The Technological Future: Shifting the Focus from What We Build to Who We Build it For

Amber Spry, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Politics
Department of African and African American Studies
Brandeis University

We are at a crossroads where the technologies we create today will shape democracy, work, and community for years to come. Yet too often, conversations about artificial intelligence focus on technical capabilities rather than human consequences — on what these systems can do, rather than who they're designed to serve. Dr. Amber Spry brings a unique dual perspective as both an academic researcher studying political behavior and identity, and a practitioner embedded in the tech industry working on responsible innovation. In this talk, she urges us to consider how the design of AI systems encodes choices about whose values are upheld, whose intelligence counts, and whose futures are prioritized. Drawing on her work developing frameworks for algorithmic fairness, co-designing new technology with communities, and studying how democratic institutions adapt to technological change, Dr. Spry explores what it means to create innovation that genuinely serves the public good. She provides a vision for recognizing everyday people as partners in shaping technological futures, and why making technology responsive to human experience isn't just an ethical imperative, it's essential for creating technology that actually works for the complex, interconnected world we live in.

Dr. Amber Spry is an Assistant Professor of African and African American Studies and Affiliate Faculty in the Department of Politics at Brandeis University. She is a thought leader bridging social scientific insights with application in the tech industry, most recently as Meta's Academic Collaborator for Social Impact Research where she led the creation of measurement systems to understand social outcomes across Instagram, Facebook,  AR and VR applications, and artificial intelligence. She is a founding member of Meta's Co-Design Lab, a central organization that brings everyday people alongside engineers and designers to create new technologies with, not just for, the communities who use them. She also convened the Responsible Innovation in AI Workshop in collaboration with the New York Academy of Science and Arizona State University, which gathered technologists, academics, and civil society to create actionable frameworks and guidelines for solving pressing technological challenges.

Dr. Spry's expertise is in research design and analysis focusing on identity, beliefs, and behavior in our social, political, and digital lives. Her forthcoming book Identity Inventory: What Group Ties Can (and Can't) Tell Us About Politics argues that measurement matters for our understanding of identity politics in the US. She uses innovative survey design methods to observe identity across multiple dimensions, demonstrating that our inferences about what groups want from the government can shift depending on how individuals are asked to self-identify. Her work has been supported by the Russell Sage Foundation and the National Science Foundation.

Dr. Spry holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University, and she is a proud alumna of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County where she earned her B.A. in Political Science and Media and Communications Studies.

Hosted by CS3 with support from the Division of Research and Creative Achievement and the Department of Media & Communication Studies.