The Use of Machine Learning in Sociological Research: A Comparison of ClarifAI and Kairos Classifications to Hand-Coded Images

By: Dr. Crystal Peoples

Abstract: While sociologists have begun to use the discipline’s theoretical and methodological tools to understand the role of machine learning (ML) in the (re)production of inequality in society, there has been little to no research on the implications of ML on the state of sociological knowledge itself. Increasingly, sociologists are employing ML to quickly sort, code, and classify data in their so-called “big data” projects. With known racial and gender biases in ML algorithms, this paper urges sociologists to consider the implications of the widespread use of these technologies on the state of knowledge in the discipline. To illustrate this point, the authors use two popular ML algorithms, ClarifAI and Kairos, to code a small sample of sociologists (n = 1842) and compare their findings to the sociologists’ hand-coded race and gender information. Using social network analysis, the authors then explore the extent of racial and gender homophily in these sociologists’ collaboration networks. The authors compare the findings from these methods to discuss how their ML-generated differences could negatively affect underrepresented groups within higher education, future research agendas, and the state of sociological knowledge itself. The article concludes by discussing how sociologists must also consider the role of ML in its own methodology and in its development as a discipline.

Speaker Biography: Dr. Crystal Peoples is currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the Alliance for Identity-Inclusive Computing Education (AiiCE) at Duke University. She is a quantitative sociologist of race and racism who is passionate about research on and teaching in higher education. Broadly, her research is concerned with racialized social networks and how they are used to help create, maintain, and reproduce racial inequalities. She received a B.S. in Mathematics from Longwood University in 2012, an M.S. in Sociology with graduate minors in Mathematics and Statistics from Iowa State University in 2015, and a Ph.D. in Sociology from Duke University in 2022.