito, a professor at University of California-Irvine. Mimi and her team built a terrific network of scholars, activists, artists, librarians, and others who care about re-imagining learning, teaching, and change-making in a digital environment.

What I like most about the current program area, Technology and the Public Interest, led by Associate Director Eric Sears, is the increasingly effective, diverse array of scholars, activists, artists, and others who are at the forefront of this re-negotiation of power that you describe. I think our job as a Foundation is to support you and others who are creating and redefining these new networks, offer what help we can, and get out of the way. So, the question is really back to you: what are the hallmarks of the kind of inclusive ecosystem that you would like to see—and to build?

Nathan

The idea of organizing for the common good always fills me with hope! I think our North Star needs to be an idea of public purpose—a core vision that guides how we link constellations of people and organizations.

Partnerships for a public purpose start with collaborative conversations, as Adam Levine and I have described. At CAT Lab, we organize research summits for communities to meet with researchers, activists, and journalists. At those events, we envision evidence-based projects that serve people's practical needs while also advancing science and policy. We are especially inspired when these meetings spark others to collaborate, like this partnership on rapid responses to online harassment that received National Science Foundation funding last year.

Knowledge that serves everyone is a basic norm of science. That is why we have to be honest that so many of our universities, museums, and newsrooms have established and upheld exclusion from the start. The devastating generational consequences have included unreliable knowledge that fell short of our public purpose and caused enduring harms. That is why we need diverse leadership and funding in public interest tech from day one.

After decades of public promises and stalled progress on diversity, we need to get real about evidence-based change.

After decades of public promises and stalled progress on diversity, we need to get real about evidence-based change. That is why I am excited about networks like Social Science Research Council’s Just Tech Program