Notes on technological anxiety
The Golden Age Is Behind Us: How the Status Quo Impacts the Evaluation of Technology
New technology invariably provokes concerns over potential societal impacts. Even as risks often fail to materialize, the fear continues. The current research explored the psychological underpinnings of this pattern. Across four studies ( N = 2,454 adults recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk), we found evidence for the role of status quo thinking in evaluating technology. In Study 1, we experimentally manipulated the reported age of unfamiliar technology and found that people evaluate it more favorably when it is described as originating before (vs. after) their birth. In Studies 2 through 4, participants’ age at the time of invention strongly predicts attitudes toward a wide range of real-world technologies. Finally, we found that individual differences in status-quo-based decision-making moderated evaluations of technology. These studies provide insight into how people respond to the rapidly changing technological landscape.
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
A witty, often terrifying that chronicles our transform…
Ali Alkhatib: On techno-optimism
I’ve got a longer draft in the works, but I don’t think that’s going to become a blog post, so I figure it might be useful to publish something here and solicit feedback, or just plant a flag in the ground that this was a thing I did. Last week Several weeks ago I gave a talk at Wayne State University titled “the uncanny pessimism of techno-optimism”. In this post I’m going to breeze through some of the stuff I talked about and give a sense of what’ll be coming. Eventually.
On technological optimism and technological pragmatism
"There are no guarantees that things are going to turn out very well for anyone.”
On technological optimism and technological pragmatism
"There are no guarantees that things are going to turn out very well for anyone.”
On technological optimism and technological pragmatism
"There are no guarantees that things are going to turn out very well for anyone.”
Tech optimism isn't a solution to the climate crisis
(Or, why we should worry about billionaires who treat Neal Stephenson books like an instruction manual)
Opinion | How Scared Should We Be of A.I. Right Now?
The dark and distressing way that Silicon Valley talks about A.I. can be traced to a philosophy that influenced many tech executives.
Our Longing for Inconvenience
People are pining for old technologies—CD players, VCRs, Walkmans. What’s behind our longing for inconvenience?
Technology is Not Values Neutral: Ending the Reign of Nihilistic Design
We fail to take tech seriously when we do not grasp its full impact on humans
'Our minds can be hijacked': the tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia
The Google, Apple and Facebook workers who helped make technology so addictive are disconnecting themselves from the internet. Paul Lewis reports on the Silicon Valley refuseniks who worry the race for human attention has created a world of perpetual distraction that could ultimately end in disaster
An Alternative History of Silicon Valley Disruption
Three recent books challenge the tech industry's myths of self-reliance and prescience.
Feeling of Computing — Conversations
What if technology didn’t feel so… hollow? Some friends and I just released a manifesto about a world where tech leaves us feeling nourished (along with an evolving list of theses about how we can build it) resonantcomputing.org
The Resonant Computing Manifesto
resonantcomputing.org