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How to Apply Interdisciplinary Research and Historical Perspectives to Current PIT Issues
PIT in Practice: University of Michigan
As a fundamentally interdisciplinary field, public interest technology offers powerful methods for tackling complex, multifaceted challenges such as climate change. At the University of Michigan, Shobita Parthasarathy and Molly Kleinman have developed processes and tools for bringing together experts from across disciplines to shed light on the environmental, social, economic, and political impacts of emerging technologies.
Jump to: UM’s 3 Keys to Interdisciplinary Research.
Many of these research projects, which are housed in the Science, Technology and Public Policy program (STPP) in the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, focus on climate issues for a simple reason: “None of this technology operates without electricity,” says Kleinman.
We are all living through the effects of climate change. It is shaping our daily lives, and the work we do has the power to move us in the right direction or the wrong direction.
Through the Technology Assessment Project (TAP), Kleinman and Parthasarathy bring together faculty and students from multiple disciplines to analyze and articulate the likely social, economic, ethical, equity, and political impacts of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies. Their final products are reports for communities, leaders, and policymakers to help them understand the true pros and cons of a given technology and to inform governance frameworks that can minimize the harms and maximize the benefits.
What is Public Interest Technology?
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Analogical Case Studies: Examining the Past to Understand the Future
TAP’s main research method is the analogical case study. By examining historical examples of similarly groundbreaking technologies such as cars, airplanes, and medical devices, the teams illustrate the potential impacts of an emerging technology.
Because emerging technologies are exciting (and potentially lucrative), they are often deployed speedily, without fully considering and preparing for their potential downsides.
“There’s this argument of ‘the technology is so new, we can’t possibly regulate or govern it, we just have to wait and see what happens,’” Kleinman says, pointing to the example of social media. “Then, by the time we’re ready to create or enforce policy, they say ‘it’s too late and we just have to learn to live with whatever the consequences are.’”
By grounding its research in historical examples, TAP’s interdisciplinary, analogical case study method helps cut through common misperceptions about emerging technologies and the overinflated claims of tech companies rushing them to market.
STPP Director Shobita Parthasarathy discusses the role of social scientists in shaping technology policy alongside former White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Alondra Nelson / University of Michigan.
An Analogical Example: Cutting Through AI Hype
The power of interdisciplinary, analogical case studies is on full display in TAP’s spring 2022 report on large language models (LLMs). The report accurately anticipated, six months before the release of ChatGPT, many of the problems with LLM-powered AI technologies we now face, such as deepening environmental injustice.
A review of the ecological impacts of data extraction, led by a graduate student from environmental studies, showed how water- and fossil fuel–intensive data centers might harm local communities.
This issue was further crystallized through an analogical case study of the U.S. highway system. “Highways were a boon to the auto industry, but not so much to the towns and neighborhoods that have highways running through them, and the people who breathe the pollution,” says Kleinman.
TAP’s current research project — a joint project with faculty and students from the university’s Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences and the Graham Sustainability Institute — explores how advanced nuclear technologies can support a large-scale transition to renewable energy.
Interdisciplinary Research: 3 Keys for Successful Teams
Throughout their research, Kleinman and Parthasarathy have brought together faculty and students from a wide range of disciplines to do this type of analogical analysis, honing their approach to interdisciplinary research. Here, they share three keys to doing this work in a successful and impactful way.
1. Be transparent about power differentials. It’s essential but not sufficient to assemble a team with strong diversity across disciplines, identities, and perspectives; you also have to put the people with less power, often social scientists and humanists, in the lead.
- When recruiting your team, make clear you’re looking not just for STEM researchers but also those from non-STEM disciplines (i.e., history, psychology, environmental studies) and prompt applicants to describe what nontechnical skills, knowledge, or lived experience they could bring to the project.
- In team discussions, make space for each person to share their expertise and lived experience. Name and celebrate relevant expertise and experiences that are not necessarily academic or technical.
- Set and maintain rules for discussion that ensure equal opportunity for each person to contribute.
2. Take time to get everyone on the same page — literally. “For the first few weeks of the project, we pay our team to read,” Kleinman says. Remember that members of an interdisciplinary team will all have different and partial expertise.
- Develop a mini-syllabus that gets everyone reading a mix of foundational texts and background on the specific topic.
- Incorporate movies, TV shows, science fiction, or other creative stories that engage the imagination and get team members thinking in analogies.
- Make time and space to discuss and reflect on that material, encouraging team members to make connections across disciplines.
3. Build team trust throughout the project. Team building is important, both early on and throughout the project. A foundation of trust is necessary so that when the challenges of interdisciplinary collaboration inevitably arise, they won’t cause ruptures or derail the whole project. Without trust, it is much harder to address and recover from problems.
- Schedule longer meetings so there is time to develop relationships through informal conversation and sharing interests outside of work.
- Plan regular one-on-one check-ins, so people can raise concerns they might not feel comfortable bringing up to the full group.
- If your team is dispersed, try to find opportunities to connect in-person, even if it’s just a few team members getting together during a work trip or a conference that brings people to the same university or city.
Learn More
Interdisciplinary research is a challenging but powerful opportunity to activate faculty and students around climate change and other pressing PIT issues. To learn more, check out:
- TAP’s report on facial recognition in schools, which was cited in a New York State ban on using the technology in public schools.
- TAP’s current project, Advanced Nuclear Energy Technology in a Carbon-Neutral Energy Future.
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