#techcriticism — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #techcriticism, aggregated by home.social.
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Whenever another AI big-head announces that this time the future is definitely arriving on a neat little schedule, this is the sort of page worth keeping open in another tab.
The Archive of Incorrect AI Predictions collects dated forecasts about AGI, superintelligence, the singularity, self-driving cars, medical replacement, and white-collar job collapse. Some are already closed by the calendar; some are still open. The useful part is not dunking on people for being wrong. It is seeing how often confident predictions came from very serious people with very serious credentials, and still failed when reality got a vote.
That does not make today's AI risks fake. It does make certainty more suspicious. Prediction is cheap. Timelines are cheap. The archive is a good way to calm down, then ask for mechanisms, dates, definitions, and evidence.
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What Was the #Internet?
As #AI overtakes the web, five writers reflect on how far it’s fallen and what comes next.
Siva Vaidhyanathan, Avery Dame-Griff, Joanna Walsh, Chad Wellmon, Cory Doctorow, Matt Lord
https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/what-was-the-internet/
#artificialIntelligence #WorldWideWeb #tech #BigTech #techFutures #techCriticism #media -
What Was the #Internet?
As #AI overtakes the web, five writers reflect on how far it’s fallen and what comes next.
Siva Vaidhyanathan, Avery Dame-Griff, Joanna Walsh, Chad Wellmon, Cory Doctorow, Matt Lord
https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/what-was-the-internet/
#artificialIntelligence #WorldWideWeb #tech #BigTech #techFutures #techCriticism #media -
"You have this union, often, between government and very large tech companies, and they don't want public scrutiny of these kinds of activities. They don't necessarily want an engaged and critically thinking public, on how these technologies are being used, and what the direction of travel is. I think you do need a robust civil society that can do that work."
Lizzie O'Shea, #DigitalRightsWatch (@drwaus), 2026
https://burningplatforms.podbean.com/e/the-palantir-primer/
(1/2)
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"You have this union, often, between government and very large tech companies, and they don't want public scrutiny of these kinds of activities. They don't necessarily want an engaged and critically thinking public, on how these technologies are being used, and what the direction of travel is. I think you do need a robust civil society that can do that work."
Lizzie O'Shea, #DigitalRightsWatch (@drwaus), 2026
https://burningplatforms.podbean.com/e/the-palantir-primer/
(1/2)
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Part 2 of Long Reads' discussion with #BenTarnoff and #QuinnSlobodian, authors of #Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed
for Part 1 v. https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/long-reads-trillion-dollar-baby-w-quinn-slobodian-and/id791564318?i=1000773249464
#Musk #ElonMusk #tech #BigTech #techCriticism #techOligarchs #SiliconValleyRight #books @bookstodon
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Part 2 of Long Reads' discussion with #BenTarnoff and #QuinnSlobodian, authors of #Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed
for Part 1 v. https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/long-reads-trillion-dollar-baby-w-quinn-slobodian-and/id791564318?i=1000773249464
#Musk #ElonMusk #tech #BigTech #techCriticism #techOligarchs #SiliconValleyRight #books @bookstodon
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Oh, the irony! An article supposedly arguing 'against usefulness' demands #JavaScript and #cookies to even load. 🍪✨ Because nothing says "down with utility" like needing to enable the entire internet just to read a #pretentious #manifesto. 🙄
https://www.motivenotes.ai/p/against-usefulness #irony #techcriticism #HackerNews #ngated -
Oh, the irony! An article supposedly arguing 'against usefulness' demands #JavaScript and #cookies to even load. 🍪✨ Because nothing says "down with utility" like needing to enable the entire internet just to read a #pretentious #manifesto. 🙄
https://www.motivenotes.ai/p/against-usefulness #irony #techcriticism #HackerNews #ngated -
What's the Cloudillo philosophy and how does it fit in with the "decentralized" internet? This 3-minute read, 'Breaking Free from Cloud Giants' will open your eyes:
https://medium.com/@szilu/breaking-free-from-cloud-giants-a39838021a5a
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DATABENCH: Making Data Analytics Fun and Beautiful https://gearsofresistance.substack.com/p/databench
#FieldInstruments #DataVisualization #Dashboards #Spreadsheets #LocalFirstSoftware #MakerTools #SingleFileApps #Tradigital #TechCriticism #ToolsForThinking
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"While #Musk was looking to the stars, the people of Belfast were still reeling from several days of racist violence. The Belfast pogrom drew strength from the #farRight ecosystem that Musk has nurtured with the money from #SpaceX, #Tesla and other companies."
