Responsible DS+AI Speaker Series: Anikó Hannák [CANCELED]
Anikó Hannák, assistant professor in social computing at the University of Zurich, will present "New Faces of Bias in Online Platforms."
Abstract: The internet is fundamentally changing how we socialize, work, or gather information. The recent emergence of content serving services creates a new online ecosystem in which companies constantly compete for users' attention and use sophisticated user tracking and personalization methods to maximize their profit. My research investigates the potential downsides of the algorithms commonly used by online platforms. Since these algorithms learn from human data, they are bound to recreate biases that are present in the real world. In this talk, I will first present a measurement methodology developed to monitor personalization algorithms in the context of platforms such as Google Search or online stores. Second, I will talk about recommendation and rating systems in the context of employment related platforms such as job search sites, freelancing marketplaces and online professional communities, and their danger to reinforce gender inequalities.
Bio: Aniko is an assistant professor at the University of Zurich, leading the Social Computing Group. She received her PhD from the College of Computer & Information Science at Northeastern University, where she was part of the Lazer Lab and the Algorithmic Auditing Group. Aniko’s main interest lies in computational social science, more specifically she is focusing on the co-evolution of online systems and their users. Broadly, her work investigates a variety of content serving websites such as search engines, online stores, job search sites, or freelance marketplaces and uncovers potential negative consequences of the big data algorithms that these websites deploy.
In the Responsible Data Science and AI Speaker Series, we discuss topics such as equity, fairness, biases, ethics, and privacy. The presentations and discussions take place on Fridays from 9:00-10:00 a.m. Central Time on Zoom. The event is open to the public, and everyone is welcome to attend! To join a session, go to the current week's session, click the "access" link, and then the "PARTICIPATE online" button. Recordings of past talks can be found next to "access" if available. This series is hosted by the iSchool's Center for Informatics Research in Science and Scholarship (CIRSS). If you have any questions, please contact Jana Diesner.
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This event is sponsored by Center for Informatics Research in Science and Scholarship