The AIDA Social Sciences Research Network is an independent group of researchers interested in the social, cultural, and political implications of Artificial Intelligence, Data and Algorithms (AIDA). Our work sits at the intersection of Social Studies of Science and Technology, Critical Data Studies, and Cultural Studies. We are keen to develop disruptive theories and methodologies from a social sciences’ perspective. 

We are based in Portugal, but in the near future, we aim to expand this network to other Social Sciences researchers with diverse backgrounds and from all regions of the world. 

We conduct social sciences research, engage in reading groups and joint publications, and organise events with diverse audiences: from academics and students of various disciplines to (and with) underrepresented and disadvantaged groups, as well as with diverse stakeholders (policymakers, ICT/AI developers, advocacy groups, NGOs, and professional groups using AI).

AIDA technologies pervade our contemporary lives. Commonly, AIDA technologies are at the centre of future-orientated discourses, disseminated by powerful social actors that establish AIDA as an inevitable and massively disrupting technological development. Such evocations of possible or fantastic, desirable or dystopian futures are sociopolitical and cultural processes with concrete consequences in the present. However, the benefits and burdens of AIDA technologies are unequally distributed across societies, groups, and communities. AIDA technologies may benefit individuals or particular groups but discriminate against others, and create complex social and ethical problems at a collective level. Social sciences are of the utmost importance if one intends to critically rethink and reshape their complex and multiple consequences and controversies from co-constructed standpoints.