Surveillance of human subjects is how data-intensive companies obtain much of their data, yet it increasingly meets with social and regulatory resistance. Data-intensive companies are thus seeking other ways to meet their needs.

UWindsor alumnus James Steinhoff (BA 2010, MA 2012), assistant professor in the School of Information and Communication Studies at University College Dublin, will explore the creation of data produced artificially as an alternative to real-world data in a free public lecture, “Towards a Political Economy of Synthetic Data,” at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 29, in room 204, Toldo Health Education Centre.

Capital is already heavily invested in synthetic data, Dr. Steinhoff asserts.

“By severing data from human subjectivity, synthetic data contributes to the automation of the production of automation technologies like machine learning. A shift from surveillance to synthesis has epistemological, ontological, and political economic consequences for a society increasingly structured around data-intensive capital.”

Steinhoff’s work focuses on the political economy of AI, data, and high-tech labour. He is the author of Automation and Autonomy: Labour, Capital, and Machines in the AI Industry and co-author of Inhuman Power: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Capitalism.

His lecture is presented by the Department of Communication, Media, and Film.