Helene Friis Ratner, Danish School of Education, Aarhus University will give a CLAI talk on October 24.

Public sector adoption of AI techniques in welfare systems recasts historic national data as resource for machine learning. In this paper, we examine how the use of register data for development of predictive models produces new ‘afterlives’ for citizen data. First, we document a Danish research project’s practical efforts to develop an algorithmic decision-support model for social workers to classify children’s risk of maltreatment. Second, we outline the tensions emerging from project members’ negotiations about which datasets to include. Third, we identify three types of afterlives for citizen data in machine learning projects: (1) data afterlives for training and testing the algorithm, acting as ‘ground truth’ for inferring futures, (2) data afterlives for validating the algorithmic model, acting as markers of robustness, and (3) data afterlives for improving the model’s fairness, valuated for reasons of data ethics. We conclude by discussing how, on one hand, these afterlives engender new ethical relations between state and citizens; and how they, on the other hand, also articulate an alternative view on the value of datasets, posing interesting contrasts between machine learning projects developed within the context of the Danish welfare state and mainstream corporate AI discourses of the bigger, the better.

The Center for Language Generation and AI at Aarhus University is committed to fostering the interchange of ideas and support for researchers in the area of language generation and AI. By opening our biweekly talks to the public, we aim to create a platform for knowledge sharing and collaboration among researchers, students, and the broader community.

These talks will be conducted virtually, allowing attendees from around the world to participate. Registration details and links to join each talk will be provided on our website. All talk will take place at 13:30 (CEST) on Zoom. The link is: https://aarhusuniversity.zoom.us/j/62020950492.

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For media inquiries and questions, please contact: pascale.moreira@cc.au.dk