Society and Technology

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First Monday STSS Reading Group [Online]

What is First Monday? First Monday is a participant-led, interdisciplinary, online STSS reading group. When is the meeting? The first Monday of each month. The meeting time changes quarterly, reach out to the organizers to get the most updated time. Where is the meeting? Via Zoom. Email mmjones@uw.edu to request an invitation. What is the goal of the reading group? We seek to foster and deepen an intellectual community amongst STS-curious faculty, students, and staff at the University of Washington’s three campuses and the School of Medicine. Anyone at the UW who is STS-curious is welcome to join. Who hosts the meetings? Anyone who participates in the group can volunteer to host. We have a rotating host model. Every month, someone new chooses an article, book chapter, or publication in the STS field. In the event no one volunteers, the facilitators may select an article and/or invite a host. Who facilitates? The First Monday facilitators are Monika Sengul-Jones, Director of Strategy and Operations for Society… Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: mmjones@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars. Event sponsors: Society + Technology at UW, STSS. Target Audience: Tri-campus science, technology, and society studies faculty, students, researchers, and staff. Monday, April 6, 2026, 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM. For more info visit depts.washington.edu.

The Risks and Realities of AI Chatbots | Center for an Informed Public, Technology & Social Change Group, Tech Policy Lab, and KUOW

A conversation with technology journalists Kashmir Hill (The New York Times) and Jeff Horwitz (Reuters), moderated by Monica Nickelsburg (KUOW Public Radio) on the realities of AI chatbots. AI chatbots are everywhere. They answer questions, offer advice, and even provide emotional support. But what happens when they hallucinate or deliver unreliable information? Who’s responsible when these tools cause real harm? Kashmir Hill of The New York Times and Jeff Horwitz of Reuters have been investigating questions like these for years. Hill has broken major stories on facial recognition, privacy, and AI systems. Horwitz’s reporting has exposed how tech companies handle harmful content, often revealing significant failures. Both have documented serious problems with how these technologies actually work in practice. In a special conversation on April 7, 6-7:30 p.m. at the Seattle Central Library, moderated by Monica Nickelsburg, host of KUOW Public Radio’s Booming podcast, Hill and Horwitz will share what they’ve le… Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: sawyerbe@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars. Event sponsors: Center for an Informed Public, Technology & Social Change Group, Tech Policy Lab, and KUOW, Information School. Target Audience: Public. Tuesday, April 7, 2026, 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM. For more info visit events.uw.edu.

First Monday STSS Reading Group [Online]

What is First Monday? First Monday is a participant-led, interdisciplinary, online STSS reading group. When is the meeting? The first Monday of each month. The meeting time changes quarterly, reach out to the organizers to get the most updated time. Where is the meeting? Via Zoom. Email mmjones@uw.edu to request an invitation. What is the goal of the reading group? We seek to foster and deepen an intellectual community amongst STS-curious faculty, students, and staff at the University of Washington’s three campuses and the School of Medicine. Anyone at the UW who is STS-curious is welcome to join. Who hosts the meetings? Anyone who participates in the group can volunteer to host. We have a rotating host model. Every month, someone new chooses an article, book chapter, or publication in the STS field. In the event no one volunteers, the facilitators may select an article and/or invite a host. Who facilitates? The First Monday facilitators are Monika Sengul-Jones, Director of Strategy and Operations for Society… Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: mmjones@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars. Event sponsors: Society + Technology at UW, STSS. Target Audience: Tri-campus science, technology, and society studies faculty, students, researchers, and staff. Monday, May 4, 2026, 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM. For more info visit depts.washington.edu.

Open Source Assistive Technology Hackathon

GitHub will celebrate Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) by hosting the Open Source Assistive Technology Hackathon focused on empowering participants to build skills and make real contributions to the assistive technology tools people rely on every day. Free to participate , Sign up, Who Should Attend People with lived experience who want to innovate on assistive technology , Developers with disabilities , Developers with a desire to help improve and customize assistive technologies , Professionals working in the field of special education, rehabilitation engineering, biomedical engineering, and other fields that can benefit from free open source assistive technology , Open source AT maintainers, New to open source? No problem! We’ll walk through core GitHub contribution workflows (including NVDA and keyboard-only navigation), so you can practice navigating repositories, issues, pull requests, and code reviews with confidence. Whether you’re new to contributing or ready to level up, you’ll leave with… Event interval: Ongoing event. Accessibility Contact: mlama007@github.com. Event Types: Diversity Equity Inclusion. Meetings. Special Events. Workshops. Event sponsors: GitHub. Target Audience: Innovators in assistive tech, developers w/ disabilities, pros in special ed, rehab, biomed, ... Thursday, May 21, 2026 – Friday, May 22, 2026. GitHub headquarters, 88 Colin P Kelly Jr St, San Francisco, CA 94107. For more info visit www.eventbrite.com.

What Does Law Mean in Crisis? How Crip Feminist Technoscience Will Save Us with Ly Xīnzhèn M. Zhǎngsūn Brown

In a world ablaze with crisis, this lecture explores crip feminist technoscience as a tool for survival and resistance—offering disabled wisdom to reimagine justice, regulate AI, and challenge empire, white supremacy, and late-stage capitalism through a disability justice lens. Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: lectures@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars. Diversity Equity Inclusion. Event sponsors: Paul Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering, School of Law, Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking, and Technology (DO-IT), School of Social Work, Disability Studies Program, Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experiences (CREATE), The Graduate School. Thursday, May 21, 2026, 6:30 PM – 7:30 PM. Town Hall Seattle. For more info visit www.washington.edu.

CREATE Community Day

CREATE Community Day is an annual half-day forum for discussing the concerns about and approaches to sustainable accessibility research and a showcase of research led by CREATE and HuskyADAPT. Student researchers highlight their work and showcase a variety of individual and team projects. We are currently making plans for Community Day 2026. Details available in spring. Event interval: Single day event. Campus location: Bill & Melinda Gates Center for Computer Science & Engineering (CSE2). Campus room: Zillow Commons. Accessibility Contact: oliviapb@uw.edu. Event Types: Academics. Diversity Equity Inclusion. Exhibits. Information Sessions. Meetings. Special Events. Event sponsors: CREATE - the Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experiences. Target Audience: Anyone interested in research on accessible technology & making the world accessible through tech. Wednesday, May 27, 2026, 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM. For more info visit create.uw.edu.

First Monday STSS Reading Group [Online]

What is First Monday? First Monday is a participant-led, interdisciplinary, online STSS reading group. When is the meeting? The first Monday of each month. The meeting time changes quarterly, reach out to the organizers to get the most updated time. Where is the meeting? Via Zoom. Email mmjones@uw.edu to request an invitation. What is the goal of the reading group? We seek to foster and deepen an intellectual community amongst STS-curious faculty, students, and staff at the University of Washington’s three campuses and the School of Medicine. Anyone at the UW who is STS-curious is welcome to join. Who hosts the meetings? Anyone who participates in the group can volunteer to host. We have a rotating host model. Every month, someone new chooses an article, book chapter, or publication in the STS field. In the event no one volunteers, the facilitators may select an article and/or invite a host. Who facilitates? The First Monday facilitators are Monika Sengul-Jones, Director of Strategy and Operations for Society… Event interval: Single day event. Accessibility Contact: mmjones@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars. Event sponsors: Society + Technology at UW, STSS. Target Audience: Tri-campus science, technology, and society studies faculty, students, researchers, and staff. Monday, June 1, 2026, 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM. For more info visit depts.washington.edu.