Governance by data: AI, infrastructure, accountability

Infra-legalities and EFI Critical Data Studies present: Governance by data: AI, infrastructure, accountability with Julie Cohen (Georgetown), Karen Yeung (Birmingham), Gavin Sullivan (Edinburgh).

About this event

With the rapid deployment of AI, the rising tide of authoritarianism, and the expansion of Big Tech and platform power into all areas of social and political life, debate about how to govern the digital, data-driven economy and grapple with the effects of governance by data have never been more urgent. ‘Responsible AI’ has been advanced as a way of mitigating and balancing the perceived benefits and harms of AI and algorithmic governance. But this is often translated into very thin forms of accountability – such as narrow technical audits of specific AI-systems, industry-led transparency reporting, minor technical adjustments to AI models and vague ethical commitments to mitigate for bias and discrimination – that end up reinforcing infrastructural dominance and control by corporate and state actors, and fail to meaningfully address the harms that AI and governance by data are causing.

This panel aims to reflect on the framing of these debates in terms of ‘algorithms’, on the one hand, and data and ‘data infrastructures’ on the other, as key entry points and thinking tools for addressing AI accountability and algorithmic harms. A focus on data infrastructure brings into view the diverse sociotechnical practices and configurations that allow AI systems and supply-chains to work and data to ‘flow’. It also opens novel ways of thinking about ‘algorithmic regulation’ and accountability challenges.

The panel brings together leading law and technology scholars working in AI regulation, algorithmic governance and platform power who are critically engaging these challenges. Julie Cohen is the Mark Claster Mamolen Professor of Law & Technology at Georgetown University, author of (OUP, 2019) and one of the world’s leading scholars working at the intersection of law, political economy and platform power. Karen Yeung is Interdisciplinary Professorial Fellow in Law, Ethics and Informatics at the University of Birmingham, one of the UK’s leading law and technology scholars and former Rapporteur for the Council of Europe’s Expert Committee on the human rights dimensions of automated data processing and AI. Her most recent book (co-authored with Sofia Ranchordas), (2nd edition) (CUP, 2024) offers a critical introduction to core theories, concepts, methods, tools, and techniques of regulation, including regulatory policy. Gavin Sullivan is a Reader in International Human Rights Law at Edinburgh Law School where he leads the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship project, Infra-Legalities: Global Security Infrastructures, AI and International Law. He is co-editor of the forthcoming volume, Global Governance by Data: Infrastructures of Algorithmic Rule (CUP, 2026).

The event is co-organised by the Infra-Legalities project and the EFI Critical Data Studies research cluster. It is financially supported by a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship grant, awarded to Dr. Gavin Sullivan (The University of Edinburgh), Grant Ref: MR/T041552/1.

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