Long Reads talks w/ #BenTarnoff and #QuinnSlobodian, authors of #Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed
#ElonMusk #tech #BigTech #techCriticism #techOligarchs #SiliconValleyRight #books @bookstodon
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"While #Musk was looking to the stars, the people of Belfast were still reeling from several days of racist violence. The Belfast pogrom drew strength from the #farRight ecosystem that Musk has nurtured with the money from #SpaceX, #Tesla and other companies."
Long Reads talks w/ #BenTarnoff and #QuinnSlobodian, authors of #Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed
#ElonMusk #tech #BigTech #techCriticism #techOligarchs #SiliconValleyRight #books @bookstodon
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As the bizarre cover art illustrates (a plastic human body topped with a horse head), the real debate isn't about what the technology can do. It’s about who the tech is doing it to, and who it’s doing it for.
A vital, labor-first reality check to cut through the Silicon Valley hype.
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As the bizarre cover art illustrates (a plastic human body topped with a horse head), the real debate isn't about what the technology can do. It’s about who the tech is doing it to, and who it’s doing it for.
A vital, labor-first reality check to cut through the Silicon Valley hype.
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"We have, I believe, crossed a new threshold, and all authored writing [...] will be judged according to which side of that divide it falls on. On one side are texts produced before the arrival of generative #largeLanguageModels (#LLMs). On the other, everything that has followed—texts that might still be useful, even compelling, but that will always face a lingering suspicion of not being entirely human..."
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/fakes-future-artificial-intelligence-llms-larb-quarterly-traffic/
#AI #artificialIntelligence #tech #literature #techCriticism -
"We have, I believe, crossed a new threshold, and all authored writing [...] will be judged according to which side of that divide it falls on. On one side are texts produced before the arrival of generative #largeLanguageModels (#LLMs). On the other, everything that has followed—texts that might still be useful, even compelling, but that will always face a lingering suspicion of not being entirely human..."
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/fakes-future-artificial-intelligence-llms-larb-quarterly-traffic/
#AI #artificialIntelligence #tech #literature #techCriticism -
Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow – No trackers, no ads. Black type, white background. Privacy policy: we don't collect or retain any data at all ever period. [Unofficial] @[email protected] ·Pluralistic: Criticizing the everything machine (06 Jun 2026)
https://web.brid.gy/r/https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/06/applied-counterescatology/
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Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow – No trackers, no ads. Black type, white background. Privacy policy: we don't collect or retain any data at all ever period. [Unofficial] @[email protected] ·Pluralistic: Criticizing the everything machine (06 Jun 2026)
https://web.brid.gy/r/https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/06/applied-counterescatology/
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#SpeakingOutOfPlace welcomes #QuinnSlobodian & #BenTarnoff to talk about their book #Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed.
'We see a mind that is profoundly troubled by any contagion spreading into seemingly closed systems—it can take the form of racial others, transpeople, “woke” populations, or most generally and dismissively, “Non-Player-Characters.” '
#Musk #ElonMusk #tech #BigTech #SiliconValleyRight #techFutures #techCriticism #techOligarchs #books @bookstodon
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#SpeakingOutOfPlace welcomes #QuinnSlobodian & #BenTarnoff to talk about their book #Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed.
'We see a mind that is profoundly troubled by any contagion spreading into seemingly closed systems—it can take the form of racial others, transpeople, “woke” populations, or most generally and dismissively, “Non-Player-Characters.” '
#Musk #ElonMusk #tech #BigTech #SiliconValleyRight #techFutures #techCriticism #techOligarchs #books @bookstodon
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Fighting Fascism pod welcomes Sarah Myers West, "who lays out why #AI, as it's currently structured, is all about the consolidation of power among a handful of #oligarchs, but also how that's not how it needs to be."
