Benjamin Lipp

Very happy to share our new publication with my brilliant colleagues @BenjaminLipp , @PaulaHelm12 and @karafillidis "De-centring the interface. Towards the integrated study of interfacial relations" in Information, Communication & Society tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

@Des_Fitzgerald So sorry! 😅

Eleven euros for a pint of the worst beer in Europe - it's Copenhagen, baby!

What happens when #neuroscience enters #society? Our keynote speaker @PickersgillM will explore the "The Ambivalent Life of the #Brain in the 21st Century” at Medical Museion on 27 June, 3 pm. Register for the event here: conferencemanager.dk/re-configuring… (Deadline: 24 June)

Interested in #neuroscience and #society? Then come to @medicalmuseion on 27 June, where @PickersgillM will #talk about "The Ambivalent Life of the #Brain in the 21st Century”. Followed by Q&A with @lewhiteley and reception. Register: conferencemanager.dk/re-configuring…

Interested in robots 🤖  and what it means to live 🥳  and work 💪  among them? Find out Thursday at the ICC Theatre's Mind Games. I'm presenting my research on robotics, followed by a 💯improvised comedy from the talented MindGames Improv team. Tickets: icc.culmas.io/show/FWhpvy23K…

📣 New paper out 📣 A chapter co-written with Henning Mayer just got published in the @OxUniPress Handbook of the Sociology of #MachineLearning. We show the potential of a #sociology of #interfaces to study contemporary human-machine interaction. #no-access-message" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">academic.oup.com/edited-volume/…

🎙New commentary: ‘Generating reality and silencing debate: Synthetic data as discursive device’ by Paula Helm (@PaulaHelm12), Benjamin Lipp (@BenjaminLipp), and Roser Pujadas (@RoserPujadas1). #syntheticdata #AI #privacy #platformeconomy Read here: buff.ly/3JTHYMj

📣 New Publication @BigDataSoc on synthetic data: how it is being employed as a limited technical fix to circumvent complex ethico-political problems related to #AI #bias #privacy #platformpower with my fantastic colleagues ✨ @PaulaHelm12 & @RoserPujadas1 journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…

Dear #sts #infrastructure #digitalhealth #caretechnology #orgstudies people: Does anyone know good work on logistics and automation in hospitals? e.g. AGVs, automated laboratories, pharmacy dispensers #ststwitter #soctwitter

@STS_News Agreed. The only arena I am clinging on to is teaching (without having concrete evidence about its effectiveness)

@BenjaminLipp I think not, which is why I am skeptical of those movements. I think we should put them on the hook for effects. Especially because that kind of work usually comes at the cost of doing strong empirical social science. Super high cost in my worldview.

Scrolling through an STS conference program and feeling ATTACKED by the words "science fiction as method." You'd have to have a very screwy bad conception of social scientific method to believe any such thing is possible. It arises from STS being historically weak wrt methods.

@STS_News Maybe that's a fair judgement for a politically inflated claim in general. Can we produce evidence that ANY engaged / critical / reflective / ... type of STS scholarship has produced ANY effects in the ways you are describing?

@BenjaminLipp Not as much as STS people like to claim, including because studying "imaginaries" is easier than a lot of other kinds of research. But, again, my challenge to people who think liberatory futures can be effective is . . . show us! I don't think that's what we see, we see talk.

@STS_News Those are not mutually exclusive. I'd say imagination is an important lever for that power, don't you think?

@BenjaminLipp I mean, firms have always put forward visions of the future, right? We have histories of this that go back at least the 1920s and probably earlier. You think "techno-centric future-making" is driving governance and not . . . the wealth and power of interest groups? I'm confused.

@STS_News This is of course not an endorsement of those futures but to say that I find your argument that future-making cannot be effective in bringing about change implausible.

@STS_News Social movements are not the only mode of change. But taken out of that context, isn't the current prominence and success of techno-centric future-making in tech and governance a case in point that future-making is effective in bringing about change?

@STS_News 2nd example: I’m from Germany. We have the issue that the majority of ppl want a transition toward a ‚green future’ but there is a lack of a project, a clear vision by the government. So having that an imagined future (even if it turns out wrong) would be great for change now

@STS_News Of course the point is not the future but the present (cf soc of futures) but why should more inclusive / progressive etc future making not be a resource for positive change?

@STS_News Two examples: I’m using sci-fi for teaching engineers (caught!) not to predict but to intervene into problematic imaginations of the future. I see the danger of making students too confident about it but it can still be eye opening for them irt the present

📣 Publication alert 📣 Opinion piece on #digitalhealth and #chronicpain out in @Nature! Pain tech is captured by digital alternatives but for #access to #integrative pain management we need tech that connects and foster collaboration! nature.com/articles/d4158…

@STS_News But isn't that the point about any form of imagination? (sci-fi or not) Not prediction or certainty but anticipation and contingency of futures?

Abstract for a talk on the topic that I'm delivering here at Virginia Tech.