ABSENCE meets DIS-TRUST

Sille Obelitz S?e and Ekaterina Pashevich from Copenhagen University visited the DIS-TRUST team at RUC to discuss their ongoing project ABSENCE - Absence of information in decision-making processes

Published by:

Digital Society and Trust (Research Project)

The researchers of the Absence and DIS-TRUST teams

Absence and DISTRUST teams. From the left: Esther Oluffa Pedersen, Mads Vestergaard, Ekaterina Pashevich, Sille Obelitz S?e, Micol Mieli

By: Micol Mieli

The ABSENCE project team visited the DIS-TRUST group at RUC to exchange ideas and share progress on their ongoing research projects. Sille Obelitz S?e, Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen, leads the ABSENCE project, funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark. The project investigates how the absence of information influences decision-making, contrasting human reliance on omission and insinuation with the explicit nature of algorithmic systems. Absence seems to be a productive force for human communication (omission, insinuation) and decision-making, but how does it influence algorithmic systems? The project introduces the concept of "algorithmic implicature" to explore how machines handle implicit information, aiming to enhance our understanding of artificial intelligence and its limitations in contexts of automated decision-making.

Sille Obelitz S?e��s research lies at the intersection of privacy studies, surveillance studies, information ethics, philosophy of language, and epistemology. She focuses on conceptual questions about how information, humans, and digital technologies relate and interact.

Ekaterina Pashevich, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Copenhagen's Department of Communication, has a background in AI and human-machine communication. At the meeting she presented her work on translating absence-based inference to algorithmic decision-making and the problem of epistemic coverage belief when dealing with algorithmic systems. Pashevich also presented her ongoing work on synthetic data and algorithmic implicature.

The Digital Society and Trust (DIS-TRUST) project at 真人线上娱乐 University investigates how digital transformations are reshaping trust. By integrating philosophical analysis with empirical case studies, the project examines how digital mediation affects trust relations in contexts such as social media, online platforms, and public sector digitalization. Funded by the VELUX Foundation, DIS-TRUST aims to develop new conceptual models of trust suited to our digitally enhanced social world.

The visit was part of an ongoing dialogue between the ABSENCE and DIS-TRUST teams, discussing questions around knowledge, trust and decision-making in an age of machine reasoning.