(v. her co-authored piece, "The Great AI Grift": https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/ai-crony-capitalism-grift/)
#tech #artificialIntelligence #BigTech #techFutures #techCriticism #techOligarchs -
Fighting Fascism pod welcomes Sarah Myers West, "who lays out why #AI, as it's currently structured, is all about the consolidation of power among a handful of #oligarchs, but also how that's not how it needs to be."
(v. her co-authored piece, "The Great AI Grift": https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/ai-crony-capitalism-grift/)
#tech #artificialIntelligence #BigTech #techFutures #techCriticism #techOligarchs -
‘Just looping you in’: why letting AI write our emails might actually create more work
#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Workplace #EmailCulture #Productivity #BigTech #FutureOfWork #DigitalLife #Email #Work #Automation #TechCriticism
#Communication #Offices
https://the-14.com/just-looping-you-in-why-letting-ai-write-our-emails-might-actually-create-more-work/ -
‘Just looping you in’: why letting AI write our emails might actually create more work
#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Workplace #EmailCulture #Productivity #BigTech #FutureOfWork #DigitalLife #Email #Work #Automation #TechCriticism
#Communication #Offices
https://the-14.com/just-looping-you-in-why-letting-ai-write-our-emails-might-actually-create-more-work/ -
Grimes calls AI "more influential than Jesus" — and also "the most dangerous thing coming."
She warns about military AI, names OpenAI and Grok as particularly risky, and criticizes Silicon Valley's pursuit of a "digital god."
Her new album Psy Opera is mostly human-made — except one track, "DeepSeek," with lyrics by open-source DeepSeek.
She backs decentralized AI, not lab control.
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Grimes calls AI "more influential than Jesus" — and also "the most dangerous thing coming."
She warns about military AI, names OpenAI and Grok as particularly risky, and criticizes Silicon Valley's pursuit of a "digital god."
Her new album Psy Opera is mostly human-made — except one track, "DeepSeek," with lyrics by open-source DeepSeek.
She backs decentralized AI, not lab control.
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"We have come to this cultural agreement that convenience is so important that it trumps everything else, forgetting that anything that matters in life is inconvenient [...] I think we should re-value difficulty, overcoming difficulty, and take pleasure in gaining mastery, because it is a form of empowerment"
#SpeakingOutOfPlace welcomes #CarissaVéliz, author of #Prophecy
#AI #tech #artificialIntelligence #techCriticism #techFutures #BigTech #books @bookstodon
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"We have come to this cultural agreement that convenience is so important that it trumps everything else, forgetting that anything that matters in life is inconvenient [...] I think we should re-value difficulty, overcoming difficulty, and take pleasure in gaining mastery, because it is a form of empowerment"
#SpeakingOutOfPlace welcomes #CarissaVéliz, author of #Prophecy
#AI #tech #artificialIntelligence #techCriticism #techFutures #BigTech #books @bookstodon
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Make macOS consistently bad (unironically)
#HackerNews #Make #macOS #consistently #bad #unironically #techcriticism #macOS #discussion #softwareengineering #HackerNews
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Make macOS consistently bad (unironically)
#HackerNews #Make #macOS #consistently #bad #unironically #techcriticism #macOS #discussion #softwareengineering #HackerNews
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'As the higher brain functions of society fade, what remains gradually starts to look like an economic creature moving on instinct—a zombie, mostly brain-dead, reacting only to immediate stimuli and driven by an insatiable hunger. [...] Not the “new industrial revolution” promised by #AI leadership, but weak productivity, low-value workslop, and a massive bubble of unprofitability.'
https://brooklynrail.org/2026/02/field-notes/social-debraining/
#tech #techCriticism #labour #artificialIntelligence #SiliconValley -
'As the higher brain functions of society fade, what remains gradually starts to look like an economic creature moving on instinct—a zombie, mostly brain-dead, reacting only to immediate stimuli and driven by an insatiable hunger. [...] Not the “new industrial revolution” promised by #AI leadership, but weak productivity, low-value workslop, and a massive bubble of unprofitability.'
