Stephen Yang | Researching Technology Futures

I'm Stephen Yang, a writer, researcher, and futurist. I research the temporal politics of technological innovation, particularly the senses of speed and futurity around computational media and artificial intelligence.
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Presently, I'm pursuing my PhD at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, where I'm supported by the National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRFP).

My research offers critically oriented principles of technology design and policy. I have held research appointments at Microsoft Research (Social Media Collective), Center for Democracy & Technology (AI Governance Lab), and Partnership on AI.

I'm always open to new connections and opportunities. You can find me on X (formerly Twitter) or reach out to me at stepheny [at] usc [dot] edu.

With my eye on the temporal politics of computational media, my research examines the anticipatory devices that premediate futures in the present — from trend forecasts and design demos to regulatory sandboxes and real-time automation. I trace the paradoxes and frictions that emerge when acceleration and seamlessness are figured as the telos of technological futures.

In doing so, my work foregrounds the ethico-political tensions between speeding up and slowing down, between speculation and anticipation, and between possibility and inevitability — while also showing ways to imagine and build futures otherwise.

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I hold a B.S. in Communication and Information Science from Cornell University, where I graduated as the Degree Marshal of the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, a Merrill Presidential Scholar, and a Rawlings Presidential Research Scholar.

Outside of academia, I have worked in journalism and advertising at organizations such as the Taipei Times and Wunderman Thompson.

Growing up in Taiwan, I witnessed firsthand the rapid changes that came with the advent of computational media, through which I became intrigued by the ambivalence of progress and innovation.

Coming up...

April 2025 - I'm presenting my work, "Uncertainty as Spectacle: Real-Time Algorithmic Techniques on the Live Music Stage," the 20th Cinema and Media Studies Graduate Student Conference at the University of Chicago, April 25–26, 2025. The theme this year is "Failing Media."
June 2025 - I'll be presenting my work on TikTok trends and AI futures at the annual conference of the International Association of Communication!
June 2025 - I'll be participating in the Digital IDEAS Summer Institute at the University of Michigan!
September 2025 - I'll be presenting my work on the paradoxes between longtermism and accelerationism at the annual meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S)!

2025 (so far)

January 2025 — I'm honored to be selected as a finalist for the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans! 77 finalists were selected from 2,617 applicants.
January 2025 — I presented my work, "Speculative Failure as Hopeful Contestation of AI Futures," as part of the Participatory AI - Research & Practice Symposium, an event organized by Connected by Data, Data & Society, and others ahead of the Paris AI Action Summit. Check out the recording here!

2024

October 2024 — I presented my work, "Infrastructuring Trends: Templates, Samples, and the Making of the Short Video Format on TikTok," at the annual conference of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) in Sheffield!
Summer' 24 — I interned at the Center for Democracy & Technology, where I worked on AI policy research as part of the AI Governance Lab. Here's a research report I produced

April 2024 — I received funding from the Center on Science, Technology, and Public Life at USC to study the future imaginaries of Hollywood with the advent of AI.
Jan 2024 — As part of Data & Society's series on participatory methods series on AI design and accountability, I presented the EAAMO'23 paper on participatory approaches to AI design that I co-authored with Fernando Delgado, Michael Madaio, and Qian Yang!