Posts
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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…
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An inference cooperative for academic AI
Universities, like other institutions, are currently being confronted with a dilemma: embrace the AI tools currently available from big-name tech companies, and be part of the future, or reject the miraculous machines and stick your head in the sand. This dilemma is a false one, on several counts. It is far from clear what role…
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Three questions on AI for you, from Pope Leo
Tonight at my church we had a discussion about Pope Leo’s recent encyclical on AI and human dignity. It was packed, and very meaningful to hear people from so many walks of life reflect together on this challenge we’re all facing. Afterward, one of the elders asked if I could write down one of the…