Abstract:
AI technology is currently developed and deployed in the U.S. at an unprecedented pace,
generating important social, political, and economic consequences but guided by little to no
public input. How can the public shape AI technology and its growing influence in their lives? In
this talk, I will draw on two studies to explore a set of dynamics that define current AI policy
debates: (1) the continuing dominance of a market-based approach to policymaking that defers to
tech firms and does little to check their growing power, and (2) the new proliferation of publicly
accessible AI expertise that largely promotes individual consumerism. As I will show, ensuring
that the development and application of AI technology is democratic and equitable will require
deeper shifts in the logic of policymaking and the practice of expertise, with distinct implications
for universities and social scientists.
A Brief Bio:
Tina Law is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Davis. She is
also a Faculty Affiliate with the Center for Poverty and Inequality Research and the
Computational Social Science Designated Emphasis Program. She studies how inequality spurs
and shapes processes of social change in the United States, with an emphasis on policymaking,
protests, and public discourse. Her current work examines three topics: (1) public deliberation of
AI technology development and governance, (2) the post-1960s legal landscape for minority
protest, and (3) new methodological techniques for analyzing text and image data in inequality
research. Her research has been published or is forthcoming in Sociological Methods &
Research, Socius, and RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences. She
received her Ph.D. in sociology from Northwestern University in 2022.