Hmmm. This is great question!!!
I have been thinking about this as I dip back into teaching about standards and standardization and find myself going back to things like Andy Russell's first networking book. I've been out of the loop on that lit for too long.
WHAT'S NEW ON *INTEROPERABILITY*?
I think it could be a great look for you. Please tell Nik I said so.
That would be a great costume for you. Definitely should happen.
Right. My current book project is very focused on trying to bring together these two perspectives. It's not easy, and there aren't great models, at least in my space.
LOL. I experience this a lot too. And also just a total lack of understanding of productivity change over time and what is has (and hasn't) given us. In some fields - like history and STS - we just aren't taught this stuff.
I loved this one too.
On LinkedIn, Rajesh Veeraraghavan tagged me in a post bemoaning our current info environment around GenAI, including both positive and negative takes. So I wrote up some thoughts, "Bubbles Are Shitty Information Environments, and All We Can Do Is Wait"
peoples-things.ghost.io/bubbles-are-...
Thanks, Dani! Hope you are doing well.
My question is about how GenAI is getting adopted in organizations. Some people lean on Braverman and the deskilling hypothesis. That's a top-down picture of management forcing use. But in my experience and some reporting, most adoption is bottom-up and often even without permission of higher ups.
Non-adoption - people Everett Rogers judgmentally called "laggards" - is normal, if marginal. There are still people who don't use computers and cellphones.
Not sure we need the concept of "duped" to explain anything we are seeing.
Oh that's interesting.
Yeah, that was the side of the piece I'm most skeptical about. I'm sure there is Braverman-esque top-down adoption happening, but most people I know are adopting it in a bottom-up way, and I think that's reflected in some reporting too.
I don't agree with all of it - for example, unclear how much "proletarianization of high-skill work" there is - but I'm glad to see Henrik Skaug Sætra's "The Tyranny of the Stochastic Parrot: How AI Critique Became a Way to Not See What's Happening":
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
I see we use the same parenting style.
Thanks! I would appreciate that.
I am interested in his response to the Benanav-Morozov exchange. He's a new one to me.
Thank you!
Yes, I've read that one. I have questions about it, and another that people have mentioned in response.
Glad we are in the same boat, though. I feel like maybe this is a discourse that's being articulated more in social media than in longer forms of expression.
Yes. I think that is a good and fair distinction, and I thank you for it. Helpful!
I was thinking more of the Langdon Winner-esque picture, which I often see on social media in a kind of telegraphic way but haven't seen a fleshed out version of. If that makes sense.
Your point is also slightly different than the kind of Langdon Winner-esque image I have in mind. (I'm realizing that picture was only assumed in my initial message.)
Ok, I read that and enjoyed it.
I think you are right that AI is useful to the actors you identify. Clearly true on some level! My only addendum is that it's also turning out to be useful to other kinds of folks too, which will partly shape how and where these systems have impact.
Thanks, buddy! See you at BHC?
Oh, this looks like a neat angle. I look forward to reading it.
I would love to see that!!!
That strikes me as a slightly different but obviously related question. I totally look forward to seeing what you do with it.
Oh thanks for this!
I'm actually in the process of writing an essay that raises big questions about the Hartzog/Silbey piece. I am pretty skeptical.
But I will check out your essay and really appreciate the tip!
Maybe the answer is that there isn't one yet?
What is the best published argument we have yet - including reasonable theoretical and strong empirical bases - for the idea that Generative AI is an especially "authoritarian" technology?
Jacob Bruggeman has a neat new article out, "Phreaking Politics in Modern America," which covers telephone hacking, AT&T's status as an icon of American technology, and the New Left-to-libertarian pipeline in modern American political order
doi.org/10.1017/mah....
It was a lot of fun.
I especially love his 2020 book, _Information Technology and Military Power_. Going to teach it this fall! He's one of the commentators I follow most closely for understanding the role of digital technologies in contemporary military conflicts.
www.jonrlindsay.com/information-...
For those unfamiliar with Jon's work, he's an expert in cybersecurity, warfare, and international relations at Georgia Tech. He has a recent book out, _Age of Deception: Cybersecurity as Secret Statecraft_. www.jonrlindsay.com/age-of-decep...
I really enjoyed Jon Lindsay's LONG rant of a review of Yudkowsky and Soares dumb _If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies_ book. What I most appreciate about it is how it attacks the book from *so many* different angles
dolos.substack.com/p/if-anyone-...
