On the controversiality of AI: The controversy is not the situation
Mona Sloane, faculty co-lead of the DTD Lab, is among the contributors to a new publication emerging from the Shaping AI project published in Big Data & Society. The piece reflects on a central question that shaped the project: Do public controversies about AI actually matter—and do they meaningfully influence how AI becomes embedded in society?
New Public Database Brings Transparency to AI Tools Used in Hiring
Artificial intelligence is increasingly shaping how people are hired, yet few understand how these systems actually work. A new project from Sloane Lab at the University of Virginia School of Data Science and College of Arts and Sciences aims to change that.
AI at the Crossroads: A Practitioner’s Guide to Community-Centered Solutions
A new State of AI Ethics Report features essays from 58 contributors including Jess Reia, DTD Lab faculty co-lead, and Maria Lungu, DTD Lab postdoctoral research fellow.
Making Bodies: Assumptions in the Design and Validation of Motion Capture Technology
In this new work out at AAAI/AIES, Mona Sloane, DTD Lab faculty co-lead, expands on previous work on assumptions that underpin technology and model design and validation practices.
Technopolitics and extremist configurations in the era of digital platforms
David Nemer, DTD Lab faculty co-lead, highlights the role of major tech corporations in fostering neoliberal rationalities that sustain populist and extremist ideologies, calling for a critical understanding of technopolitics and its implications for democracy in a new publication.
Photo Essay in “The Smartification of Everything”
Megan Wiessner, DTD Lab postdoctoral research fellow, has contributed a short photo essay to a new edited volume including case studies on "smart" cities, agriculture, disaster relief, manufacturing and more, from around the world.
Artificial intelligence as heteromation: the human infrastructure behind the machine
A new article from DTD Lab faculty co-lead, David Nemer, and DTD Lab postdoctoral research fellow, Andre Sobral, interrogates the widespread narrative of AI as autonomous, intelligent, and self-sufficient, and instead centers on the largely invisible human labor that sustains these systems.
Smart infrastructure, techno-authoritarianism, and the threat to democracy in Brazil
DTD faculty co-lead Jess Reia, has written a new piece in the journal Dialogues on Digital Society examining the use of surveillance technologies and the influence of foreign and local tech companies in shaping urban governance through opaque, corporate-led policymaking.
AI and Democratic Values Report
Maria Lungu, DTD Lab postdoctoral research fellow, has contributed to the CAIDP AI and Democratic Values Index 2025. With delegates gathered in New York City from around the world for the 80th General Assembly of the United Nations, the Center for AI and Digital Policy calls attention to the CAIDP "AI and Democratic Values" report, a comprehensive review of AI policies and practices worldwide.
Textual convergence in national domain name dispute resolution regimes: a mixed-methods analysis of ccTLD arbitration policies
Ahmed Alrawi, DTD Lab Postdoctoral Fellow, has published a collaborative work in Computer Law & Security Review titled "Textual Convergence in National Domain Name Dispute Resolution Regimes: A Mixed-Methods Analysis of ccTLD Arbitration Policies".
