I have a new article in Tech Policy Press about infrastructure, AI, urban renewal projects and other public works efforts that ended up creating social and physical burdens due to overreach. Here's how it starts: A day after his inauguration, President Donald Trump was joined in the White
On David Lynch, AI, and the Myth of Automated Interiority My closest real-life encounter with David Lynch was getting into a Lyft that had just dropped him off at the premiere of Twin Peaks: The Return. A friend and I had planned a trip to Snoqualmie, WA to go to
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If the author is dead, why isn't the LLM?
When Disembodied Systems Want You to Move Note: The following video contains images of AI-generated bodies which some have found deeply un-nerving. If that's not your bag, don't click. In my early 30s I came to realize I had lived through severe bouts of depersonalization growing
On NotebookLM, Fauxthority & Science Fiction 💡Design is storytelling meant to orient people to strange new tech by anchoring them in familiar terms. In that sense, it is a kind of science fiction. Whenever I talk positively about Gen AI, it means going very narrow, at the exclusion of a
Writing, Talks & Miscellanea A collection of writing, art and sounds I've worked on this year. Writing I've written quite a few pieces for Tech Policy Press this year. The Original Sin of Generative AI Should images of child abuse circulated online be commercialized? If we
A Partial List of Writing on Generative AI There has been some great critical writing about Generative AI this year. This is a long post with many quotations that tries to give a snapshot of what people – or at least I – was thinking about in 2024. I've broken
AI Populism and Slop as Symptom 💡This week was an experiment in multi-part publishing. Slop Infrastructures was shared in three parts, this is the third. You can read part one and two here, and parts three and four here. PART FIVE SPARKLE WITHOUT LIFTING A FINGER "Now, I must
Weaponized Slop If the purpose of a system is what it does, then the purpose of AI infrastructure is the production of AI slop. 💡This week, I'm trying something new. I'll be e-mailing smaller sections of a single piece, Slop Infrastructures, each day. This includes part
"Maybe the Human Part of Human Connection is Overstated." 💡This week, I'm trying something new. Starting today, and ending on Tuesday, I'll be e-mailing smaller sections of a single piece, Slop Infrastructures. This post includes part one and two. Parts three and four are
Remarks delivered in response to a question from students in Frank Shephard’s Algorithmic Sublime class at the New School for Social Research, New York City, on November 8, 2024.
Close Reading OpenAI's training module for educators If you’re taking a free online training, it's helpful to understand who wrote that lesson plan and why. ChatGPT Foundations for Educators is a course created by the non-profit Common Sense Media, in partnership with AI behemoth OpenAI.