| 1. |
- Lee, Francis, 1974, et al.
(författare)
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Caring for the monstrous algorithm: attending to wrinkly worlds and relationalities in an algorithmic society
- 2023
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This text proposes that we, social analysts of algorithms, need to develop a split vision for the algorithm-as-technological-object and the algorithm-as-assemblage in order to effectively attend to, analyze, and critique algorithms in society. The point of departure is that we need to distance ourselves from a simplified and reductive understanding of algorithms-as-objects, and care for them as part of a relational algorithmic assemblage. A simplified notion of algorithms is problematic for two reasons: First, as it produces a reductive notion of the world where decision makers point to algorithms-as-objects to make simplified decisions about the world. Second, by taking a simplified and delineated object called “algorithm” as the point of departure for analysis and critique in an algorithmic society, we risk producing technologically deterministic understandings of complex and composite problems. We illustrate this argument through two example drawn from the handling of Covid-19 pandemic, where we attend to a universalist mathematical epidemiology and the particularities of field epidemiology to problematize how we should care for, understand, and analyze algorithms in society.
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| 2. |
- Lee, Francis, 1974-
(författare)
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Detecting the unknown in a sea of knowns : Health surveillance, knowledge infrastructures, and the quest for classification egress
- 2023
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Ingår i: Science in Context. - : Cambridge University Press (CUP). - 0269-8897 .- 1474-0664. ; , s. 1-20
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The sociological study of knowledge infrastructures and classification has traditionally focused on the politics and practices of classifying things or people. However, actors’ work to escape dominant infrastructures and pre-established classification systems has received little attention. In response to this, this article argues that it is crucial to analyze, not only the practices and politics of classification, but also actors’ work to escape dominant classification systems. The article has two aims: First, to make a theoretical contribution to the study of classification by proposing to pay analytical attention to practices of escaping classification, what the article dubs classification egress. This concept directs our attention not only to the practices and politics of classifying things, but also to how actors work to escape or resist classification systems in practice. Second, the article aims to increase our understanding of the history of quantified and statistical health surveillance. In this, the article investigates how actors in health surveillance assembled a knowledge infrastructure for surveilling, quantifying, and detecting unknown patterns of congenital malformations in the wake of the thalidomide disaster in the early 1960s. The empirical account centers on the actors’ work to detect congenital malformations and escape the dominant nosological classification of diseases, the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), by replacing it with a procedural standard for reporting of symptoms. Thus, the article investigates how actors deal with the tension between the-already-known-and-classified and the unknown-unclassified- phenomenon in health surveillance practice.
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| 3. |
- Lee, Francis, 1974
(författare)
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Detecting the unknown in a sea of knowns: Health surveillance, knowledge infrastructures, and the quest for classification egress
- 2022
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Ingår i: Science in Context. - 1474-0664 .- 0269-8897. ; 35:2, s. 153-172
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The sociological study of knowledge infrastructures and classification has traditionally focused on the politics and practices of classifying things or people. However, actors' work to escape dominant infrastructures and pre-established classification systems has received little attention. In response to this, this article argues that it is crucial to analyze, not only the practices and politics of classification, but also actors' work to escape dominant classification systems. The article has two aims: First, to make a theoretical contribution to the study of classification by proposing to pay analytical attention to practices of escaping classification, what the article dubs classification egress. This concept directs our attention not only to the practices and politics of classifying things, but also to how actors work to escape or resist classification systems in practice. Second, the article aims to increase our understanding of the history of quantified and statistical health surveillance. In this, the article investigates how actors in health surveillance assembled a knowledge infrastructure for surveilling, quantifying, and detecting unknown patterns of congenital malformations in the wake of the thalidomide disaster in the early 1960s. The empirical account centers on the actors' work to detect congenital malformations and escape the dominant nosological classification of diseases, the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), by replacing it with a procedural standard for reporting of symptoms. Thus, the article investigates how actors deal with the tension between the-already-known-and-classified and the unknown-unclassified-phenomenon in health surveillance practice.
