Margarita (Margo) Boenig-Liptsin is Assistant Professor of Ethics, Technology and Society at ETH Zürich. Boenig-Liptsin is trained in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) from the Harvard STS Program and has a PhD in History of Science (Harvard University) and in Philosophy (Université Paris 1-Sorbonne).
Her research examines how computing configures foundational aspects of ethical and political life, across time and cultures, and what this means for democracies. In her first book, Citizens of the Information Age: Becoming computer literate in the United States, France, and the Soviet Union (under contract with Johns Hopkins University Press, Studies in Computing and Culture series), she looks comparative at how in the 1970s and 80s, educators, technology leaders, and government officials of three countries sought to form ideal citizens for the immanent information age by teaching computer literacy and culture.
Her current book project addresses contemporary discussions about the meaning and boundaries of ‘the human’ in the age of AI by investigating the co-production of human dignity with data practices of social actors making digital evidence of human rights violations in Russia’s war in Ukraine. She also studies the meaning, practices, and institutions of ethics and democratic governance in contemporary technological societies. She has published on the ethics of innovation projects in cities, converging technologies and visions of the good, and sociotechnical imaginaries of data and justice. She teaches about the relationship between technology, power, democracy, and ethics with a foundation in STS to students in engineering, natural sciences, social sciences and humanities.