Author: Nathan
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AI, I tried to love you
Among my peers who study the cultures and economies surrounding technology, I often find myself more tech-positive than most. On the whole I like computers, like the internet, and like in general the emergent human creativity that these things have enabled and revealed. A source of my appreciation is that I expend a lot of…
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Conflict Systems drops Wednesday
MEDLab’s new Conflict Systems zine drops Wednesday—all about the need for building habits and tools for conflict into online spaces. Celebrate the launch: https://luma.com/vqlxb7dy Request a print copy: https://cloud.medlab.host/apps/forms/s/4Ys2HkNo23WB9pBn2cX8kef7
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What comes after Luddism?
What comes after Luddism? In a special free issue of the mighty co-op Flaming Hydra, I probe the limits of centering resistence to big tech around the lore of the Luddites: https://flaminghydra.com/issue-617/#beyond-luddism
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What are apps worth anymore?
An app used to mean something. Whatever “app” meant—Mobile first? Interactive website? Anything that runs on a computer?—it was the coin of the digital realm. Apps were useful for doing things, even necessary, and not everyone could make one. A working app signified significant investment, effort, and expertise. If someone bothered to go through the…
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Conflict Systems zine launch
For the past two years, my lab has been exploring how to create online spaces designed for a basic human activity: conflict. See what we’ve learned on August 12, when we release our new zine, Conflict Systems, at the Metagov Seminar: https://luma.com/vqlxb7dy
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Technology as “an all-purpose agent of change”
One thing I’ve noticed among my students is the use of the word technology as a kind of god-like force. Firstly, they use this extremely broad term to refer to a rather specific set of phenomena—more or less, the things that happen on Internet-connected smartphones or laptops. Secondly, they attribute to it a sort of…
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Worker-Friendly Media cohort
Are you building a cooperative newsroom or media project? Apply to be part of Start.coop’s Accelerator for Worker-Friendly Media, including financial and technical support, plus a week with my lab here in Boulder. Learn more here: https://www.start.coop/accelerator
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Humanity without superiority
I have had far too many conversations lately, and perhaps so have you, in which my interlocutor confidently or desperately attempts to assert what really, truly, and finally sets us humans apart from the increasingly clever and voluble machines. I’ve heard, for instance, that our value lies in our capacity for intention, or consciousness, or…
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Naim Aburradi on VR and genocide
Listen! My lab’s radio show this month features the extraordinary Dr. Naim Aburradi. He and his friends have risked their safety to document life in Gaza, with a 360-degree camera, before and since the ongoing genocide: https://lookslikenew.net/podcast/how-can-vr-tell-the-story-of-genocide/ Gaza is so, so much more than a headline and a plume of smoke.
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A case for AI taboos
We probably all know the person, and maybe it is ourselves, who has inundated themselves in AI use, and say they are fully aware of all the dangers, but are so, so careful as to not fall into such traps themselves. They know AI can incline us to inhibit thinking, poison our relationships, and evade…