Breaking the Machine: A Plot

"Breaking the Machine: A Plot"

Presented by the Center for Research on Race and Ethnicity in Society

It is widely recognized that an array of factors ignite and fuel the fire of racial inequality. And to make matters worse, these factors change markedly over time. We do not know, however, exactly how this happens—how observed symbols become race, how race becomes inequality in social interaction, and how the ensuing wildfire of racial inequality grows to ravage a population for generations. Stewart’s book, Race in the Machine, presents a world where the protagonist, an enigmatic mechanic living in a population of socially connected intelligent machines, attempts to build a logical model that answers a simple query they encounter in an introductory lecture: “What exactly is race? And what is it in the context of the social machine?” This prompt guides the protagonist along a twisting intellectual tale surrounding a series of computational experiments which explore: How many racists does it take to create systems of inequality? What role do non-racists actors play in upholding them? How is bias learned? How does it spread? In this talk, Stewart will present a synopsis of the book that engages the unique challenges of race research, as well as those of policy makers and social advocates who endeavor to undermine the machine.