Public interest technology and why it’s important to create an outlet for it?

3.1 An interview with Dr. Latanya Sweeney

Dr. Sweeney is a professor and thought leader on public interest technology and the fourth industrial revolution. In a diversion from technical writing, I interviewed Dr. Sweeney in the summer of 2024. This first contribution helps set the stage for understanding public interest technology in the digital age.

3.2 Research papers

Washington and Cheung open the issue by raising questions about the public interest. They argue that history shows that there are nuances to sharing open space, transportation networks, and policy mandates. They consider how the emerging field of public interest technology could learn from previous assumptions about who counts as the public and how benefits or harms can be overly concentrated in certain populations. They seek to extend their conceptual thread “public interest” with a theory of change that recognizes the strength of inclusion.

In her paper, Ismael explores the current public/personal distinction of data as well as the respective legal standards for both categories in both the American and European context. This paper acts as a guide for regulators seeking to understand monopolization and privacy implications of confirming the validity of using open-sourced images versus imagining a reality of curated or licensed datasets amidst outrage from artists over a breach of an expectation of collection/use to their artwork. Though arguments have been made regarding using copyright to protect artists, this paper seeks to explore other pathways for regulating generative image models under our current conceptual frameworks of privacy.

Gran pushes these ideas further still with his study of people suffering from spinal cord injuries. Through interviews with patients and their caregivers Gran identifies obstacles and barriers experienced when seeking technologies needed for rehabilitation and reintegration.

Similarly, Shulruff examines trust and safety and how they mitigate certain social risks and harms of digital technologies. In a policy vacuum, Shulruff argues that a Trust and Safety work performs a type of internal governance by attempting to mitigate disinformation, online harassment, extremism, and other harms accelerated or amplified by technology products and services. He shows how Trust and Safety work can problematize the monolithic view of what tech work is and who does it.

Campbell examines obstacles in education. Her study explores the intersection of public interest technology (PIT) and K-12 Black-oriented educational technology (EdTech) platforms in addressing educational inequities and racial biases. Despite the increased adoption of EdTech in K-12 settings, it often perpetuates racial biases, marginalizing Black students. She argues for centering Black culture and realities in educational content. Here published research is also limited. Through case analyses of three K-12 Black-oriented platforms – KaiXR, Reconstruction, and TunTimo – she examines the efficacy of the hypothesis that they address technology inclusion and counteract racial biases in mainstream EdTech.

Next, Huet argues that the application of new technologies to education can increase social public benefits. The literature on higher education seems to agree that expanding this knowledge is desirable because it generates direct and indirect individual gains, as well as aggregate social benefits. Huet explores online higher education as a way to secure these benefits, though, he admits, there is little research on the topic. He finds some evidence supporting the idea that online higher education could resolve some obstacles for education (i.e., costs) but determines future research is needed to could identify more robust evidence of online higher education’s potential of expanding social public benefits.