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| 4. |
- Lee, Francis, 1974
(författare)
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Enacting the Pandemic: Analyzing Agency, Opacity, and Power in Algorithmic Assemblages
- 2021
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Ingår i: Science and Technology Studies. - : Science and Technology Studies. - 2243-4690. ; 34:1, s. 65-90
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article has two objectives: First, the article seeks to make a methodological intervention in the social study of algorithms. Second, the article traces ethnographically how an algorithm was used to enact a pandemic, and how the power to construct this disease outbreak was moved around through an algorithmic assemblage. The article argues that there is a worrying trend to analytically reduce algorithms to coherent and stable objects whose computational logic can be audited for biases to create fairness, accountability, and transparency (FAccT). To counter this reductionist and determinist tendency, the article proposes three methodological rules that allows an analysis of algorithmic power in practice. Empirically, the article traces the assembling of a recent epidemic at the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention-the Zika outbreak starting in 2015-and shows how an epidemic was put together using an array of computational resources, with very different spaces for intervening. A key argument is that we, as analysts of algorithms, need to attend to how multiple spaces for agency, opacity, and power open and close in different parts of algorithmic assemblages. The crux of the matter is that actors experience different degrees of agency and opacity in different parts of any algorithmic assemblage. Consequently, rather than auditing algorithms for biased logic, the article shows the usefulness of examining algorithmic power as enacted and situated in practice.
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| 5. |
- Lee, Francis, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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Styles of Valuation : Algorithms and Agency in High-throughput Bioscience
- 2020
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Ingår i: Science, Technology and Human Values. - : SAGE Publications. - 0162-2439 .- 1552-8251. ; 45:4, s. 659-685
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In science and technology studies today, there is a troubling tendency to portray actors in the biosciences as "cultural dopes" and technology as having monolithic qualities with predetermined outcomes. To remedy this analytical impasse, this article introduces the concept styles of valuation to analyze how actors struggle with valuing technology in practice. Empirically, this article examines how actors in a bioscientific laboratory struggle with valuing the properties and qualities of algorithms in a high-throughput setting and identifies the copresence of several different styles. The question that the actors struggle with is what different configurations of algorithms, devices, and humans are "good bioscience," that is, what do the actors perform as a good distribution of agency between algorithms and humans? A key finding is that algorithms, robots, and humans are valued in multiple ways in the same setting. For the actors, it is not apparent which configuration of agency and devices is more authoritative nor is it obvious which skills and functions should be redistributed to the algorithms. Thus, rather than tying algorithms to one set of values, such as "speed," "precision," or "automation," this article demonstrates the broad utility of attending to the multivalence of algorithms and technology in practice.
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| 6. |
- Lee, Francis, 1974, et al.
(författare)
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Travelling Algorithms | Traveling Ontologies
- 2022
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Classification and valuation in today’s society is increasingly done by computer systems and algorithms (Fourcade and Healy 2017). For example, algorithms are used to automatically identify people in surveillance (Neyland 2018), to calculate the risk of disease transmission (Lee 2017), and to assess the risk of recidivism (Kirkpatrick 2016). But algorithms do not create passive depictions of phenomena, they also change how things are classified, valued and handled in practice. For instance how new understandings of the progress of a disease are created when algorithms are used to analyze an infection: The veracity of AIDS patients’ stories can be questioned when their accounts are compared to an algorithmically calculated "normal" disease progression (Lee et al. 2019). Algorithms thus not only depict phenomena in society, but also change how they are understood and handled. Algorithms are performative (Introna 2011). An important aspect of this development is that algorithms are often treated as if they were domain independent—as if they could be translated without friction between different areas of society (Ribes et al. 2019). For example, a US computer system for predictive policing, Predpol, uses an algorithm developed to predict aftershocks to predict future crimes. An algorithm from geology is consequently translated into software that organizes law enforcement (Benbouzid 2019). In sum, algorithms are often translated between different domains and spread different ways of classifying, valuing, and organizing the world. The paper discusses how we can theorize how algorithms travel (cf. Lee and Björklund Larsen 2019). The point of departure is that algorithms fold different things together (Lee et al. 2019): algorithms, ground truth data sets, models, methods, and objects. And that these foldings travel between domains. This approach allows a description of how algorithmic relations reconfigure social and natural phenomena and the social, ethical normative and political consequences of these reconfigurations. Do the algorithms betray and reshape the original ontologies in their new contexts (Law 1997)? Do they then become performative of a particular ontology: That is, as they travel if and how do they reshape the phenomena they are designed to handle (MacKenzie 2003; Introna 2011). The point of departure is to use these two types of algorithms—Agent Based Models (ABM) and Behavioral Algorithms (BA)—as a springboard to theorize the performativity of algorithms in society. The two families of algorithms can be understood as being the inverse of each other: ABM constructs models in a bottom-up fashion, in which the characteristics of particular computational agents are programmed into each algorithm. In contrast, BA are agnostic about the characteristics of an agent, construing action merely as stimuli/response without developing theories about the characteristics of the agent. The two families can consequently be understood to represent two diverging ontological conceptions of complexity: ABM is based on the idea of emergence, and thus a romantic view of complexity, whereas behaviourist algorithms are more aligned with a baroque view of complexity (Kwa 2002).
