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The Digital Good demands Civic-minded Technologists

Erhardt GraeffLeave a comment

Citation

Graeff, E. 2024. “The Digital Good demands Civic-minded Technologists.” Presented at EASST-4S 2024: Making & Doing Transformations, Amsterdam, Netherlands, NY, Jul 17.

Presentation

Abstract

Engineering’s “culture of disengagement” (Cech 2014) casts a long shadow on society. The anemic civic philosophy, preached by lauded tech heroes, pretends politics and power don’t apply to technology, that we can reduce most problems to technical challenges, and that meritocracy is justice. There are bright spots—individual, civic-minded technologists; the Tech Workers Coalition; and the Integrity Institute, a community of practice for “trust and integrity” professionals from technology companies. But it’s insufficient. To solve the challenges of contemporary society and democracy, entwined with sociotechnical systems, we need to understand technology’s civic landscape and reframe the technical expert’s role in democracy. 

Engineering has a rich history of political activism and rumination about its social and civic responsibility (Layton 1986; Wisniowski 2016). And STS has long tried to understand and define ethical technology. However, computing has grown more deprofessionalized over time, loosening its ethical tethers. Simultaneously, there are growing concerns about the role technologists play in society. So how should civic-mindedness intersect with the education and daily practice of technologists?

I’ve conducted 17 interviews with leading engineering educators, looked at the history of civic engagement and civic-mindedness in engineering and computing, and worked on defining civic professionalism in technology. My research supports an argument that technologists need a political education. Unfortunately, civic learning is scarce in most undergraduate programs and even secondary schools, and it’s particularly uncommon in computing. So we must define and invest in civic learning and a civic culture in computing, because the digital good really demands civic-minded technologists.

Running for Needham Town Meeting Member in Precinct D in 2024

Erhardt GraeffLeave a comment

I’ve been a trustee of the Needham Free Public Library since July 2022. I’m an Olin College of Engineering professor with social science, design, and computing expertise, which I’ve already put to use in the library’s strategic planning and space planning work. During the past 15 years, I’ve co-founded or advised numerous social impact organizations, including The Awesome Foundation, Obama Foundation, and SeeClickFix.

Needham’s library has adopted a new strategic plan and completed a space planning effort this past year that I helped facilitate. That work reimagined how our library building can best serve patrons as our town grows and evolves. Executing these plans with marshaled support and resources will be crucial for success. I want to see that through as a Town Meeting Member for Precinct D.

I think the highest priority issues for Needham are 1) quality, accessible education from preschool on; 2) affordable housing for our residents that provides options as residents’ needs change; and 3) sustainability, because climate change threatens the futures we want for our community, our children, and our planet. These are the lenses I’ll bring to issues facing Needham at Town Meeting, enhanced by the intersections and opportunities for Needham Free Public Library.

I hope to see you at the polls on April 9, 2024 in Needham!

Visit the Town Clerk’s web page for more information about Needham’s 2024 Annual Town Election: https://www.needhamma.gov/77/Town-Clerk.

Educating Engineers for Civic-mindedness

Erhardt GraeffLeave a comment

Citation

Graeff, E. 2023. “Educating Engineers for Civic-mindedness.” Presented at the 14th Symposium on Engineering and Liberal Education, Union College, Schenectady, NY, Sep 23.

Slides

Abstract

In her book Educating for Civic-mindedness, Carolin Kreber (2016) offers a compelling framework for civic-mindedness as an attribute and capability of professionals, which can be nurtured through “transformative higher education” experiences. This paper will apply Kreber’s framework to understanding the task of nurturing civic-minded engineering professionals, summarizing the existing landscape of transformative experiences in engineering education and diagnosing the challenges and possibilities for enhancing these efforts, as expressed in interviews with leading educators and practitioners of civically-engaged engineering. 

Kreber starts with Bringle and Steinberg’s (2010) definition of civic-mindedness as “a person’s inclination or disposition to be knowledgeable of and involved in the community, and to have a commitment to act upon a sense of responsibility as a member of that community”; a civic-minded graduate is “a person who has completed a course of study […], and has the capacity and desire to work with others to achieve the common good.” Kreber emphasizes the “with others” portion of this definition, arguing that civic-minded professionals “support the flourishing, or authenticity, of other members of society, by helping others achieve important human capabilities.” 

