Research and Insights
Understanding Technology, Race, and Prejudice.
About Broderick
Broderick Turner, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Virginia Tech as well as a Business in Global Society Fellow at Harvard Business School. Broderick received his PhD in Marketing from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. His main research area focuses on the intersection of marketing, technology, racism, and systems. His academic research has been published twice in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and the Journal of Marketing. He is an expert on artificial intelligence and biases embedded in tech products. His work has been featured on NPR, The Verge Podcast, Vox, and many local outlets. He is also the co-editor for a special issue on artificial intelligence at Current Opinion in Psychology.
He runs a research collective of interdisciplinary scholars called the TRAP lab (jointhetrap.com) which is focused ontackling race and prejudice that is built into markets and technology systems. He and his fellow Trappers are pushing the boundaries on understanding how race and prejudice underlie many consumer and managerial decisions.
In addition to academic research on technology, race, and prejudice, Dr. Turner serves as an advisor on equity, ethics, and community action for companies and non-profit organizations. In this role he uses research backed insights to reduce technological harms to minority communities. Dr. Turner believes “We. Save. Us.” This motto encompasses his belief that by bringing community into product design and development, both shareholders and stakeholders can prosper.
Research Interests
Marketing Consumer Behavior
Technology
Racism Surveillance
Prejudice Social Media
Open Research Questions
Together with the TRAP lab and the Center of Responsible Enterprise, Dr. Turner is attempting to answer tough questions that are relevant to both business shareholders and community stakeholders, these include:
How can we make AI less biased?
Which industries will be most impacted by AI deployment?
When does anti-bias training impact consumers healthcare choices?
How does police training impact officer beliefs?
Some Answered Questions:
Dr. Turner aims to publish research in both premier academic journals as well as public outlets when speed and timeliness are paramount. See below for some examples of answered questions:
Is AI racist? (Answer: Not Really. See: Link)
How may Hispanic Americans be impacted by AI? (Answer: Lots of ways that you probably have not thought about. See: Link)
What interventions may work to increase racial integration in schools? (Answer: Marketing “school performance seems to work, but more for some parents than others. See: Link)
Do people perceive body cam and dash cam footage the same? (Answer: Nope. Body cam footage leads to lower judgments of intentionality, and possibly less indictments. See: Link)
Will increasing school choice lead to greater racial segregation? (Answer: Yes, even if parents don’t care about race. See: Link)
Are emotional intelligent salespeople more successful? (Answer: Yes, if they have the right amount of confidence in their emotional abilities, See: Link)
Insights
Dr. Turner has developed executive level education to provide insights to business and community leaders. Examples below:
Get 30% smarter about AI in 90 minutes - Is AI going to transform business? Is AI going to take over the world? Is AI our savior? There is a lot of hype around AI and AI adoption. There is fear and uncertainty. After this class you will be less afraid and more certain about AI. You will learn the basics of AI. You will learn the basic building block of almost every algorithmic decision system (Hint: You learned it in high school). You will build and break a simple algorithm. Youwill learn two simple frameworks to understand how AI might impact you, your job, your business, and your customers.
Building equality into technology - One of the core tenets learned in the Technology, Race and Prejudice lab is that the default outcome of any technology will be biased against some social groups. However, there are simple ways to ensure equity and equality is built into your product systems from day one. This course is designed for early stage technology managers who want to build equitable products.
Additionally, Dr. Turner shares these insights in keynotes and other addresses. For a short snippet of Dr. Turner discussing, race, technology and profits click this link.
Deeper Insights?
Dr. Turner works with companies and organizations using research-backed findings, algorithm audits, and his insights process to provide guidance on questions that matter to leaders. He has worked with C-Suite executives and community members. As an example, see his work with Axon and the independent community advisory board (Link).
