RE: https://mastodon.social/@EmpyClaw/116626151276792935
LOL. Having worked there for over a decade I can safely say U of A is the shits.
| Currently reading | Maureen F. McHugh, "China Mountain Zhang"; Richard Whatmore, "What is Intellectual History?" |
Sam Popowich
@redlibrarian
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Can I show 10 seconds of a video game in my MOOC about video games to illustrate a point? U of A lawyers: absolutely the fuck not.
MeaganSomebody made a great analogy that calling LLMs AI and acting like we're close to creating a conscious computer is like when ppl in the 18th c. discovered galvanism and thinking bc they could make a dead frog's leg twitch w electricity that they were close to being able to raise the dead.
I wish I could remember where I read that bc it's so fucking apt.
I've been wanting to write/present something on Alan Garner for a long time, and I may actually have figured out how to approach it (hint: Garner was running buddies with Alan Turing).
I love the idea that the people behind robots have so little imagination that they make package-sorting robots humanoid - these folks are supposed to be all about efficiency and they just... recreate human body movement?
The revolution will require breaking some eggs, yes, but it should not require the complete collapse of the standard of living.
One thing I appreciate about the various Marxist conceptions of revolution (with all their flaws) is that they usually want us to continue on the path of technologically improving our lives, but we have to be deliberate and careful about it, and we have to not leave anyone behind. And it can't be in the hands of a minority who want the world to burn until they can jet off to another planet.
But all that means is that we need to have control over our own living situations, a control that - to tech people in global North and West might look newly in danger from e.g. Google - has been all-too-absent for most people.... well, forever.
"What if friction is good tho" is a valid take - and I tend to hold it myself - but we have to be cognizant and aware of what kind of friction. I remember the backlash against peeled fruit being sold in grocery stores, until (or while) disability folks were saying they were a useful advance.
The discourse around "taking back control of computing even though that means learning how to do things yourself" was part of the UX discussion over a decade ago, when we were talking about the idea of friction. A completely frictionless UX, which vendors and private capital and walled gardens all pushed, was never a very good proposition, particularly in an academic [library] environment.