Announcing the 2026 History of Science Frederick Jakobiec Lecture Speaker Alondra Nelson

"Algorithmic Agnotology: On AI, Knowledge, and Power"

This spring we will be hosting Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor and Chair of the Science, Technology, and Social Values Lab at the Institute for Advanced Study.

Thursday, April 9, 2026 I In Person

4:00 PM I Harvard Loeb House, 17 Quincy St., Cambridge, MA 02138

Reception to follow I Free and Open to the Public

This talk traces how the strategic production of ignorance—what historian Robert Proctor terms "agnotology"—has evolved from twentieth-century industrial contexts into contemporary algorithmic systems. Big Tech and AI companies have refined these prior industrial tactics into what I call "algorithmic agnotology": the exploitation of technical complexity to obscure accountability and naturalize inscrutability as inherent to digital systems. Based on analysis of firm statements, media, and scholarly literature, I examine how AI companies blur the distinction between epistemic uncertainty (what could be known with more research) and stochastic uncertainty (what is inherently unknowable)—a conflation that presents strategic opacity as technical inevitability. This framework shows how algorithmic agnotology obscures what could be known from what is claimed to be unknowable—a dynamic accelerated by the "AI race" with consequences that reach beyond technical domains to fundamental questions of democratic governance and digital rights.

For questions please contact Deborah Valdovinos at valdovin@fas.harvard.edu

About the Jakobiec Lectures

Frederick A. Jakobiec Public Lecture

The Frederick A. Jakobiec Lecture is delivered annually by an eminent scholar on a topic related to Science and Ethics and/or Morality and Humanitarianism. The generosity of Dr. Jakobiec, a History of Science concentrator, has made this lecture series possible, and has also funded additional activities for department faculty, undergraduate students, and advanced degree candidates. The first public lecture was delivered in April 2022 by Professor Lorraine Daston, followed by Professors Dorothy Roberts and Matthew Jones.

March 2025 Jakobiec Lecture seated atttendees during Welcome Remarks by Prof. Hammonds — March 5, 2025 Jakobiec Lecture attendees during welcome remarks by Prof. Evelynn Hammonds

About Frederick A. Jakobiec, MD

Dr. Frederick A. Jakobiec was a graduate of Harvard College (1964) and Harvard Medical School (1968). He was an international leader in eye pathology. Professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School and a former Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology and Chief of the Mass. Eye and Ear Department of Ophthalmology, Dr. Jakobiec published over 500 peer reviewed scientific articles and 60 book chapters and edited more than 20 volumes devoted to eye tumors and eye pathology. He was co-editor of the Principles and Practice of Ophthalmology (1994), which is considered the gold standard of ophthalmology reference texts. During his time as Chair, he grew the faculty, with a particular focus on increasing the number of women. He passed away on November 14, 2020. In addition to his gift to the department, he left a generous gift to Mass. Eye and Ear--the largest gift from a faculty member or alumnus in its history.

At Harvard College, Dr. Jakobiec studied with Professor I. B. Cohen in the History of Science. His senior thesis was titled, “Science and Religion in Seventeenth Century France: A Study of the Life and Thought of Abbé Jean-Baptiste DuHamel (1624-1707)."

Portrait of Dr. Jakobiec — Frederick A. Jakobiec, M.D., D.Sc., HMS, Department of Ophthalmology