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| 7. |
- Mayo, Leah M., 1987-, et al.
(författare)
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Protective effects of elevated anandamide on stress and fear-related behaviors : translational evidence from humans and mice
- 2020
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Ingår i: Molecular Psychiatry. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 1359-4184 .- 1476-5578. ; 25:5, s. 993-1005
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a common, debilitating condition with limited treatment options. Extinction of fear memories through prolonged exposure therapy, the primary evidence-based behavioral treatment for PTSD, has only partial efficacy. In mice, pharmacological inhibition of fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) produces elevated levels of anandamide (AEA) and promotes fear extinction, suggesting that FAAH inhibitors may aid fear extinction-based treatments. A human FAAH 385C-greater thanA substitution encodes an FAAH enzyme with reduced catabolic efficacy. Individuals homozygous for the FAAH 385A allele may therefore offer a genetic model to evaluate the impact of elevations in AEA signaling in humans, helping to inform whether FAAH inhibitors have the potential to facilitate fear extinction therapy for PTSD. To overcome the challenge posed by low frequency of the AA genotype (appr. 5%), we prospectively genotyped 423 individuals to examine the balanced groups of CC, AC, and AA individuals (n = 25/group). Consistent with its loss-of-function nature, the A allele was dose dependently associated with elevated basal AEA levels, facilitated fear extinction, and enhanced the extinction recall. Moreover, the A-allele homozygotes were protected against stress-induced decreases in AEA and negative emotional consequences of stress. In a humanized mouse model, AA homozygous mice were similarly protected against stress-induced decreases in AEA, both in the periphery, and also in the amygdala and prefrontal cortex, brain structures critically involved in fear extinction and regulation of stress responses. Collectively, these data suggest that AEA signaling can temper aspects of the stress response and that FAAH inhibition may aid the treatment for stress-related psychiatric disorders, such as PTSD.
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| 8. |
- Skagius, Peter, 1986-
(författare)
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Den offentliga ohälsan : En historisk studie av barnpsykologi och -psykiatri i svensk media 1968-2008
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Svenska barns och ungas psykiska ohälsa har blivit en omdiskuterad fråga i den svenska offentligheten med rapporter och studier som visat på en tilltagande ohälsa. Samtidigt har kritiska röster i media menat att den uppfattade ökningen bland annat berott på förändrade diagnostiska kriterier och normer gällande hälsa och ohälsa. Media har därmed utgjort en viktig arena för påståenden om, förklaringar av och argumentationer kring barns och ungas psykiska ohälsa.I den här avhandlingen granskas diskussionerna i svensk media om barns och ungas psykiska ohälsa ur ett historiskt perspektiv genom att belysa hur barnpsy-experter och -professionella såsom psykologer, psykiatrer och terapeuter har diskuterat, definierat och förklarat barns och ungas psykiska ohälsa. Materialet som undersöks är utgåvor publicerade under olika delar av tidsperioden 1968–2008 av svensk dagspress samt den svenska föräldratidningen Vi Föräldrar. Avhandlingens teoretiska och analytiska ramverk har utformats utifrån Aktör-nätverksteori.Analysen visar att mediediskussionerna om barns och ungas psykiska ohälsa inbegripit flera former av barnpsy-expertis, med skilda definitioner, förklaringar och uppfattningar gällande psykisk ohälsa, och som därtill skiftat över tid och mellan medieformat. Dessa har omfattat allt från en alarmistisk inramning av barns och ungas psykiska ohälsa till en hållning där nästan alla uppfattade problem framställdes som normala och övergående inslag i barns utveckling.Snarare än att se psykisk ohälsa bland barn och unga som ett över olika kontexter enhetligt och sammanhängande fenomen illustrerar avhandlingens resultat nödvändigheten att förstå mediediskussionerna om, och oron över, barns och ungas psykiska ohälsa mot bakgrund av specifika, och historiskt skiftande, former av barnpsy-expertis. Inte minst eftersom olika former av barnpsy-expertis kan ha viktiga konsekvenser för hur såväl föräldrar som barn och unga själva begripliggör psykisk ohälsa.
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