| Web | https://ast.io |
| Day job | https://www.designinformatics.org/person/alex-taylor/ |
“.. yet, hopelessness is not self-identically fatalist; a kind of radical hopelessness that dares refuse the old promissory and progressive logics of capitalist growth could open political horizons.”
“Immediacy or, The Style of Too Late Capitalism” - Anna Kornbluh
"There is a special place in hell reserved for people who exploit the pain of others – and it’s becoming very crowded. It’s filling up with those who look at the war between Israel and Hamas, and the grief and fear it prompts in the hearts of Jews and Muslims especially, and see not tragedy but opportunity – a chance to advance their own interests."
Another very alarming problem with unchecked (or debatably worse) data-driven systems.
Image generation via WhatsApp has linked "Palestinian" and "Palestinian boy" with guns and boys with guns.
These models and algorithms are feeding hate.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/nov/02/whatsapps-ai-palestine-kids-gun-gaza-bias-israel
With the horrors in Gaza, this one might be easily missed.
404media (+ other outlets) report a serious problem w/ profile translations that use “Palestinian” and “alhamdulillah” - by meta/instagram. Shockingly, automated translations have added “terrorist” to profiles.
Apparently there’s a fix but yet another example of the real and material dangers of unchecked automation and likely unthinking decisions about training data.
https://www.404media.co/instagram-palestinian-arabic-bio-translation/
The "see translation" feature for user bios was auto-translating phrases that included "Palestinian" and “alhamdulillah” into "Praise be to god, Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom."
New paper published today but written in early '22 (by me, Anna Williams, and Mallory Knodel) for Open Society Foundations.
A Thousand Cassandras details how digital rights activists act as bellwethers, warning against future and unfolding harms created by tech, but are often deprecated by policymakers in favour of industry insight
Despite being written 18 months ago, it lays out many of the patterns and behaviours that have led to industry capture of "AI Safety"
What is the role of digital rights and campaigning organisations in forecasting the future? This short report seeks to bridge the gap between the theoretical discipline of foresight methodologies and how foresight happens in practice. Written for the Open Society Foundations (OSF) it aims to invest
The institute I’m joining next month at University of Edinburgh is looking for a Chair/Prof to co-lead Design Informatics. I think this could be an opportunity to build something new and I’d love to use it as a chance to establish a space for critical and justice oriented thinking around technology. Please get in touch even if you just want to talk the idea through.
https://www.designinformatics.org/news/new-job-posting-chair-in-di/
NoortjeMarres
Rachel Coldicutt has moved
Nancy Baym