🗣️ Week 10 - Class Roadmap (90 min)

2022/23 Lent Term

OBJECTIVE: Discuss the implications of Machine Learning models in the real world.

🛣️ Roadmap

📜 Discussing Academic Article 01 (~40 min)

1. Read the article below while taking notes:

Lazer, David, Ryan Kennedy, Gary King, and Alessandro Vespignani. 2014. “The Parable of Google Flu: Traps in Big Data Analysis.” Science 343 (6176): 1203–5.

2. Discuss the general ideas of the article in groups of 3-4 students. You can use the following questions as a guide:

• What is the main idea of the article?
• What are the main takeaways?
• What are the main implications of the article?

🗣️ CLASS DISCUSSION:

3. Which elements of the article relate to prediction and which relate to explanation? (in these sense discussed in the lecture)

4. What are the main ethical implications of the article?

📜 Discussing Academic Article 02 (~40-50 min)

1. Read the article below while taking notes:

Rettberg, Jill Walker. 2022. “Algorithmic Failure as a Humanities Methodology: Machine Learning’s Mispredictions Identify Rich Cases for Qualitative Analysis.” Big Data & Society 9 (2): 205395172211312.

2. Discuss the general ideas of the article in groups of 3-4 students. You can use the following questions as a guide:

• What does Munk et al.s’ theory claim?
• How did the author of the current article attempt to “replicate” the theory?
• What does it mean to replicate a study, by the way?
• What are the main takeaways of the article?

🗣️ CLASS DISCUSSION:

💡 Reflection

Although the assessment being released this week will require you to discuss a particular pre-selected study using the concepts covered in this course, the final essay (Summer Term) will require you to reflect on a Machine Learning application within your degree program. You will have the opportunity to choose a specific study or select a broad topic to reflect upon.

3. Thinking ahead in the future, how do you think the reflections of this week will help you in your final assessment?