Gabriel Grill

PhD Candidate in Information, University of Michigan

My research interests revolve around the social study of algorithmic systems and their evaluation. In my dissertation research, I examine how new data analytics and machine learning technologies in supply chain risk management are conceived, evaluated, and disseminated, and what their adoption means for different people and organizations. I mainly use qualitative methods, such as interviews, document analysis, and ethnographic fieldwork, informed by sensibilities from science and technology studies and technical expertise in computer science. I have published articles examining sociotechnical aspects of algorithmic systems such as on: unrest prediction, profiling in public welfare, and emotion recognition. I also did work on issues around testing in machine learning, conceptions of algorithmic bias, and online harassment on social media. My work draws mainly upon literature from fields such as infrastructure studies, social studies of algorithms & data, sociology of risk & testing, and economic sociology. I obtained a master’s degree in computer science from Vienna University of Technology. My studies focused on the areas of natural language processing, parallel & distributed computing, machine learning, human-computer interaction, cognitive science, logic programming, and compiler construction.

I am currently a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan and advised by Christian Sandvig and Silvia Lindtner. I am affiliated with the Center for Ethics, Society, and Computing (ESC), the Infrastructure Lab and the Tech.Culture.Matters. research collective. I have also previously conducted research at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, National Institute of Informatics in Tokyo and Vienna University of Technology.

My work was featured in US & European media outlets like Wired, governmental policy documents such as of the European Parliament, and by NGOs such as Human Rights Watch. I published at academic venues such as ACM SIGCHI (Human-Computer Interaction), ACM FAccT (Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency), ACM CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing), and Frontiers in Big Data. I presented my work at conferences such as the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S), Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR), and the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE).

news

Apr 7, 2023 Paper accepted to ACM FAccT: Bias as Boundary Object: Critiquing An Algorithm For Austerity Using Bias Frameworks
Mar 15, 2023 Presentation at STS Conference Graz 2023: How to teach the study of algorithms: Experiences from the field
Feb 20, 2023 Article accepted to CHI 2023: Online Harassment in Majority Contexts: Examining Harms and Remedies across Countries
Dec 29, 2022 Presentation at Data (Re)Makes the World conference of Information Society Project at Yale Law School: Constructing Certainty in Machine Learning: On the performativity of testing and its hold on the future
Aug 29, 2022 Presentation at 4s/ESOCITE Joint Meeting 2022: Making algorithms work: On the production of ignorance in the construction of accuracy measures in machine learning
Jul 30, 2022 Invited Talk at Digital Age Research Center at University of Klagenfurt: Constructing Certainty in Machine Learning: On the performativity of accuracy and its hold on the future
Jul 29, 2022 Invited Talk at Work Research Institute at Oslo Metropolitan University: The politics of protest and labor strike prediction technologies in supply chain management and beyond
Mar 29, 2022 Presentation at RAI 2022 (Anthropology, AI and the Future of Human Society) at panel “AI and the new politics of supply chains”: Unpacking the construction of labor risk in supply chain management
Mar 20, 2022 Presentation at EASST 2022: Constructing Certainty: The performativity of benchmarking and its hold on the future
Mar 18, 2022 Presentation at SASE 2022 at panel “Digital Technologies and Working Conditions in Global Value Chains”: Unpacking Risk in Unrest Risk Assessment across Global Supply Chains
Mar 15, 2022 Presentation at the 9th biennial Surveillance & Society conference of the Surveillance Studies Network: The politics of data in labor unrest risk assessment across global supply chains
Mar 11, 2022 Article accepted to CSCW 2022: Women’s Perspectives on Harm and Justice after Online Harassment
Jan 7, 2022 Article accepted to CSCW 2022! Preprint: Attitudes and Folk Theories of Data Subjects on Transparency and Accuracy in Emotion Recognition
Jul 27, 2021 Paper published in the CSCW Journal! Preprint: Future protest made risky: Examining social media based civil unrest prediction research and products
Oct 5, 2020 Presentation at AoIR 2020 on my research on protest prediction tools that use social media data. Extended Abstract available here.
Feb 21, 2020 Article published in Frontiers in Big Data: Algorithmic profiling of job seekers in Austria: how austerity politics are made effective