Edward B. Kang
Assistant Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication
Media, Culture, and Communication
Edward B. Kang is a scholar of science and technology, and Assistant Professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication. He is the co-Director/PI of a multi-year project supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) titled Machine Listening in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, and a co-organizer of the AI in Society group at the Institute for Public Knowledge (IPK). His current book project, Machine Voices (under contract, The MIT Press), parses the scientific, social, cultural, and technological formats through which artificial intelligence (AI), voice, and listening are fastened together.
Kang's work synthesizes frameworks across science & technology studies (STS), history and philosophy of science, communication, and sound studies to examine how widely held assumptions around human intelligence, emotion, and perception are challenged as they become objects of scientific inquiry and engineering. To date, this has taken the form of studying machine learning (ML) systems that require the stabilization of conceptually precarious constructs like vocalized emotion, intelligence, and listening. Currently, he is exploring the histories of cognitive psychology and neuroscience, and their intersections with the trajectory of artificial intelligence research.
His peer-reviewed research on these topics can be found in Big Data & Society, Social Studies of Science, Science, Technology & Human-Values, and the Proceedings for the ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency, among others. In addition to this work, Kang has published research on digital platforms such as Spotify, Tinder and Thematic, as well as given talks on South Korean pop culture.
Kang holds a Ph.D. in Communication with a graduate certificate in Science & Technology Studies from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School. At USC, he was a member of the AI research collective Knowing Machines supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, as well as Assistant Editor for the International Journal of Communication.
Selected Publications
Ground truth tracings (GTT): On the epistemic limits of machine learning. Big Data & Society 10(1). (2023).
Biometric imaginaries: Formatting voice, body, identity to data. Social Studies of Science 54(2). (2022).
On the praxes and politics of AI speech emotion recognition. FAccT'23. (2023).
Audible crime scenes: Shotspotter as diagnostic, policing, and space-making infrastructure. Science, Technology & Human-Values 49(3). (2022). w/ Simogne Hudson
AI as a sport: On the competitive epistemologies of benchmarking. FAccT'24. (2024). w/ Will Orr