Computing Professionals for Social Responsibility: The Past, Present and Future Values of Participatory Design
Christoph Becker, Ann Light, Christopher Frauenberger, Dawn Walker, Victoria Palacin, Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed, Rachel Charlotte Smith, Pedro Reynolds-Cuéllar, David Nemer
Abstract
Values play a central role in technology design. But beyond acknowledging the politics of technology, questions remain around where those values are coming from, which values we need, and how they play out and shape the socio-technical systems we create. New challenges such as the climate crisis and societal polarization call for technologists to become part of the public and political arena. This results in a new sense of responsibility, but the closing of CPSR, the Computing Professionals for Social Responsibility, has left a gap. Today, across tech workers, academics and computing professionals, there is a renewed sense of urgency for engaging the public and politics to change course in how computing shapes society.