The University of Michigan’s 
brand new Center for Ethics, 
Society 
and 
Computing 
opened in January with the 
goal of addressing inequality 
produced by digital media and 
computing technology. With 
the prevalence of computing 
technology across almost every 
professional field and modern, 
everyday life, the potential for 
inequity and exclusion exists 
across many disciplines. The 
center aims to use University 
resources to better understand 
this and educate people. 
ESC 
Director 
Christian 
Sandvig, 
associate 
communications 
professor, 
highlighted 
the 
need 
for 
organizations 
like 
ESC, 
especially given how rapidly the 
use of computing has grown.
“Generally speaking, there’s 
a moment at which we as a 
society are reflecting about 
advances 
in 
computing,” 
Sandvig said. “Computers are 
doing these things that they 
never before did, and they’re 
definitely good at things we 
didn’t think they would be 
good at, but they’re often being 

rushed into situations where 
there hasn’t been necessarily 
a lot of thought about some 
of the implications or the 
consequences, and sometimes 
the designs are rushed.”
Recently, interest in ethical 
computing has been on the rise 
as algorithms are implemented 
in everything from deciding 
bail rates in our justice system 
to credit scores and social 
media feeds. Sandvig discussed 
the breadth of this new center, 
emphasizing that prior to its 
launch the University had no 
centralized 
resource 
issues 
related to this new and evolving 
field or students interested in it. 
“If you were interested in, for 
example, the ethics of working 
for different companies in the 
tech industry or interested in 
issues of justice and fairness and 
computing or mass surveillance, 
it wasn’t really clear where 
the community was, so our job 
we think is to answer that,” 
Sandvig said. “We have faculty 
from art, we have faculty from 
architecture, 
music, 
LSA, 
information, public health, it’s 
a pretty broad group of people 
and they’re all interested in 
these problems of computers in 
society.”

The center aims to be a 
research 
hub 
focused 
on 
understanding 
computing 
inequalities. 
For 
example, 
Sandvig brought up a past 
research project in which he 
and a group of students tried 
to determine why a Facebook 
algorithm provided the option 
of a gay pride flag emoji reaction 
to only some users during June 
of 2017.
“It’s pretty interesting that 
Facebook thinks that it should 
be, 
probably 
algorithmically, 
profiling 
your 
support 
for 
homosexuality,” Sandvig said. 
“We tried to reverse engineer 
how Facebook was deciding 
where to deploy the gay pride 
emoji.”
Sandvig said the University 
provided 
ESC 
with 
an 
opportunity to address these 
issues with multidisciplinary 
efforts and fill this unique gap. 
“Michigan 
is 
really 
remarkable in that it has a really 
large group of faculty that are 
experts in areas relating to 
computers, but also to justice, or 
fairness, or ethics or morality,” 
Sandvig said. “The idea was, 
what if we are able to showcase 
our University’s strength in 
this area by organizing all of 

the professor’s together and 
to try and form a community 
around the students that are 
interested in this area.”
Art 
& 
Design 
assistant 
professor Sophia Brueckner, 
former 
Google 
software 
engineer, does research with 
ESC that focuses on people’s 
perspectives 
regarding 
the 
role of technology in the 
future, both good and bad. She 
does this partly by analyzing 
and studying science fiction, 
using a variety of mediums to 
showcase her findings.
“Often I find myself thinking 
about what visions of the future 
are 
industry 
offering 
us?” 
Brueckner said. “Everything 
right now seems to be free 
but really we’re paying for it 
with our attention and our 
data, and that’s what’s shaping 
the trajectory of a lot of these 
technologies, 
in 
particular 
wearable 
technologies 
and 
most internet technologies. If 
we weren’t constrained by that 
what might be a person’s vision 
for how they might live with 
technology or incorporate it in 
their body be?”

2 — Friday, February 21, 2020
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News

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By Design
THURSDAY:
Twitter Talk

FRIDAY:
Behind the Story

WEDNESDAY:
This Week in History

MONDAY:

Looking at the Numbers

B E HIND THE STORY

Every Friday, one Daily staffer will give a behind-the-scenes look 
at one of this week’s stories. This week, LSA sophomore Callie 
Teitelbaum on her story “Students protest Paul, Weiss recruiting 
event in support of #DropExxon”:

“When I was assigned the story I immediately started researching 
Paul, Weiss’ relationship with Exxon and reading about different 
lawsuits Paul Weiss defended Exxon in. I interviewed a participant 
and organizer of the protest prior to the event to understand why law 
students around the country are taking a risk in boycotting one of the 
most competitive law firms. I also wanted to understand why this 
battle against Exxon is one law students are particularly passionate 
about. After witnessing the protest, I combined my research of past 
Exxon controversy with the message from law students to Paul Weiss 
to paint a picture of why this national movement is occurring at other 
law schools, and why law students are using this time to take a stand….
The most interesting part of the story is how law students are using 
their power in the process of recruiting to take a stand on climate 
change. The extent to which Exxon’s historical role in climate change 
is causing law students to question the ethics of different law firms is 
extremely interesting.”

ANNIE KLUSENDORF/Daily

QUOTE OF THE WE E K 

“
 This action will waste more than $275,000 of taxpayer 
money and, as the Council majority admits, is entirely without 
cause. Mr. Lazarus has done nothing wrong. This is a political 
termination that is bad for Ann Arbor.”

Mayor Christopher Taylor on City Council’s 7-4 vote to fire City Administrator Howard Lazarus without 
cause at the City Council meeting on Tuesday night

New Center for Ethics, Society and 
Computing to study inequity in tech

Launch hopes to centralize resources related to evolving field of ethical computation on 
issues such as algorithms deciding bail rates to concerns related to mass surveillance 

HANNAH MACKAY 
Daily Staff Reporter

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BERNIE
From Page 1

Rabhi said Sanders’ health 
care policies would lead to more 
comprehensive 
coverage 
for 
Americans. 
“Too many Americans have 
died because they do not have 
healthcare or they lack adequate 
access to healthcare,” Rabbi said. 
“How many more will we allow 
to die? Not a single one under a 
Bernie presidency.”
Rabhi closed by commenting 
on 
his 
own 
experiences 
in 

government and said he trusts 
Sanders’ judgment to do the right 
thing. 
“One of the things that I 
like about this campaign is as 
someone who has been in the 
hot seat, somebody who has seen 
in the bullpen how things work 
in politics, I can tell you that 
just about every day I am truly 
disgusted that our American 
political system has become what 
it has,” Rabhi said. “They say that 
money influences policy… but I 
have seen it firsthand. And what 
I like about Bernie Sanders and 
this campaign, is that there is no 

monied interest, no corporation 
that he puts first.” 
Medical 
School 
student 
Solomon 
Rajput, 
who 
is 
challenging U.S. Rep. Debbie 
Dingell, D-Mich, spoke to The 
Daily about his excitement for 
Sanders’ campaign.
“I am so excited to support 
and endorse Bernie Sanders for 
president of the United States. 
He’s the man with a vision,” 
Rajput said. “He knows what 
we need to get done to improve 
the lives of the regular people in 
America and we’re going to stick it 
to the rich.” 

LSA freshman Porter Hughes, 
a member of Students for Bernie 
at the University of Michigan, said 
he hopes to see the office as the 
beginning of a surge of support for 
Sanders in the coming months. 
“This field office is just one piece 
of the giant grassroots network 
that Bernie Sanders is building 
to help start a movement to not 
only get him elected President but 
change the politics that are in our 
country,” Hughes said. “There are 
so many issues that people are 
passionate about, and they are 
ready to make a change. Bernie 
is that change.”

