The Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria cordially invites you to a lecture titled: "The promise and peril of human rights technology"

• Download this invitation in PDF

Prof. Jay Aronson is the founder and director of the Center for Human Rights Science and an associate professor of science, technology, and society in the History Department at Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, USA). His recent book, Who Owns the Dead? The Science and Politics of Death at Ground Zero (Harvard University Press, 2016), analyzes the recovery, identification, and memorialization of the victims of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks. His current research focuses on the acquisition and analysis of video evidence in human rights investigations, and on improving methods of casualty recording and estimation in times of conflict. Jay received his Ph.D. in history of science and technology from the University of Minnesota and was both a pre- and post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

The lecture

The lecture will address how human rights practitioners are finding creative ways to make use of new technologies for the promotion and protection of human rights. Focus will be given to Syria and Ukraine and how technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and computer vision are being used to carry out investigations and pursue accountability.