Data Directions

Data can be the key to open new doors to innovation. But if you’re using numbers to find answers, you should ask yourself some questions, too.

“Data Directions,” a CCC Town Hall, featured global experts in technology, public policy, and media, who offered insights on the boom in big data. While data and data mining technology can accelerate discovery and decision-making, they noted, misapplication of data can raise critical questions about privacy and equity.

Dr. Sonia Shaikh’s research interests include how individuals and teams use AI-enabled and automated technology to make decisions, interact, and perform. The success of data-driven technologies, she has found, depends on trust, and varies from community to community.

“I have identified some reasons which affect public trust for AI and data-driven tools. Right now, the landscape is very murky. We don’t really know if the public trusts AI and data-driven tools.

“I found in my research that perceptions of technology’s terminology – if we say algorithm versus machine learning versus AI – affects the extent to which people are willing to place their trust in it,” she tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally.

“This is interesting, because we tend to as academics and researchers to conflate terms like algorithms, machine learning, AI. But in the public mind, the terms used can affect perceptions of trust,” explains Dr. Shaikh, who is the George Gerbner Postdoctoral Fellow at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

A complete recording of Data Directions, a CCC Town Hall, featuring Sonia Shaikh and other guests, is available on LinkedIn and on CCC’s YouTube channel.