Data Equals: Democratic Equality and Technological Hierarchy - Hardcover

Koopman, Colin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 022684224X ISBN 13: 9780226842240

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2025

Synopsis

An expansive vision for data equality that goes beyond algorithmic fairness.

When we gave algorithms power over our world, we hoped that the apparent neutrality of machine thinking would create a more egalitarian age. Yet we are more divided than ever, staring down threats to democracy itself. In Data Equals, Colin Koopman argues that data technologies fail us so often because we built them around a deficient notion of equality.

It is not enough, Koopman explains, that algorithms engage everyone’s data with the same measuring stick. The data themselves are all too often structured in ways that obscure and exacerbate stratifying distinctions. Koopman contends that we must also work to ensure that those people subject to computational assessment enter data systems on equal terms. Part philosophical argument, part practical guide (replete with case studies from education technology), Data Equals offers novel methods for realizing democratic equality in a digital age.

About this title

About the Author

Colin Koopman is professor of philosophy and director of new media and culture at the University of Oregon. His books include How We Became Our Data: A Genealogy of the Informational Person, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 022684224X
• ISBN 13: 9780226842240
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 296