Cultivating authentic, civic-minded professionals should be a core purpose of higher education, according to Kreber. She believes this requires carefully designed, community-engaged learning experiences that have a “transformational” effect on students. Engineering education rarely achieves this high bar. Rather, engineering’s culture and its most common approaches to nurturing ethical and social responsibility appear in tension with certain civic virtues. A call to action for “civic professionalism” in engineering is due.

Klara and the Sun book review

Erhardt GraeffLeave a comment

Klara and the SunKlara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is such a brilliant and timely little novel. It touches on so many important ethical questions about AI/robots: care robots, AI replacing jobs, robots/AI as human-like species deserving rights versus being like appliances, philosophy of mind, and more. I’m excited to talk to my students at Olin about this book. It’s our summer reading for incoming first years.

Ishiguro’s “Klara” is an artificial friend (AF). She is a care robot (like the many, notably from Japan, that are developed to be companions to humans and help them with social-emotional health). Her objective is to ensure the child she is acquired for is not lonely. She believes the worst thing a human can be is lonely. Her child Josie is a little sick and lives far away from others. The novel covers Klara’s efforts to serve Josie well.

The novel starts in the store where Klara is for sale. She is our narrator. When we meet her, she is starting to form assumptions about the world. Her observational skills are unusually good for an AF, but her narrative is of course flawed both because of the limits of her technology (cleverly illustrated by Ishiguro) and the limits of her experience.

Ishiguro is not the first to offer a first person perspective to an AI. Many fine examples, especially the Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch trilogy beginning with Ancillary Justice, come to mind. What I love about Klara and the Sun is that it’s a bildungsroman—one of my favorite genres—for a young robot. This allows us to explore some of the key ethical questions from a unique perspective and provides for the eponymous plot line written stylistically as a fusion of science fiction and realism.

The book is a fast read, filled with clever imagery and symbolism, which open and close the narrative elegantly. I would read this even if I didn’t have to, and I recommend that you do too.

View all my reviews

Locating Empowerment and Technical Intuition in how we frame U.S. Civic Education

Erhardt GraeffLeave a comment

Citation

Graeff, E. 2023 “Locating Empowerment and Technical Intuition in how we frame U.S. Civic Education.” In Haste, H & Bempechat, J, eds., New civics, new citizens:  Critical, competent and responsible agents. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill.

Link

https://brill.com/display/book/9789004538320/BP000024.xml

Introduction

This chapter argues for defining a good civic education in terms of empowerment and technical intuition. Synthesizing the debates surrounding two recent theories of civic learning, Danielle Allen’s book Education and Equality and essay “What is Education for?” and Ethan Zuckerman’s article “New Media, New Civics?”, I investigate the growing importance to contemporary democracy of developing specific abilities for digital civic engagement, having authentic civic and political experiences, and making citizen voice and influence synonymous. I find a strong thread tying digital civic engagement and civic education together with questions such as: How do we best enhance the civic efficacy and empowerment of young people, and of citizens more generally? I conclude that the goal for designers of civic education programs should be to model their efforts on what Sara Evans and Harry Boyte call “free spaces”.

Democracy as citizen-centered governance requires citizen empowerment (sometimes called “civic agency”), and empowered citizens need certain skills, knowledge, attitudes, and habits that lead to effective civic engagement. Empowering experiences and learning opportunities can promote a virtuous cycle of reinforcing citizen empowerment and strengthening democracy. Spaces like town hall meetings, protest marches, the voting booth, and the civic education classroom traditionally represent where these experiences and opportunities take place. The emergence of networked digital media have created new, pervasive civic spaces – the networked public sphere. Whereas public spaces offline have seen a decline in the U.S.,2 their online replacements, largely private spaces like Facebook, have grown to astounding size and influence with limited accountability to governments and the public. This means the definition of an empowered citizen has stretched beyond traditional capabilities and contexts to encompass a broad range of digital capabilities and experiences.

This chapter seeks to articulate this broadened definition by being in dialogue with and synthesizing recent debates in U.S. civic education and civic engagement scholarship, specifically those surrounding Danielle Allen’s book Education and Equality and Ethan Zuckerman’s article “New Media, New Civics?” In the end, I propose that designers of civic education programs aim forcivic empowerment that incorporates what Alix Dunn (2018) calls “technical intuition” and create opportunities to practice civics in online and offline contexts modeled on what Sara Evans and Harry Boyte call “free spaces”.