Supervisor — Prof. Irina M. Savelieva, co-supervisor — Olessia I. Kirtchik, PhD.

Lately, the notion of ‘algorithm’ has fallen under the spotlight of social sciences and humanities dealing with the vast array of phenomena linked to proliferation of big data, incorporation of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in all kinds of economy- and social life related spheres. In this light, it seems vital to explore the subject of implementation and development of ‘dispositifs’ of ‘algorithmic management’ compliant with such characteristics as interpretability, accountability, reliability, as well as the ethic side of its use (ethics of AI). Scientific discussion of these rather sensitive problems which our society faces, often lack historical depth which allows to inscribe these ‘revolutionary’ technologies into a more continuous social outlook. Yet, the ‘algorithmic rationality’ is not necessarily a product of digital capitalist economics and new forms of management that have emerged in the XXI century. Our point of departure is that contemporary ‘algorithmic’ boom, accompanied by proliferation of big data, accessibility of unprecedented computational capacities, as well as development of different ML methods and predictive analytics — all these are a part of a century-old process of rationalization of politics and economics inseparable from the evolution of science and technologies. What the proposed project targets is precisely complementing this acutely relevant discussion with the historical and comparative perspective, while examining the emergence and transformation of the ‘algorithmic rationality’ in the context of the Soviet intellectual and political project. The significancy of such a shift of focus towards the national narratives has also to do with the will to decentralize the historiography of algorithmic rationality which up to now has mostly revolved around the West European and American contexts.

As P. Bourdieu points out, universities extensively use informal methods for self-regulation. In academia, individual strategies of behavior are traditionally important, as well as personal relationships between colleagues, between students and teachers. Unsurprisingly, almost any phenomenon in university history is infused with emotions. Emotions are playing a big role in, inter alia, the development of academic ethics in universities. The history of academic ethics and modern attempts to meet various ethical challenges to academia have to take emotions into account.

The 2022 project is the final part of the three-year program of research on the history of academic ethics in universities. This project explores the history of emotions in the university environment and their relationship with various moral issues that academics and students faced at different times from the imperial to the post-Soviet era. The project explores historically changing social and cultural aspects of emotions together with their biological and psychological basis.

B. Rosenwein proposes to explore the history of emotions through various emotional communities that are united by shared conceptualizations, discourses, and display rules. Her approach can be applied to the history of universities and university ethics since various emotional communities have also formed in and around universities. These communities ranged in size from a few people to thousands and millions. Professors, current and former students learned certain ways of talking about and working with emotions, which, in turn, influenced their reflection on ethical problems. Emotional communities cannot be considered separately from moral communities (A. MacIntyre). In this light, some feelings are especially important, namely, gratitude and affection that strengthen relationships inside academia, anger, guilt, shame, and fear that are inherent in the history of conflicts. Because of their relevance to morality and ethics, they can be called “moral emotions,” – to use the term that is common to moral psychology, sociology of emotions, philosophy, and organizational ethics.

Lately, contemporary Slavic studies have been more actively focusing on the research on the late-Soviet society. Having surrendered to the margins of collective memory with new generations of people emerging, the Late-Soviet continues to remain an emotionally charged image which plays key role in the process of self-definition of contemporary society. It is precisely due to this that the idea of the current project implies a meticulous attitude not only towards the late-Soviet experience but also towards the post-Soviet ways of its actualization. With that, the main purpose of the project called “The Late/Post-Soviet: values, practices, agents” is interpreting this historical period in a more complex and detailed manner, as well as bringing into focus specific ways of its perception and self-definition on the part of its agents who act through different kinds of practices and within local contexts.

Formation of new research agenda regarding the late- and post-Soviet era, as well as working through new analytical languages for the sake of its description — all these demand accumulations of research effort alongside organizational one when it comes to discussion areas. The “Late/Post-Soviet” project, which has won the tender for financial support from “Mirror Laboratories” programme, is the result of scientific and organizational cooperation between the HSE University fellows and those of the Network Research Center “Man, Nature, Technology” at the Tyumen State University. The aim of this collaboration is not only research experience exchange but also organization of conferences, summer schools, workshops, and seminars, which will contribute to creation of network structure uniting researchers of late/post-Soviet society from different regions and countries.

This research project is focused on the social, political and cultural histories of “algorithmic rationality” in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia. The concepts of an “algorithm” (and its derivatives such as "algorithmic decision-making", “algorithmic thinking”, etc.) have been in recent years in the focus of attention of a significant number of studies devoted to a wide range of phenomena associated with the spread of big data and with the introduction of forms of artificial intelligence and machine learning in a wide variety of areas of the economy and social life. While most of these studies are dealing with “algorithms” in the capitalist context, this project seeks to explore the concepts and applications of various algorithmic tools within the late Soviet paradigm of social control. To do so, an interdisciplinary team of scholars will consider the ideological, epistemological and cultural impact of “algorithmic rationality” (through the diffusion of cybernetics, systemic approaches, decision mathematics, programming, AI, and so on) on various scientific, intellectual and practical domains: from the Marxist philosophy to linguistics and biology, economic management, engineering psychology, education, art, and informatization of government. The project is also concerned with the transformations and hybridizations of the late Soviet sociotechnical paradigm during the post-Soviet period.

The project and the seminar are coordinated by Olessia Kirtchik, among the key participants are Roman Abramov, Keti Chukhrov, Alexandre Dmitriev, Michael Gordin, Alexey Grinbaum, Polina Kolozaridi, Ivan Kuzin, Maxim Miroshnichenko.

This research is dedicated to ways in which the ‘artificial intelligence’ becomes an object of scrutiny and discussion in different public and professional spheres. We study different types of meanings which AI gain in social, political, media-related contexts, as well as those agents who produce statements regarding AI alongside the effects and consequences of those statements. Based on materials presenting different empirical cases, the participants of the project will map out discourses about AI taking place in Russia and analyze their inner structure.

Under the term ‘discourses’ we understand both the sum-total of relations between different agents producing statements, and meanings emerging within those statements. This project assumes that meanings regarding AI formed in public sphere, have rather concrete consequences and real impact on social processes of proliferation and use of technologies, while also producing different social and political effects.

The aim of this research is making AI an (legitimate) object of scientific study within the framework of social sciences and humanities, as well as defining its meanings in different contexts and bringing them into correlation.

The group’s activities are dedicated to the preparation of an anthology in ethical theory designed to accompany university courses in ethics and practical philosophy. The group members are engaged in the search, systematization, and editing of philosophical texts available in Russian, as well as preparing new translations of key English-language works in the main areas of ethical theory (utilitarianism, contractual theory, metaethics, divine command theory, virtue ethics, etc.). The project team organizes regular research and translation seminars, holds conversations with the leading philosophers on the key areas and issues of moral philosophy, promotes philosophical ethics through popular media resources.

Project’s web-page (in Russian)