Buongiorno,

grazie _infinite_ per la segnalazione, non conoscevo gli studi sulla
undone science [1], fantastico!

"Norberto  Patrignani" <[email protected]> writes:

> Segnalo ... la call scade 10 Ottobre 2023
>
> https://undonecs.sciencesconf.org/

la conferenza è tutto un programma:

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The goal of our conference is to provide an opportunity to pause and
reflect on the epistemological and ethical aspects of computer
science. We propose as a theme the concept of undone science [1,2]: the
intriguing yet vital notion that areas of research may remain
incomplete, overlooked, or unfunded despite being found worthy of
exploration by some—and the exploration into the causes of these
situations.

Any discussion of systematic lack of production or dissemination of
knowledge is welcome, whether in a specific area or in computer science
in general, whether past or present; whether due to limitations of
available methodologies, blind spots of dominant paradigms,
institutional and industrial biases, lack of social representation, or
other factors.

Why an international conference on Undone Science in Computer Science

Undone science offers a broad and open-ended line of inquiry capable of
inspiring fascinating talks—yet sufficiently focused to bring together,
around a common topic, computer scientists from across the field, but
also philosophers of science, social scientists, etc., interested in
discussing the ethical and epistemological dimensions of our field.

[...]

Topics welcomed

Undone science encompasses many social aspects of research. Dominant
paradigms, through “theoretical commitment” [1], influence within a
domain what is deemed worthy or not of exploration. Yet accounts of
paradigm shifts in our young science remain rare.

Undone science also encompasses the influence of institutional and
corporate biases, such as those that critical voices have recently
highlighted with regard to AI ethics [3], which have been reminding us
of the society-impacting case studies that motivated the concept of
undone science in the first place.

An example of institutional influence are the publishing practices of a
field, which can have an impact on the choice of research questions and
the way research is executed. The bias can also be methodological and
technical, such as when the availability of certain software or hardware
at the right time determines which research idea wins [4].

Interdisciplinary approaches can naturally suggest examples of undone
science—for instance, when a point of view borrowed from another
discipline changes how we perceive an object of study.

As computers become more and more prominent in people's lives, studying
interactions with, and impact on people is a central topic. How can
ethical questioning—regarding social, economic, and environmental
consequences—be integrated into our work? As the ACM recently updated
its Code of Ethics to more broadly encompass the concerns of our
profession, can such codes be leveraged to present some questions as
worthy or not of exploration?

Undone science also recognises, notably, the role of social movements
and civil society in identifying new questions or questions not
immediately deemed worthy of interest [1]—for computer science, one can
think of the free software movement, the civil liberties organisations,
and probably more.

An admissible topic for discussion at our conference could be the
analysis of an “elephant in the room” of your domain: a question which
is never discussed in papers for various reasons—but perhaps
occasionally and informally between sessions at conferences—yet that
could be vital for the domain.

Undone science must be contrasted with open questions that are
well-recognised within a community, but that are believed to simply
require a technical tour de force. We would like to welcome talks that
inspire reflections about ethical or epistemological dimensions of
computer science, whether the talk delves into these aspects or a
problem is simply outlined based on an examination of actual
practice. Researchers who are not specialists of ethics and
epistemology, but who have encountered topics in their research that
inspire such reflections, are encouraged to submit.

Post-Proceedings Volume

Depending upon the eventual number and quality of submissions, we intend
to follow up the conference with a call for full papers to be published
in a journal (TBD). It will not be necessary to submit a full paper to
present at the conference; nor will it be necessary to present at the
conference to answer the call for full papers.

[...]

References

 [1] Frickel, S., Gibbon, S., Howard, J., Kempner, J., Ottinger, G., &
 Hess, D. J. (2010). Undone Science: Charting Social Movement and Civil
 Society Challenges to Research Agenda Setting. Science, Technology, &
 Human Values, 35(4), 444–473. https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243909345836
(n.d.r.: _piratato_ qui 
https://sci-hub.st/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0162243909345836)

[2] D. J. Hess (2016). Undone Science: Social Movements, Mobilized
Publics, and Industrial Transitions. MIT Press. ISBN 9780262529495.

[3] According to Green, tech ethics increasingly tends to be “subsumed
into corporate logics and incentives”.  According to Abdalla and
Abdalla, actions of “Big Tech” to influence academic and public
discourse are reminiscent of the tactics of Big Tobacco:

* B. Green (2021). "The Contestation of Tech Ethics: A Sociotechnical
 Approach to Technology Ethics in Practice," in Journal of Social
 Computing, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 209-225, September 2021.
 https://doi.org/10.23919/JSC.2021.0018

* M. Abdalla & M. Abdalla (2021). The Grey Hoodie Project: Big Tobacco,
 Big Tech, and the Threat on Academic Integrity. In Proceedings of the
 2021 AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society (AIES
 '21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA,
 287–297. https://doi.org/10.1145/3461702.3462563

[4] Sara Hooker. 2021. The hardware lottery. Commun. ACM 64, 12
(December 2021), 58–65.  https://doi.org/10.1145/3467017

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saluti, 380°

-- 
380° (Giovanni Biscuolo public alter ego)

«Noi, incompetenti come siamo,
 non abbiamo alcun titolo per suggerire alcunché»

Disinformation flourishes because many people care deeply about injustice
but very few check the facts.  Ask me about <https://stallmansupport.org>.

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