Please join the Tech Policy Lab for our Distinguished Lecture with Alondra Nelson on Thursday, April 3rd at 7:00 PM PDT on the UW campus in Kane Hall 120.

Algorithmic Agnotology: On AI, Ignorance, and Power

In this lecture, Alondra Nelson examines the exercise of power through agnotology—the strategic production of ignorance—drawing on foundational work on how industries manufactured doubt to protect their interests. She introduces “algorithmic agnotology” to describe how Big Tech and AI companies create knowledge asymmetries through technical obscurantism, selective transparency, and the deliberate framing of AI limitations as mysterious rather than systemic. By contrasting traditional and algorithmic forms of manufactured ignorance, she demonstrates how the “AI race” accelerates knowledge disparities, with implications that extend beyond technical domains into fundamental questions of democratic governance and digital rights.

Alondra Nelson, a renowned scholar and author, is the Harold F. Linder Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, where she leads the Science, Technology, and Social Values Lab. Author of The Social Life of DNA, she served as Deputy Assistant to President Biden and Acting Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where her work advanced responsible technological development, scientific integrity, and public access to taxpayer-funded research.

In 2023, she was named to the inaugural TIME100 list of the most influential people in artificial intelligence and recognized by Nature as one of the “Ten People Who Shaped Science.” Dr. Nelson also advises governments and global organizations and is a distinguished member of leading scientific and policy academies.

This event is free and open to the public. Please register below.

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