Seda Gürses is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Multi-Actor Systems at TU Delft at the Faculty of Technology Policy and Management, and an affiliate at the COSIC Group at the Department of Electrical Engineering (ESAT), KU Leuven. Beyond her academic work, she also collaborated with artistic initiatives including Constant vzw, Bootlab, De-center, ESC in Brussels, Graz and Berlin.
Gürses' work provides us with handles to study computational infrastructures. The paper on *POTs (Protective Optimization Technologies)*[^pots] she co-wrote, for example, proposes forms of critical *optimization* practices. Such practices *"aim at addressing risks and harms that cannot be captured from the fairness perspective and cannot be addressed without a cooperative service provider"*. The paper questions current "fairness" approaches, by inquiring their limitations and creating space for alternative ways to review them. An important factor in this paper is the proposal to approach computational infrastructures as something that is far more than a technological system alone, thus shifting focus from the system itself to the economical, political and social context in which it operates.
Gürses' work provides us with handles to study computational infrastructures. The paper on *POTs (Protective Optimization Technologies)*[^pots] she co-wrote, for example, proposes forms of critical *optimization* practices. Such practices "aim at addressing risks and harms that cannot be captured from the fairness perspective and cannot be addressed without a cooperative service provider". The paper questions current "fairness" approaches, by inquiring their limitations and creating space for alternative ways to review them. An important factor in this paper is the proposal to approach computational infrastructures as something that is far more than a technological system alone, thus shifting focus from the system itself to the economical, political and social context in which it operates.
By questioning how technologies could *optimize* their mode of operation in a truly fair way, *POTs* provide means for affected parties to address negative impacts of digital systems. The work departs from a thorough consideration of multiple forms of *harm* framed as *externalities* caused by computational infrastructures. Examples of such externalities include privacy, discrimination, low wages and surveillance. How a *POT* could possible engage with these externalities is furthermore illustrated through a range of activist, artistic and deployed examples of repurposed optimization technologies that correct, shift or expose these harms. *Externalities* is one of the concepts and phrases in the paper that are borrowed from software and requirements engineering, and from economics and social sciences.
By questioning how technologies could *optimize* their mode of operation in a truly fair way, *POTs* provide "means for affected parties to address negative impacts of digital systems". The work departs from a thorough consideration of multiple forms of *harm*caused by computational infrastructures framed as *externalities*. Examples of such externalities include lack of privacy, discrimination, low wages and surveillance. How a *POT* could possible engage with these externalities is furthermore illustrated through a range of activist, artistic and deployed examples of repurposed optimization technologies that "correct, shift or expose these harms". *Externalities* is one of the concepts and phrases in the paper that are borrowed from software and requirements engineering, and from economics and social sciences.
<!-- They effect different externalities, operate on the basis of specific embedded values and define restrictions of what can be built on top of the infrastructure and what not. -->
When we say bots, we refer to software agents which automatise certain actions and can run autonomously or semi-autonomously.
The particular bots we are interested in for this online module are those that act as an interface between the digital platform and human users, or what Hepp calls communicative robots[^hepp], robots that "are defined as autonomously operating systems designed for the purpose of quasi-communication with human beings to enable further algorithmic-based functionalities – often but not always on the basis of artificial intelligence."
The particular bots we are interested in for this online module are those that act as an interface between the digital platform and human users, or what Hepp calls communicative robots[^hepp], robots that "are defined as autonomously operating systems designed for the purpose of quasi-communication with human beings to enable further algorithmic-based functionalities – often but not always on the basis of artificial intelligence".
In this section, we will introduce Darius Kazemi, a computer programmer and artist, and Andreas Hepp, a professor of media and communications.
