per: @danmcquillan

#decomputing #ai

https://danmcquillan.org/decomputing_as_resistance.html

Decomputing in a Processed World.

From Dan McQuillan
(https://www.danmcquillan.org/resisting_genai_highered_cjuu.html)

*Resisting GenAI & Big Tech in Higher Education*

I suggest we situate our resistance to AI inside and outside higher education as forms of decomputing.
Decomputing rejects scale because that drives carbon emissions,
but also because our agency is undermined by our immersion in a system of machinic relations, which includes the contemporary university
Decomputing is based on the principles of degrowth, care and conviviality.
We need systems that don't depend on continuous expansion, whether that's AI, universities or entire economies.
We need to start from care to counter algorithmic detachment and eugenicist abstractions.
Conviviality gives us ways to collectively assess tech's effects on relatedness and bio-interaction.
Wherever AI is proposed as ‘the answer’ there's already a structural problem.
One that's best addressed through the direct social relations of those most affected.

#airesistance #decomputing #datasociety #academia

"1. Decomputing is a prefigurative technopolitics,
2. which tries to enact changed relations in the here-and-now.
3. One organisational form for this is worker's and people's councils on AI.
4. These are self-constituting assemblies that push back against AI bullshit,
5. while using consensus and critical pedagogy to tackle the divisive binaries we've all been programmed with.
6. Because universities are on the AI frontline, we're seeing resistance popping up all over the place.
7. Solidarity is the first priority of any of these critical collectives.
8. Some of the questions facing this emerging movement more broadly are:
9. how to move beyond reformism with minimum wasted energy and burn-out
10. how to coordinate and develop strategies without imposing rigid structure
11. how to position the push against AI as part of a movement-of-movements,
12. as part of an ecology of infrastructural intersectionalities.
13. AI isn't inevitable, but there's no going back because the past was already built on injustice; what we need to work towards are livable futures worth fighting for."

https://danmcquillan.org/resisting_genai_highered_cjuu.html

#AI #GenerativeAI #BigTech #Decomputing

In these years we're seeing the big tech industry showing its true face: the issues and dangers of mainstream social media are well known by the broader society, "apps" are becoming more broken, bloated and riddled with trackers with every passing day, everything is becoming a subscription service, they're showing down our throats an expensive, polluting and often mediocre technology threatening to take most of our jobs with it... it was inevitable that these conditions spurred a backlash or how media calls it a #techlash.

I belive that's good, it was about time to wipe out most of the naivety many had towards big tech but its saddeing that the pendulum is already swinging in the opposite direction and nowadays many perceives all digital technology as the enemy and calls for getting rid of most of it dreaming of a Butlerian Jihad.

I'm a late 90s kid grew up during the Frutiger Aero era, one of my all time favourite movies is "Tron: Legacy" and I have lots of heartfelt memories of all the experiences and adventures that were possible only because of videogames.

In an era of #techlash and calls to #decomputing I still believe that computing can be a force for good, that the soft glow of an LCD or CRT screen can brighten some of your dull days, that sometimes the friendly words and interactions you need can arrive trough TCP/IP and that the virtual has the potential of significantly enhance (and not replace) the real life.

Like Tron I wanna fight for users.

" #AI performance is ludicrous, but its quite good at being distractive" @danmcquillan at #TechWontSaveUs

Learn more about #decomputing

https://danmcquillan.org/decomputing_as_resistance.html

excellent interview about #decomputing and human agency in the age of AI

https://www.techwontsave.us/episode/286_decomputing_for_a_better_future_w_dan_mcquillan