https://brooklynrail.org/2026/02/field-notes/social-debraining/
#tech #techCriticism #labour #artificialIntelligence #SiliconValley -
Crítica al alarmismo tecnológico: Análisis del discurso sobre el apocalipsis de la IA y su uso como herramienta de distracción frente a problemas estructurales de 2026. 🧠👾 🔗 https://www.glitchmental.com/2026/02/apocalipsis-ia-verdad-incomoda.html #AIEthics #TechCriticism #DigitalTrends #GlitchMentalMX
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Crítica al alarmismo tecnológico: Análisis del discurso sobre el apocalipsis de la IA y su uso como herramienta de distracción frente a problemas estructurales de 2026. 🧠👾 🔗 https://www.glitchmental.com/2026/02/apocalipsis-ia-verdad-incomoda.html #AIEthics #TechCriticism #DigitalTrends #GlitchMentalMX
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An ‘AI afterlife’ is now a real option – but what becomes of your legal status?
#Tech #AI #AIEthics #DigitalAfterlife #GriefTech #TechCriticism #TechAndLaw #PrivacyRights #TechEthics #DataOwnership #AIRegulation #DigitalIdentity #GriefBots #HumanRights
https://the-14.com/an-ai-afterlife-is-now-a-real-option-but-what-becomes-of-your-legal-status/ -
An ‘AI afterlife’ is now a real option – but what becomes of your legal status?
#Tech #AI #AIEthics #DigitalAfterlife #GriefTech #TechCriticism #TechAndLaw #PrivacyRights #TechEthics #DataOwnership #AIRegulation #DigitalIdentity #GriefBots #HumanRights
https://the-14.com/an-ai-afterlife-is-now-a-real-option-but-what-becomes-of-your-legal-status/ -
I’m working on a research paper examining platforms as infrastructural religions and am interested in how Peter Thiel’s recent Paris presentation on the Antichrist may intersect with that framework. I understand the slides were distributed to attendees, but I haven’t seen a public archive. If anyone knows whether copies are accessible for academic research, or if an official source is planned, I’d appreciate the pointer.
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How others see TikTok: social media short videos
How I see TikTok: narcissist aggregator
The popular view of TikTok is simple short videos, but my critical perspective sees it as something deeper: a highly efficient narcissist aggregator. The platform's mechanics, designed for endless scrolling and immediate feedback, inherently encourage and reward the seeking of external approval.
#tiktok #socialmedia #critique #narcissism #externalvalidation #humantech #psychology #techcriticism #shortvideos #internet #digitalculture #selfieculture #thoughts #activism #socialcommentary #onlinebehaviour #reflection #attentioneconomy #validation
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Meta 的產品就是奇葩，真的太垃圾了啊！還搞上地域歧視了？事情就是這樣，WhatsApp 上的 Meta AI 真的一言難盡，明明 Llama 模型的中文水平還不錯，非要屏蔽中文，當我用中文傳送訊息給 AI 的時候，AI 雖然會說中文但馬上就被系統屏蔽！你這是什麼意思？其它語言則不會，明明 Llama 的中文水平不錯，也沒什麼問題，非要故意屏蔽，見鬼去吧，不只是 WhatsApp，在 Instagram 等 Meta 的 app 上的 AI 都是會這樣！真的讓人氣死，而且 WhatsApp 上的 Meta AI 都有點 bug（在影片中能明顯的看得出來），要不是身邊人都用 WhatsApp，我也不想用這狗屁東西 💩 Meta 的產品真沒一個是好的，我個人認為真的全是垃圾，這就是為什麼我比較偏向開源，雖說還是會用閉源的東西但還是比較偏向開源的
@board #Meta #MetaAI #WhatsApp #Instagram #Facebook #AI #Llama #TechBias #AIBias #SocialMedia #BigTech #TechCriticism -
Meta 的產品就是奇葩，真的太垃圾了啊！還搞上地域歧視了？事情就是這樣，WhatsApp 上的 Meta AI 真的一言難盡，明明 Llama 模型的中文水平還不錯，非要屏蔽中文，當我用中文傳送訊息給 AI 的時候，AI 雖然會說中文但馬上就被系統屏蔽！你這是什麼意思？其它語言則不會，明明 Llama 的中文水平不錯，也沒什麼問題，非要故意屏蔽，見鬼去吧，不只是 WhatsApp，在 Instagram 等 Meta 的 app 上的 AI 都是會這樣！真的讓人氣死，而且 WhatsApp 上的 Meta AI 都有點 bug（在影片中能明顯的看得出來），要不是身邊人都用 WhatsApp，我也不想用這狗屁東西 💩 Meta 的產品真沒一個是好的，我個人認為真的全是垃圾，這就是為什麼我比較偏向開源，雖說還是會用閉源的東西但還是比較偏向開源的
@board #Meta #MetaAI #WhatsApp #Instagram #Facebook #AI #Llama #TechBias #AIBias #SocialMedia #BigTech #TechCriticism -
