Sabina Leonelli (TUM)
12 February 2026
Room 435, Via Festa del Perdono 3
20122 Milano
This lecture introduces the interdependence between AI and the data ecosystem, placing particular emphasis on the digital data infrastructures supporting AI tools, such as databases and cloud services. I discuss the opportunities, challenges and fragility of data infrastructures used to train and continuously feed AI systems, and point towards the significance of governance structures that encourage meaningful interaction with the conditions under which data are generated, processed, disseminated and re-used. Such governance includes forms of mediation and curation aimed at improving both the actionability and the accountability of data and their prospective use.
References
Sheehan, N. and Leonelli, S. (2024) Reconciling Data Actionability and Accountability in Global Health Research. Global Health Research 20(1) Leonelli, S. (2023) Opacity and Reproducibility in Data Processing: Reflections on the Dependence of AI on the Data Ecosystem. In: (eds.) Beyond Quantity: Research with Subsymbolic AI. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, pp. 313-324.
Mussgnug, A.M. and Leonelli, S. (2024), A Critical Framing of Data for Development: Historicizing Data Relations and AI. Development and Change 55(5): 1109-1121.
