Spencer Kaplan is a PhD Candidate in Sociocultural Anthropology at Yale University. His dissertation draws from ethnographic fieldwork among machine learning researchers and developers in the San Francisco Bay Area. While these technologists build many of today’s most capable generative AI systems, they often describe these same systems as beyond comprehension and control. Examining this tension, Spencer’s dissertation follows how the researchers and developers study and deploy AI systems using techniques from the human sciences and human labor management. This project is funded by the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and the American Ethnological Society. Spencer’s previous scholarship on topics such as blockchain and finance is published in New Media and Society and Anthropology of Work Review. Prior to graduate school, Spencer worked at an AI startup and a management consultancy.
Spencer Kaplan
Visiting Scholar & Organizer | The Past and Future of Work