Geert Lovink – founding director of the Institute of Network Cultures – returns to Berlin for #dnl36. A fierce critic of digital capitalism, he exposes the emotional and political toll of today’s platform society. Author of Platform Brutality, Sad by Design, and Zero Comments, Lovink asks: what does collective resistance look like when the internet becomes brutal?
🔗 disruptionlab.org/technoviolence
#dnl36 #DigitalCultures #PlatformBrutality #TechCriticism #GeertLovink #SurveillanceCapitalism -
Geert Lovink – founding director of the Institute of Network Cultures – returns to Berlin for #dnl36. A fierce critic of digital capitalism, he exposes the emotional and political toll of today’s platform society. Author of Platform Brutality, Sad by Design, and Zero Comments, Lovink asks: what does collective resistance look like when the internet becomes brutal?
🔗 disruptionlab.org/technoviolence
#dnl36 #DigitalCultures #PlatformBrutality #TechCriticism #GeertLovink #SurveillanceCapitalism -
LLMs and a general ambivalence about platform capitalism
I have a strange relationship to LLM-criticism. I often agree with what critics say, even if I pedantically insist on reframing claims about LLMs as claims about interaction between LLMs and organisational settings. But I also use them daily and support others in using them. There are intellectual reasons for this given that, if you started from the assumption that diffusion of the technology was pretty inevitable given the material forces underlying it, mitigating harms came to seem vastly more helpful than saying “don’t do it”. The extent to which late 2022 was a point in my life when I felt politically (and personally) defeated also contributed to this outlook. Even allowing for all those elements however there was a sense that much, though by no means all, LLM discourse just failed to move me on a more affective level for reasons I didn’t quite understand. It felt like there was a surplus to the criticism, some additional animating factor, which didn’t translate for me.
I’ve been rereading Sherry Turkle’s Second Self (originally published in 1984) recently and I was struck by this observation she makes about video game criticism on pg 66:
And so, for many people, the video game debate is a place to express a more general ambivalence: the first time anybody asked their opinion about computers was when a new games arcade applied for a license in their community or when the owner of a small neighborhood business wanted to put a game or two into a store. It is a chance to say, “No, let’s wait. Let’s look at this whole thing more closely.” It feels like a chance to buy time against more than a video game. It feels like a chance to buy time against a new way of life.
Could this ‘general ambivalence’ be the surplus I intuited which I don’t feel? A sense in which LLM criticism becomes an occasion to stage a more generalised expression of discomfort with platform capitalism? I would argue we have to understand LLMs in terms of a genealogy of platform capitalism in order to make sense of how a technological innovation is being commercialised in increasingly destructive forms, accelerating an infrastructural project which is environmentally devastating. It again feels pedantic but too much LLM-criticism seems to start with the LLM rather than start with platform capitalism in a way that is analytically unhelpful. I wonder reading Turkle if there’s also an impulse to “buy time” by focusing on the object and/or the infrastructure associated with it rather than the deeper factors which have led it to emerge and take the form it has at the moment that it has?
