Ethics of the Algorithm: Digital Humanities and Holocaust Memory

Todd Presner

Book

Ethics of the Algorithm

Digital Humanities and Holocaust Memory

Todd Presner
With contributions by: Anna Bonazzi , Anna Bonazzi , Rachel Deblinger , Lizhou Fan , Michelle Lee , Kyle Rosen and Campbell Yamane

Language: English

Published/Copyright: 2024

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About this book

How computational methods can expand how we see, read, and listen to Holocaust testimony

The Holocaust is one of the most documented—and now digitized—events in human history. Institutions and archives hold hundreds of thousands of hours of audio and video testimony, composed of more than a billion words in dozens of languages, with millions of pieces of descriptive metadata. It would take several lifetimes to engage with these testimonies one at a time. Computational methods could be used to analyze an entire archive—but what are the ethical implications of “listening” to Holocaust testimonies by means of an algorithm? In this book, Todd Presner explores how the digital humanities can provide both new insights and humanizing perspectives for Holocaust memory and history.

Presner suggests that it is possible to develop an “ethics of the algorithm” that mediates between the ethical demands of listening to individual testimonies and the interpretative possibilities of computational methods. He delves into thousands of testimonies and witness accounts, focusing on the analysis of trauma, language, voice, genre, and the archive itself. Tracing the affordances of digital tools that range from early, proto-computational approaches to more recent uses of automatic speech recognition and natural language processing, Presner introduces readers to what may be the ultimate expression of these methods: AI-driven testimonies that use machine learning to process responses to questions, offering a user experience that seems to replicate an actual conversation with a Holocaust survivor.

With Ethics of the Algorithm, Presner presents a digital humanities argument for how big data models and computational methods can be used to preserve and perpetuate cultural memory.

Author / Editor information

Todd Presner is professor of European languages and transcultural studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and holds the Michael and Irene Ross Chair in the Division of Humanities. He is the author of Mobile Modernity: Germans, Jews, Trains and Muscular Judaism: The Jewish Body and the Politics of Regeneration and the coauthor of Digital_Humanities and Urban Humanities: New Practices for Reimagining the City.

Reviews

“I know of no work in Holocaust studies that threads the needle so successfully between the difficult tasks of combining close analysis of survivor sources with a profound sense of their broad historical implications. Presner does this work by challenging us to embrace digital methods— critically, skeptically, and partially—as fundamental to our approach to testimony.”—Paul B. Jaskot, Duke University

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
Introduction Technologies of Testimony and Distant Witnessing Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	1
1 What Should Algorithms Have to Do with Ethics? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	17
2 Computation That (De)humanizes: From “Bare Data” to Human Life Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	42
3 David Boder and the Origins of Computational Analysis of Survivor Testimonies
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	79
Digital Project Two Methods of Counter-indexing the “Gray Zone”: N-Grams and Semantic Triplets Anna Bonazzi and Lizhou Fan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	123
4 Through the Lens of Big Data: A Macroanalysis of the USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	147
5 The Haunted Voice: On the Ethics of Close and Distant Listening
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	191
Digital Project What Were Survivors Asked? Using Machine Learning to Constellate 89,759 Interviewer Questions Michelle Lee Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	232
6 Algorithmic Close Reading: Analyzing Vectors of Agency in Holocaust Testimonies
Introduction Lizhou Fan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	258
Digital Project Mala Zimetbaum and the Creation of a Testimonial Ensemble Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	300
7 Cultural Memory Machines and the Futures of Testimony Rachel Deblinger Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	323
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	351
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed	415

Publishing information

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

eBook published on:

September 5, 2024

eBook ISBN:

9780691258980

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691258980

eBook ISBN: 9780691258980

Keywords for this book

AI; algorithmic fabulation; archive; big data; cultural analytics; datafication; digital culture; digital media; digital technologies; ethical computation; Ethics of the Algorithm: Digital Humanities and Holocaust Memory; humanistic data science; natural language processing; survivor; Testimony; Todd Presner; virtual; witness; Data; Survivors; Narrative; Algorithm; Holocaust; Jewish; Human; Triplets; USC Shoah foundation; Mala; Jews; Visualization; Digital; Ethical; Semantic; Algorithmic; Memory; Ethics; Nazi; Database; Kimmelmann; Auschwitz; Corpus; War; Death; Trauma; Dimensions in Testimony (DiT); Network; Semantic triplets; History; Holocaust testimony; Judgment; Distant; Technologies; Cultural; Segments; Processes; Violence; Victims; Child; Population; Dutch; Fortunoff; Bomba; Ghetto; Silence; Media; Machine learning; Clusters; Police; Labor; Technology

Audience(s) for this book

For a non-specialist adult audience

Ethics of the Algorithm

Overview

About this book

Author / Editor information

Reviews

Topics

Table of contents

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