100 years of whatever this will be

What if all these weird tech trends actually add up to something? Last time, we explored why various bits of trendy technology are, in my o...

Care at the Edge of Automation – Topos Institute

Technologies don’t just solve problems, they change us. We invent technologies, and they invent us in turn, shaping our lives and worlds. This is the phenomenon that Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores, in Understanding Computers and Cognition (1986), called “ontological design.” It matters now more than ever—along with a second lesson they saw clearly. Technological research is always guided (and sometimes misguided) by deep ontological assumptions about, e.g., the nature of cognition, agency, and communication. If we are to create technologies that truly serve human flourishing and care, we must bring these hidden assumptions into the open and question them at their roots.

70 years of AI hype

Quoting from Olivia Guest et al. (2025) "Against the Uncritical Adoption of AI Technologies in Academia."

What technology takes from us – and how to take it back | Rebecca Solnit

The long read: Decisions outsourced, chatbots for friends, the natural world an afterthought: Silicon Valley is giving us life void of connection. There is a way out – but it’s going to take collective effort

Technological Metamodernism | Hilma Church-Turing | Substack

Click to read Technological Metamodernism, a Substack publication with hundreds of subscribers.

Telepath: building a new kind of computer

So, we made a thing: Let’s back up: for as long as I can remember, I’ve been obsessed with computers, fascinated not just by what they can do but what they could become. Like many, I took my early inspiration from science fiction. I dreamed of someday having something like the Enterprise’s computer. And why not? Science fiction has always driven scientists, engineers, and inventors to create real things that change the world.

Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology

A witty, often terrifying that chronicles our transform…

OSTP Vision for Science is a ‘Golden Age’ for Corporations

"Science: A New Golden Age" tries to reframe the conversation away from the ongoing destruction of American science, writes Cole Donovan.

Technology without Industry

A home for poorly researched ideas that I find myself repeating a lot anyway

The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves

Leading scientific theorist W. Brian Arthur puts forth …

We Build On Hope @ PublicSpaces Conference 2026

Keynote by Robin Berjon The current state of tech can feel disheartening. Years of critical analysis and reform efforts have left us with a digital sphere that seems worse than ever. In Europe, our...

Push-button science

Technological advances change not only what we can learn as scientists, but also how science is conducted. Here we explore how automation and outsourcing are affecting the act of doing science.

How Big Tech Co-opted DIY – and how to Fight Back | The Quietus

As technology has developed in the last twenty years, it has brought with it a sense of enablement. Over time, access to nearly everything has become simpler, and as such, the message from Silicon Valley and its offshoots was that you can do it all.  I have worked in the music industry since the late […]

Don’t Believe the Hype — or Doom — About AI

For America’s VC-dominated tech industry, AI hype isn’t just a crazy by-product — it’s a structural part of the US economy in which capital tries to write our destinies. We shouldn’t let it.

Silicon Valley, disruption, and the end of uncertainty

This paper reflects on the relationship between high-tech disruption narratives and uncertainty. My main argument is that an economic sociology of the future is incomplete without addressing the ‘d...