If this seems dismissive it’s sincerely not my intention. I’ve tried to document my own orientation to LLMs at length, being honest about the tensions and contradictions in the role they play in my work and my life. Underlying this is an attempt to grapple with the fragile resurgence of some social and political hope in my psyche following an initial phase of post-pandemic doom. It’s also a period of time in which I’ve pretty much entirely left social media, largely because of my discomfort with platform capitalism, which makes my orientation to LLMs appear prima facie even more contradictory. So if it looks like I’m imputing tensions and contradictions to other people, I’m doing so in a way tied up with working out the even deeper tensions in my own position.
#AI #artificialIntelligence #ChatGPT #hope #LLM #LLMs #platformCapitalism #postNeoliberalCivics #postPandemicCivics #SocialMedia #techCriticism #technology
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LLMs and a general ambivalence about platform capitalism
I have a strange relationship to LLM-criticism. I often agree with what critics say, even if I pedantically insist on reframing claims about LLMs as claims about interaction between LLMs and organisational settings. But I also use them daily and support others in using them. There are intellectual reasons for this given that, if you started from the assumption that diffusion of the technology was pretty inevitable given the material forces underlying it, mitigating harms came to seem vastly more helpful than saying “don’t do it”. The extent to which late 2022 was a point in my life when I felt politically (and personally) defeated also contributed to this outlook. Even allowing for all those elements however there was a sense that much, though by no means all, LLM discourse just failed to move me on a more affective level for reasons I didn’t quite understand. It felt like there was a surplus to the criticism, some additional animating factor, which didn’t translate for me.
I’ve been rereading Sherry Turkle’s Second Self (originally published in 1984) recently and I was struck by this observation she makes about video game criticism on pg 66:
And so, for many people, the video game debate is a place to express a more general ambivalence: the first time anybody asked their opinion about computers was when a new games arcade applied for a license in their community or when the owner of a small neighborhood business wanted to put a game or two into a store. It is a chance to say, “No, let’s wait. Let’s look at this whole thing more closely.” It feels like a chance to buy time against more than a video game. It feels like a chance to buy time against a new way of life.
Could this ‘general ambivalence’ be the surplus I intuited which I don’t feel? A sense in which LLM criticism becomes an occasion to stage a more generalised expression of discomfort with platform capitalism? I would argue we have to understand LLMs in terms of a genealogy of platform capitalism in order to make sense of how a technological innovation is being commercialised in increasingly destructive forms, accelerating an infrastructural project which is environmentally devastating. It again feels pedantic but too much LLM-criticism seems to start with the LLM rather than start with platform capitalism in a way that is analytically unhelpful. I wonder reading Turkle if there’s also an impulse to “buy time” by focusing on the object and/or the infrastructure associated with it rather than the deeper factors which have led it to emerge and take the form it has at the moment that it has?
If this seems dismissive it’s sincerely not my intention. I’ve tried to document my own orientation to LLMs at length, being honest about the tensions and contradictions in the role they play in my work and my life. Underlying this is an attempt to grapple with the fragile resurgence of some social and political hope in my psyche following an initial phase of post-pandemic doom. It’s also a period of time in which I’ve pretty much entirely left social media, largely because of my discomfort with platform capitalism, which makes my orientation to LLMs appear prima facie even more contradictory. So if it looks like I’m imputing tensions and contradictions to other people, I’m doing so in a way tied up with working out the even deeper tensions in my own position.
It was disorientating to find myself at odds with people whose instincts I pretty reliably shared in the past. I also think we’re on the cusp of seeing the first wave of truly enshittified LLMs, optimised for engagement, which are likely to be socially and psychologically destructive to a greater degree than social media. Perhaps in this light I’m just an LLM critic who fails to put his beliefs into practice? But it’s partly my conviction that what comes next will be much worse that underscores the sense in which I just have never felt the hostility to LLMs as sociotechnical objects (as opposed to the firms developing them) which many people seem to have felt. As someone who was an enthusiast about early social media before becoming a committed critic, who now does say “don’t do it” on the occasions when anyone asks, perhaps I’m simply following same trajectory with LLMs. But I also think the development of social media criticism over the 2010s took a direction which foreclosed other possibilities, in ways I think it would be helpful to analogise to LLM criticism. That however is a completely different blog post.
