Algorithms & Society
Algorithms increasingly play a fundamental role in determining outcomes that people in society experience.
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These outcomes cut cross most domains of human experience, including education, securing credit, working lives, healthcare, and criminal justice, to name a few. Algorithmic thinking and tools from artificial intelligence are now integral to academic research within social sciences.
IMS researchers work on a diverse range of topics related to algorithms and their role in society spanning different disciplines such as management, economics, psychology and marketing. An important thread that runs through our diverse strands of research on this topic is the idea of social justice.
Our research is geared towards understanding a range of issues, such as:
- Understanding the nature of predictions made by algorithms and examining whether (and the extent to which) algorithmic decisions adversely affect specific societal groups
- Developing algorithmic tools to understand theoretical issues in economics and finance, socio-economic disparities, possible (unequal) patterns in trade
- Conceptualising and measuring algorithmic fairness
- Whether algorithms are created by teams whose diversity matches the communities that will be affected by decisions algorithms make
- Harnessing algorithms to infer knowledge regarding causal mechanisms underpinning social phenomena
- Using algorithmic/digital methods to understand bibliometric patterns in research and knowledge creation
- Understanding the effect of artificial intelligence tools on consumers’ perception and evaluation of the service in the context of service failure
- Exploring philosophical/methodological questions about the connection between algorithmic and human modes of thinking, learning and creativity
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