Growing concern about the way digital technologies are transforming human attention and agency set the stage for a pressing conversation about the impact researchers, designers, and strategists can have. This talk examines the how systems measure and organize attention and social and technical challenges this poses.

All around us, algorithmic systems are constantly minding and modeling us, creating data points that serve as technical proxies for human intentions and actions. Meanwhile, we are minding and modeling in return – sometimes making adjustments to use systems as intended, sometimes adapting with or subverting them.

Speakers

Nick Seaver is an associate professor of Anthropology at Tufts University, where he also directs the program in Science, Technology & Society. His research examines the interface between computation and vernacular social concepts (like “taste,” “culture,” or “attention”). He is the author of Computing Taste: Algorithms and the Makers of Music Recommendation (2022), an ethnography of music recommender system developers. He co-edited Towards an Anthropology of Data (2021) and was formerly the co-chair of the Committee for the Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Computing. He is currently a fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University and in the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research’s Future Flourishing Program.

Ben Krupp lives in London and is a UX Research Manager working on health and fitness at Google. He is fascinated by the ways technology informs and shifts how we think about our health and bodies, but spends most of his time in meetings doing other stuff. He came to UXR by way of Anthropology, doing his PhD research at the University of Illinois on how the Soviet collapse influenced people’s perceptions of their bodies.

Astrid Thomaser is a foresight and innovation strategist with 15+ years of experience across design, research, and corporate strategy. She began her career at IDEO, applying user-centered methods to solve strategic challenges for global clients. As founder of her own research firm, she led international studies for Intel, Siemens, and Volvo, delivering insight-driven direction for innovation and product development. At BMW Group, she has advanced innovation management by aligning R&D with user needs, developed executive briefings on emerging technologies, and now leads foresight efforts—translating external signals into long-term portfolio strategy.