Today is overwhelmingly defined by white-supremacist violence and the whiteness of AI technology. Can seeing them together help defeat them both?
Technology
Editor: Mona Sloane
The Ten Thousand Things
“I am supposed to be writing this essay, ostensibly on technology, but not for the first time, I believe I am unable to write; and not writing, doubt that I will I ever write again.”
Can Algorithmic Bias Teach Us about Race?
Machines learned racism from humans. Perhaps humans can now learn about that racism from the very machines they taught.
Public Thinker: Meghan O’Gieblyn on God, Machines, and Intelligence
“We can’t always explain how algorithms reach their decisions. The reasoning of algorithms, like the will of God, is unfathomable.”
No Cure
Tech promises to cure any ailment, whether an unwelcome feeling or a global pandemic. But what if tech itself is ill? And what is a cure, anyway?
What Does a “Click” Count For?
In the digital world, metrics mean everything. But who interprets just what they mean changes across organizations, countries, and cultures.
Eugenics Powers IQ and AI
Both the definition of “intelligence” and the tech industry are deeply entwined with white domination. Will white-supremacist AI be the result?
Can Free Assembly Survive the Internet?
When the internet is in everything, its problems are everywhere.
Users of the World, Unite?
Critical examinations of the internet too often focus on the successes and failures of corporate leaders, rather than on the real constituents of online communities.
Shoptalk: Overheard at the Virtual Conference
In this parodic installment of Shoptalk, we salute the year of conferences that have tried to be.
The Limits of Telecommuting
Perhaps the lesson to take from this year of living online is not about making better technology. It’s about recognizing technology’s limits.
“We Don’t Want the Program”: Jill Lepore on How Tech Can’t Fix Democracy
“Start-ups: they need philosophers, political theorists, historians, poets. Critics.”
Experiments in Feral Futuring
Two futurists ran an experiment: What happens when a room of strangers plan for the future together?
The DJ Is a Time Machine
Let’s rupture and reject the “timeline,” a flawed and colonial form of teaching history.
Let’s Polarize Together
Humans can adapt to almost anything. So if social media forces us into permanently hostile camps, we will learn to stop seeing any other way.
Can Tech Ever Be Good?
Companies like Uber and Airbnb rely on the exploitation of users and workers—and some investors are pushing back. Welcome to the “techlash.”
Reading Resources: The Internet
A resource for teaching and discussing the internet, including a reading list, podcast, and discussion questions.
A Tale of Two Valleys
To understand Silicon Valley, first examine the stories it tells about itself; just like, to understand the Victorian age, first read writers like Dickens and Dreiser.
Public Thinker: Virginia Eubanks on Digital Surveillance and People Power
“We have to build against the legacy of inequality. Intentionally. We have to build our values into our design practices.”
The Dark Matter of Digital Health
Digital health is solidifying the divide between those whose health is valued and those whose health is ignored.