#AI #artificialIntelligence #ChatGPT #hope #LLM #LLMs #platformCapitalism #postNeoliberalCivics #postPandemicCivics #SocialMedia #techCriticism #technology
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What do platforms really do?
In 1986, David S. Landes wrote the essay, ‘What Do Bosses Really Do?’. He argues that the historical role of the ‘boss’ was an essential function for organizing production and connecting producers to markets. Digital platforms have become the new bosses. Platforms have the same functions of market creation, labor specialization, and management, but they have replaced the physical factory floor with algorithmic management. While their methods are novel, platforms are the direct descendants of the merchant-entrepreneurs and factory owners Landes described, solving the same historical problems of production in remarkably similar ways.
Design for a Teacup (1880-1910) painting in high resolution by Noritake Factory. Original from The Smithsonian Institution. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel.So, why am I posting this on my own blog and not on a “platform”? I don’t view writing as a financial transaction. It is a hobby. By putting the financialization lens front and center, platforms are killing the mental space for hobbies. When you monetize tweets, you create incentive to craft tweets that create engagement in particular ways. Usually not healthy ways.
If we think of old media or traditional manufacturing, we can compare them to guilds. Guilds kept up prices and controlled production. With the simplification of tasks factories could hire workers who weren’t as highly skilled but didn’t need to be. Nowadays, why should any newspaper or TV channel’s output be limited by the amount of airtime or page space they have?
Platforms take unskilled and train them. We are in the age of specialization of ideas. Akin to the “the advantage of disaggregating a productive process” Platforms leverage this by having many producers explore the same space through millions of different angles. This allows the platform to “purchase exactly that precise quantity of [skill] which is necessary for each process” —paying a viral star a lot and a niche creator a little, perfectly matching reward to market impact. Which is to say platforms make money through whatever sticks.
In Landes’s essay, Management became specialized, today management will become algorithmized. Platforms abstract away the issues that factory owners had such as embezzlement of resources, slacking off etc. Platforms don’t care how much or how little you produce, or even if you produce. If you do, the cash is yours (after a cut of course).
This may lead to a visceral reaction against platforms. This week when Substack raised a substantial amount they called the writers “the heroes of culture”. This should ring at least a tiny alarm in your head. The platform’s rhetoric of the creator-as-hero is a shrewd economic arrangement. In the putting-out system, the merchant-manufacturer “was able to shift capital expenditures (plant and equipment) to the worker”. Platforms do the same with creative risk. The writer, artist, or creator invests all the time and labor—the “capital” of creation—upfront. If they fail, they bear the entire loss. The platform, like the putter-outer, only participates in the upside, taking its cut from the successful ‘heroes’ while remaining insulated from the failures of the many.
So what do platforms really do? They have resurrected the essential role of the boss for the digital age. They are the merchant-manufacturers who build the roads to market, and they are the factory owners who discipline production—not with overseers, but with incentive algorithms. By casting the creator as the hero, they obscure their own power and shift the immense risks of creative work onto the individual. While appearing to be mere background IT admins, they are, in fact, the central organizers of production, demonstrating that even in the 21st century, the fundamental challenges of coordinating labor and capital persist, and solving them remains, as it was in the 18th century, a very lucrative role.
What Do Bosses Really Do?, David S. Landes, The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 46, No. 3 (Sep., 1986), pp. 585-623 (39 pages). https://www.jstor.org/stable/2121476
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https://thebaffler.com/latest/another-bullshit-night-in-slop-city-harrisonnother Bullshit Night
Trevor #Paglen - ImageNetRoulette
“models all the way down”
https://knowingmachines.org/models-all-the-way -
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https://thebaffler.com/latest/another-bullshit-night-in-slop-city-harrisonnother Bullshit Night
Trevor #Paglen - ImageNetRoulette
“models all the way down”
https://knowingmachines.org/models-all-the-way
