From dams to data: how to think about infrastructure

Professor Deb Chachra of the Olin College of Engineering explores the history and future of infrastructure networks in this talk at the Bug Bash conference 2026. She traces how infrastructural networks have historically created uneven distributions of benefits and harms, using examples from hydroelectric development in Ontario and New York to illustrate broader patterns of twentieth-century infrastructure expansion.

She explains how we are all cyborgs, whose agency depends on vast technological networks, and examines how the rise of renewable energy creates new possibilities for ethical infrastructure development. Moving beyond utilitarian frameworks that justified harm to smaller groups for greater benefits, Prof. Chachra proposes an ethics of care as an alternative approach emphasizing attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and responsiveness – a thought provoking lens through which to consider software and the excitement around AI.