Generating reality and silencing debate
Synthetic data as discursive device
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5260752 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Paul Helm (0000-0002-2719-9721), Benjamin Lipp (0000-0003-4220-1532), Roser Pujadas (0000-0002-8837-6744) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Publication date | 2024-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Big Data & Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2053-9517 • E-ISSN: 2053-9517 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/20539517241249447 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 12 |
| References cited | 15 |
In addition to tapping data from users' behavioral surplus, by drawing on generative adversarial networks, data for artificial intelligence is now increasingly being generated through artificial intelligence. With this new method of producing data synthetically, the data economy is not only shifting from "data collection" to "data generation." Synthetic data is also being employed to address some of the most pressing ethical concerns around artificial intelligence. It thereby comes with the sociotechnical imaginary that social problems can be cut out of artificial intelligence, separating training data from real persons. In response to this technical solutionism, this commentary aims to initiate a critical debate about synthetic data that goes beyond misuse scenarios such as the use of generative adversarial networks to create deep fakes or dark patterns. Instead, on a more general level, we seek to complicate the idea of "solving," i.e., "closing" and thus "silencing" the ethico-political debates for which synthetic data is supposed to be a solution by showing how synthetic data itself is political. Drawing on the complex connections between recent uses of synthetic data and public debates about artificial intelligence, we therefore propose to consider and analyze synthetic data not only as a technical device but as a discursive one as well. To this end, we shed light on their relationship to three pillars that we see associated with them (a) algorithmic bias, (b) privacy, (c) platform economy
Fair synthetic data is not about fairness
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Beyond words
AI-generated imagery in ethnography
From United Steel to Waymo
Whose imagination? Conflicting narratives and sociotechnical futures of visual generative AI
Synthetic data as meaningful data. On Responsibility in data ecosystems
Towards synthetic data justice for development
No children were harmed’
Governing synthetic data in the financial sector
The fabrication of synthetic data promises
Simulation and the reality gap
| Unique citing works | 12 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 12 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 10 |