Information and Liberation

Thursday, November 6, 2014
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
(Pacific)
Wallenberg Hall
450 Serra Mall, Building 160, Stanford, CA 94305-2055
Speaker: 
  • Paul DuGuid

ABSTRACT
We are familiar with "information technology" and with “liberation technology" but perhaps still need to ask ourselves to what extent information and liberation make natural partners. This primarily theoretical talk will explore why it is tempting to champion information and its technologies in the cause of liberation, yet why it may also be problematic.

SPEAKER BIO
Paul Duguid is an adjunct full professor at the School of Information at Berkeley. In recent years he has also held visiting positions at Queen Mary, University of London, Copenhagen Business School, the École Polytechnique in Paris. In the 1990s, he was a consultant to senior management at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). While there he was co-author of The Social Life of Information with John Seely Brown, the director of PARC. Recent work has focused on the multiple conceptions of information and confusions they can give rise to.