Faculty of ArtOur social and cultural world is rapidly metamorphosing, with technological innovations rapidly transforming our social world – from how and with whom we interact, to how we identify, how we shop and how we play and create. Social scientists, who are dedicated to studying most every facet of the human condition are scrambling to keep up with the explosive growth of new or “big data” opportunities and challenges. These challenges include technical and methodological challenges, including training in methods that are rapidly evolving, from machine vision to large language models and beyond, and access to computational infrastructure required to leverage these tools. But these challenges also include understanding how data, algorithms, and technology are shaped by, and are actively shaping society.
Computational social science is an interdisciplinary field that at the center of these new challenges. Computational social science at UBC is not one single thing, but seeks to bring together four intersecting communities working at the nexus of data, technology, and society:
1. Research about society: scholars using computational techniques, such as machine learning and natural language processing, to analyze and extract insight from large amounts of social data — anything from historical archival documents, to websites, to social media, to data collected from apps used in workplaces
2. Tools: computational social scientists adapt or build tools that enable computational research on social data. These tools are best built in conversation with those carrying out computational research, to ensure the tools meet the needs of those using them.
3. Legal and ethical challenges: as access to social data grows and data on individuals become more granular, there are increasingly complex legal and ethical challenges involved with collecting, storing, and analyzing these data. Computational social science at UBC includes those working to develop frameworks and standards to ensure the field, as well as society more broadly, embraces this moment on strong legal and ethical foundations.
4. Society: as scholars analyze society using computational methods, data, algorithms, and technology are increasingly shaping our liberties. Computational social scientists at UBC seek to understand how these technologies are impacting society (and are shaped by society), including how the may be exacerbating or mitigating existing inequalities. Scholars additionally work to propose ways to ensure data and algorithms are put to use toward broader social goods.