Technological advancements affect the future of human rights.
The evolution of technology will have inevitably profound implications for the human rights framework.
From a practical perspective, technology can help move the human rights agenda forward. For instance, the use of satellite data can monitor the flow of displaced people; artificial intelligence can assist with image recognition to gather data on rights abuses; and the use of forensic technology can reconstruct crime scenes and hold perpetrators accountable.
Yet, for the multitude of areas in which emerging technologies advance the human rights agenda, technological developments have equal capacity to undermine efforts. From authoritarian states monitoring political dissidents by way of surveillance technologies, to the phenomenon of “deepfakes” destabilizing the democratic public sphere, ethical and policy-oriented implications must be taken into consideration with the development of technological innovations.
Technological advancements also introduce new actors to the human rights framework. The movement has historically focused on the role of the state in ensuring rights and justice. Today, technological advancements and the rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning, in particular, necessitate interaction, collaboration, and coordination with leaders from business and technology in addition to government.
The Carr-Ryan Center’s Technology and Human Rights Program brings together the Technology and Human Rights Fellowship, with a new cohort selected each academic year to perform research on the challenges of technology to the human rights framework. Additionally, the program hosts the Towards Life 3.0: Ethics and Technology in the 21st Century webinar series, which draws upon a range of scholars, tech leaders, and public interest technologists to address the ethical aspects of the long-term impact of AI on society and human life.
A new theme within the Technology and Human Rights Fellowship gives special focus to research on the theme of “Surveillance Capitalism or Democracy: Who Knows, Who Decides?” This cohort connects fellows' projects to the research in Shoshana Zuboff's 2019 book, The Age Surveillance Capitalism, and Mathias Risse’s 2023 book, Political Theory of the Digital Age. This portion of the Technology and Human Rights Fellowship is co-directed by Mathias Risse and Shoshana Zuboff.
Our Technology and Human Rights Fellows
Olivier Alais
Program Coordinator, International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
Antón Barba-Kay
Distinguished Fellow, Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law
Matt Cagle
Senior Staff Attorney with the Democracy, Speech & Technology program, ACLU of Northern California
Joël Naoki Christoph
French-Japanese economist; PhD researcher in economics, European University Institute
Matthew Finkel
Council on Foreign Relations-Hitachi Fellow
Karoline Helbig
Senior Researcher, Power for Democracies
Odanga Madung
former Senior Researcher for Platform Integrity, Mozilla
Nona Mamulashvili
former Member of the Georgian Parliament
Adriano Mannino
Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley; Visiting Fellow at FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg and LMU Munich; Senior Advisor for Power for Democracies
Olu Olufemi-White
CEO, Alami Capital
Paco Pangalangan
Communication Strategist; Policy Advocate
Payas Parab
Data Scientist
Teresa Perosa
Brazilian Researcher and Writer
Jonathan Rozen
Journalist and Researcher; Program Coordinator, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
Nicholas Shaxson
Journalist, Author; Activist
Sue Anne Teo
Researcher, Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (RWI); Associate Research Fellow, Center for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
Jianli Yang
Human Rights Scholar and Advocate
From Our Tech & Human Rights Fellows