New TED Talk from Ruha Benjamin on Ustopia, Imagination & the Future of Technology
/An enthralling storyteller, brilliant scholar, and fierce advocate for all things just, award-winning author and sociologist Dr. Ruha Benjamin imaginatively investigates the social dimensions of science, medicine, and technology with a focus on the relationship between innovation and inequity, knowledge and power, race and citizenship, and health and justice. At the center of all Dr. Benjamin’s work is the invitation to “imagine and craft the worlds we cannot live without, just as we dismantle the ones we cannot live within.”
In her recent talk on the TED Women 2023 stage, Ruha guides us from two contrasting visions of the future: one where technology fulfills all our desires, and another where it leads to chaos and conflict towards a more radical vision of the future—one where humanity isn't saved or slayed by technology, but rather uses it to uplift ordinary people and make things like health care and housing for all a reality. From examples like the outcry against Atlanta’s “Cop City” to tech-driven democracy in Barcelona, Ruha imagines a future where tech and people-power work in tandem, not in opposition.
“Stop policing the borders of our imagination.”
Ruha insists that imagination isn’t a luxury. It is a vital resource and powerful tool for collective liberation in reshaping our future. Explore more about the expansive opportunities waiting to be discovered in our imaginations with her forthcoming book Imagination: A Manifesto, releasing in February 2024.
Featured Topic:
UTOPIA, DYSTOPIA, OR… USTOPIA? RECKONING WITH THE FUTURE OF TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY
From automated decision systems in healthcare, policing, education and more, technologies have the potential to deepen discrimination while appearing neutral and even benevolent when compared to harmful practices of a previous era. In this talk, Ruha Benjamin takes us into the world of biased bots, altruistic algorithms, and their many entanglements, and provides conceptual tools to decode tech predictions with historical and sociological insight. When it comes to AI, Ruha shifts our focus from the dystopian and utopian narratives we are sold, to a sober reckoning with the way these tools are already a part of our lives. Whereas dystopias are the stuff of nightmares, and utopias the stuff of dreams… ustopias are what we create together when we are wide awake.
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