This ANU researcher is pulling back the curtain on Big Tech’s promises

Dr Thao Phan doesn’t claim to have a superhero origin story.  

“I’m not Steve Jobs,” she says. “I can’t pretend to have a neat or exceptional narrative that explains why and where I am today.” 

In a world where Big Tech innovations are heralded as inexorable and revolutionary, Phan wants to cut through the hype.  

“I don’t think there’s anything inevitable about where we are with technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI). We need to train ourselves out of the habit of searching for larger-than-life stories of linear progress,” she says.  

True to form, Phan’s career path has been far from a straight line. 

Born in Footscray, Melbourne, she moved to Canberra at an early age. Her parents and sister left Vietnam as refugees and, after settling first in Victoria, they relocated to Canberra so that her father could work in the public service. 

As a young adult, she returned to Melbourne to complete an Honours degree and then a PhD. But much like her father before her, she found the call of Australia’s bush capital hard to ignore –returning to Canberra to take up a role as a lecturer and researcher at the Australian National University’s (ANU) School of Sociology. 

This year, she received Australia’s most prestigious award for early-career scholars in the humanities—the Max Crawford Medal. 

The accolade recognises her groundbreaking work investigating dynamics of race and gender in algorithmic culture.  

“Like it or not, Big Tech now plays a significant role in shaping how we relate to ourselves and others: what we see on newsfeeds, who we are exposed to in our social networks, how we are identified etc,” she says.  

“My research highlights what happens when gender and race become caught up in these systems of recognition and social sorting. 

 “It’s an immense privilege to be able to do this work. The humanities and social sciences are crucial fields for understanding the complex world that we live in.” 

Unmasking the algorithm

Ever wondered why Siri, Alexa and other AI assistants all have default feminised voices?  

These design choices aren’t casual. They expose how technologies can reproduce and amplify gender stereotypes.  

It’s an issue that Feminist science and technology studies (STS) researchers like Phan have been examining for years.  

“Things like digital assistants and smart speakers are essentially corporate microphones embedded into our homes. I look at how certain voices (usually women’s voices) are used as an interface to gain access into these private and intimate spaces.” Phan says. 

“Corporations exploit certain stereotypes about women and women’s labour, making it feel like they’re working for you, but at the end of the day you’re working for them supplying an endless amount of personal data.”  

In Australia, she has been a driving force in this space through her leadership as co-founder of the Australasian Science and Technology Studies Network (AusSTS)—the region’s largest STS organisation. 

“Technologies are social things. They don’t just appear in the world, like a gift from the heavens. They’re made by certain people, at certain times, and in certain places. STS is about following and exposing that journey,” she says.   

Phan’s work extends far beyond gender. She’s pushing us to think how technologies are also entangled with race, class and nation—especially at a time when a few digital platforms have enormous power.  

“It’s not very well known but platforms like Facebook racially classify people for the purposes of targeted advertising,” she says.   

Research from the US and Europe has shown that algorithmic ad targeting can be used to exclude minority groups from seeing housing ads, or to disproportionately direct surveillance-related technologies at them. 

“We all think that platforms are catering content just made for us – but what they really do is sort us into social groups that cluster us along particular demographic lines. Advertisers and third parties can then exploit this by sending or excluding content from people,” Phan says.    

She is particularly interested in understanding what this means for diverse racial communities in Australia.  

“At the moment, we don’t have a clear picture of the discriminatory effects of algorithmic targeting on Australian audiences. Platforms are incredibly opaque and make it actively difficult for researchers to investigate these questions,” she says.  

“I’m part of a team of researchers, led by Professor Nicholas Carah at the University of Queensland, who is collaborating with the Australian Internet Observatory to invite everyday Australians to donate their social media data for close examination.  

“This will allow my team and I to identify the ads and content targeted at people and look at the ways in which discrimination may be happening.”  

Lights, camera, research!

Imagine a world where your dinner cravings are delivered in minutes by drones that cross the skies, collecting meals and lowering them gently onto your doorstep. 

This isn’t a scene from Blade Runner—it’s Logan, a city in Southeast Queensland that’s quietly become the drone delivery capital of the world. 

And whenever technology collides with everyday life, Phan has questions.   

This time, though, she’s taken her research to the big screen.  

Seeking to understand the social impacts of commercial drone delivery testing, Phan co-directed AI in the street: Drone Observatory, an award-winning documentary that has been making waves at international film festivals. 

The short film explores how Logan became a testbed for the California-based drone company Wing Aviation.  

“We wanted to get a sense of what it feels like to be a guinea pig for Big Tech innovation,” says Phan.  

“Speaking directly with residents and shopkeepers, we observed that while people were excited about the novelty and promise of drone delivery, they were disappointed at the business model.  

“When the trials were first in operation, Wing had partnered exclusively with local business, but as the trials progressed these businesses were abandoned in favour of major partnerships with companies like Coles and DoorDash.”  

Phan wants the next generation to stop seeing technology as something inevitable. 

“We tend to think of technology as a given – something we can’t undo because it already exists. But it doesn’t have to be that way,” she says.  

“A lot of what the humanities and social sciences can do is to create opportunities for intervention. We engage with communities, we conduct research that informs better policy, and we expand the horizon of our collective imaginaries.  

“Machines and corporate entities can’t do this for us. It’s up to us define better ways of living well, with each other and with technology.”