Sun-ha Hong joined UNC-Chapel Hill in July 2025 with joint appointments in the Department of Communication in the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Data Science and Society. Hong’s research examines social and historical patterns of uncertainty, doubt, belief and disbelief around AI and data-driven technologies. His work critiques the politics of knowledge, visibility, and power relations across areas like state surveillance and other predictive and anticipatory systems, smart machines, self-tracking, biohacking, and Silicon Valley technoculture.
Hong was previously a faculty member at Simon Fraser University, Canada, and a postdoctoral scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of “Technologies of Speculation: The Limits of Knowledge in a Data-Driven Society” (NYU Press, 2020) and is working on his second book, “Predictions Without Futures.” Hong writes for publications like Big Data & Society, History & Theory, and Logic(s), and speaks at research conferences, art exhibitions and government workshops around the world.
Research Keywords: Technology and society, critical data, AI studies, social history, datafication and surveillance, media theory; history of technology