Sébastien Antoine

    Sociology

    Postdoctoral Researcher

    Biography

    I am currently Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Postdoctoral Fellow (MSCA GF) at Maynooth University (Ireland) and UFRGS (Brazil). I hold a PhD in Social and Political Sciences from UCLouvain (2017) and was formerly lecturer of Research Methodology at UCLouvain FUCaM Mons (Belgium) and Visiting Professor at UFPE (Brazil).


    My MSCA project entitled "BehindAI – Building Responsible Technology: Global Digital Transformations, Tech Workers’ Agency and the Making of Artificial Intelligence" (EU Project ID: 101068828) is focusing on the relationship between technology and society – and more precisely on the agency and worldviews of tech workers, and the way they can contribute to a more responsible technological development.

    Research Projects

    Title Role Description Start date End date Amount
    BehindAI – Building Responsible Technology: Global Digital Transformations, Tech Workers’ Agency and the Making of Artificial Intelligence Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Postdoctoral Fellow How could developers and deployers of digital technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) make ‘social responsibility’ a key element in everyday industry practices and technological decisions? To answer this question – at the core of the EU Digital Compass 2030 and the recent publication of the Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI – BehindAI will open up the “algorithm black box” and deploy an innovative international action research in collaboration with ThoughtWorks, a major global technology and consultancy company spearheading innovative responsible tech initiatives. Carrying out close studies of how decisions are taken during software design and development, the project will explain those decisions by understanding team members’ reflexive perspectives on tech and how those were shaped by their personal and professional trajectories. Furthermore, it will analyse concrete workplace organizational set-ups and the ways in which they allow or limit the application of those ethical and social perspectives in the everyday reality of the global tech industry. As a MSCA Global Fellowship BehindAI will be carried out by Sébastien Antoine under the supervision of EU tech industry expert Seán Ó Riain and organized through a closely coordinated transnational team from Europe (Maynooth/Ireland), Latin America (UFRGS/Brazil), Asia (HK PolyU/China) and the US (UPenn/USA) with strong organic links between the academic and industry partners. In this way, the project will provide a new perspective on how the socialization, learning and reflexive negotiation of tech developers can address critical ethical and social issues in AI. This will provide new directions for addressing both theoretical challenges and policy dilemmas currently being considered at the highest levels, ensuring that the key principles of ethical AI championed by the EU reach the shop floor of the tech industry, shaping concrete software developments and broader digitalization processes of economy and society. 01/04/2023 30/09/2026

    Post Doctoral Fellows / Research Team

    Researcher Name Project Funding Body
    Sébastien Antoine BehindAI – Building Responsible Technology: Global Digital Transformations, Tech Workers’ Agency and the Making of Artificial Intelligence

    Languages

    Language Reading Writing Speaking
    French Fluent Fluent Fluent
    Spanish Fluent Functional Functional
    Dutch Basic Basic Basic
    Portuguese Fluent Fluent Fluent
    English Fluent Fluent Fluent

    Internal Collaborators

    Name Company Role Country
    Seán Ó Riain Maynooth University Mentor Ireland