Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.

CP438


Not Doomed to Repeat It: Using Analogical Case Study for Technology Assessment and Governance 
Convenors:
Shobita Parthasarathy (University of Michigan)
Denia Djokic (University of Michigan)
Margarita Rodriguez Morales (University of Michigan)
Molly Kleinman (University of Michigan)
Send message to Convenors
Discussant:
Brice Laurent (Mines ParisTech)
Format:
Closed Panel
Location:
HG-10A00
Sessions:
Tuesday 16 July, -
Time zone: Europe/Amsterdam

Short Abstract:

This panel explores analogical case study (ACS) analysis as a new approach to technology assessment. ACS analysis uses the history of technology in society to analyze emerging technologies, anticipate social, ethical, and equity consequences, and propose policies to promote the public good.

Long Abstract:

STS scholars have long experimented with methods to anticipate the risks, biases, and limitations of emerging technologies in order to inform technology development and policy. This includes deliberative democratic methods, science fiction, stakeholder and expert interviews, and bibliometric and patent analysis. This panel explores a new approach to technology assessment based on an analogical case study (ACS) analysis, first proposed in Guston and Sarewitz's (2002) real-time technology assessment framework, and further developed and institutionalized at the University of Michigan’s Science, Technology and Public Policy Program. ACS analysis uses the history of technology in society to inform analysis of emerging technologies, to anticipate the social, ethical, and equity consequences, move beyond technosolutionism, and propose policies to promote the public good. With a wave of new cutting edge technologies prompting debates about the transformational capacity of technology, ACS provides a way to ground those discussions in known social patterns surrounding past innovations. The conveners of this panel have all contributed to pioneering the ACS method, and have written or are working on reports on facial recognition technology in K-12 schools, vaccine hesitancy, generative AI/large language models, and advanced nuclear reactors.

This panel will feature speakers that will address various dimensions of the value of the ACS approach for technology assessment. We will discuss ACS as a form of anticipatory evaluation and its impact on public policy, the process and implementation of the ACS method, the pedagogical impact on student research and training, and lastly, the impact on positionality and reflexivity of technologists engaged in shaping emerging technologies. ACS is a new form of knowledge production in service of science and technology governance that mobilizes STS sensibilities. This panel will elucidate the processes, methods, and impacts of ACS for understanding how new technologies do and do not address our many urgent challenges.

Accepted papers:

Session 1 Tuesday 16 July, 2024, -