🚨MUST READ - TikTok content moderators in Türkiye tell @tbij.bsky.social and @the-independent.com about abusive, traumatic conditions they face — and say their employer #Telus fired them after forming a union.
www.independent.co.uk/tech/tiktok-...
Artists’ rights are thrown under the bus in ‘the great AI race’. The next step of tech vying for an anthropomorphic ‘right to learn’ is the parroting the jingoistic language of America first (artists last.) @bcmerchant.bsky.social’s great newsletter this week = 💎 open.substack.com/pub/bloodint...
📣📣: New job! I started as a policy advisor for the Left group at the 🇪🇺 Parliament’s Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL). I’ll be working with the stellar Chair Li Andersson and the Left team on familiar things: algorithmic management, workers’ rights, social dialogue, skills. Stoked! ✨
Mitä ennakoitua tehokkaammat tekoälymallit mahdollisesti tarkoittavat Suomelle?
Sanna Vellava ja Johannes Mikkonen pohtivat Repair-blogissa onko DeepSeek murtuma suomalaisten paikkakuntien tulevaisuusvisioissa.
Lue alta 👇
www.repair-research.fi/blogi/onko-d...
queen did not mince a single word www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
As someone who has reported on AI for 7 years and covered China tech as well, I think the biggest lesson to be drawn from DeepSeek is the huge cracks it illustrates with the current dominant paradigm of AI development. A long thread. 1/
"China has not reined in its tech sector out of any belief in democracy, but rather through a seeming understanding that the new forces of wealth, data, intelligence, information, commerce, and communications can hijack a country’s political system and lead it into dangerously uncharted territory."
I am collecting examples of the most thoughtful writing about generative AI published in 2024. What’s yours? They can be insightful for commentary, smart critique, or just because it shifted the conversation. I’ll post some of mine below as I go through them. #criticalAI
📣Just published! A new D&S primer by Aiha Nguyen & Alexandra Mateescu pushes against hype to show what it will really take to understand how AI impacts work — including examining how work is organized, how industries are structured, and whose and what work is valued. datasociety.net/library/gene...
📢NEW: 'Open' AI systems aren't open. The vague term, combined w frothy AI hype is (mis)shaping policy & practice, assuming 'open source' AI democratizes access & addresses power concentration. It doesn't.
@smw.bsky.social, @davidthewid.bsky.social & I correct the record👇
nature.com/articles/s41...
“But should a researcher of the digital society in fact be a willing & witting broker, precisely because of the influence the position affords? Tech developers proudly tell us that their gadgets actively shape the digital society. Shouldn’t a researcher aim to do that too?”
🎯 @tuukka.bsky.social
Tein REPAIR-hankkeeseen uuden blogikirjoituksen jossa huomioin kuinka syrjivät algoritmit nakertavat yhteiskunnan luottamusta, olisko aika siirtyä kepistä tulemiseen? www.repair-research.fi/blogi/syrjiv...
Cool project here from @jwyg.bsky.social
troubling AI: a call for screenshots 📸
troubling-ai.glitch.me
You wouldn't train an AI.
I need this as a t-shirt.
All that shines is not #AI: Regulating #algorithms at work
🎥 A webinar on the implications of algorithmic management systems in the workplace, exploring their potential to deepen hierarchies or foster fairer work environments depending on regulatory frameworks. Watch here: youtu.be/qKSby6PhU40?...
Fyi folks here is a postdoc/PhD position opening at my lab, @DHLabBasel, in Basel.
jobs.unibas.ch/offene-stell...
Wow ok did not see that going into a take on zoning, rent, the material conditions of a city 🫰
Sweden’s example, combined with the recent case from Denmark clearly shows how even Nordics are not exceptional in public sector ADM & algorithmic system related risks. Sincerely hope for clearer European Commission guidance and enforcement on social scoring next year under the AI Act.
Incredibly excited: In/Convenience: Inhabiting the Logistical Surround is now out!!! 4 years in the making, co-edited by @joshua-neves.bsky.social and me, this OA volume is full of chapters that will make you rethink the oft-used word. Please read & circulate!
networkcultures.org/blog/publica...
“Infrastructure becomes visible when it breaks down” version of the week: undersea internet cables and their sabotage in the Baltic. A good excuse to up one of my absolute fave infra journalistic pieces from this year – a real snack of a read www.theverge.com/c/24070570/i...
For the December issue of The New Republic, I reviewed AI SNAKE OIL. For those learning about AI, it offers a lot: exegesis of technical details, a taxonomy to sift through different algorithmic systems, and a depoliticized history that taints the book’s analysis. newrepublic.com/article/1883...
We're bringing together scholars, practitioners, artists, and activists to reflect, critique, and imagine the manifold ways that digital, physical, and social infrastructures are built, broken, reconstructed, and mythologized. Learn more and apply by January 17, 2025! datasociety.net/announcement...
Data workers at the European Parliament
🌍📅Hello folks, the program for our workshop "(Un)Artificial Intelligence: Workers Behind the Machine" is now live! Join us on 21 Nov. 2024, 2:30 pm CET, at the European Parliament (or watch the livestream).
diplab.eu/diplab-conne...
The image is a preprint cover for an article titled "Remote Robotics, or the Digital Re-Embodiment of Labour." It is co-authored by James Steinhoff (University College Dublin), Julian Posada (Yale University), and Alessandro Delfanti (University of Toronto).The article, accepted for publication in Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation, explores how remote-operated robots in logistics still require human control, a process termed “re-embodiment.” It argues that this extends the reach of capital and reinforces labor exploitation.Keywords: automation, robotics, telepresence, logistics, embodiment.
New preprint co-authored with James Steinhoff and Alessandro Delfanti: "Remote Robotics, or the Digital Re-Embodiment of Labour," forthcoming in Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation. We explore embodiment in remotely operated logistics robots.
tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/18...
The tone is SO BAD 😭 I worry (ok a minor worry amongst the more egregious related ones) especially for those whose English is not the first language that this will solidify this excessive marketing/hype tone for all text. And seeing this is always a big turn off and makes me not want read the text..
Quote this & tell: 1) a project you are working on & 2) an odd idea/theory you aren't working on but keep thinking about
1) Grassroots practices of resistance to algorithmic management at work (creating illegibility, shadow practices, the sharing of these repertoires)
2) Glitches as a form of joy
High quality reading list from Alina Utrata: "The Anti-Dystopians’ Guide for Students Studying Tech & Politics" alinautrata.substack.com/p/the-anti-d...
A starter pack of those who are studying the power of algorithms at work, the consequences of algorithmic management on work and workers, and/or what we do about it.
Please share or suggest and I will add; I will also keep an eye out as more people migrate to Bluesky!
go.bsky.app/Aag5R43
Researcher Johannes Anttila and MEP Brando Benifei sitting next to each other and discussing algorithmic management at the EESC
Uups already 3 weeks ago but… Had a hoot talking about our new report on the messy realities of algorithmic management from a worker perspective at the EU Economic and Social committee. Pan-Nordic policy report and Finnish case studies here, check them out feps-europe.eu/publication/...
I have one more starter pack in me: critical tech-art. Thing is: a lot of women in this space aren’t on Blue Sky and the gender balance here is no good. Really want to change that. Suggestions for critical women artists in tech (with bsky accounts!) please?
go.bsky.app/EkpVQwY
