Technology is a Siren Song

Anthropomorphism Is Breaking Our Ability to Judge AI

Tech Policy Press fellow James Ball asks, how should we interact with a technology designed to ‘speak’ with us on what appear to be human terms?

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

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.

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

Leading scientific theorist W. Brian Arthur puts forth …

Future of Communications

Our seeming separation is but a trick of the light, for in truth we are all one, connected like dewdrops on a spider’s web. As technology traverses the illusory distance between us, it leads us back to the recognition of our inherent unity. Communication, once imagined as bridges between islands, dissolves as we awaken to find ourselves a sea; not separate, but an oceanic communion. We return h...

Existential Technologies

Who controls whom? Is technology controlling us, or are we controlling it? Does it lead us where it wants to, even to our ruin, or can we force it to yield to our intentions? But what else would our intentions be, if not some further technology? Is the humanity–technology relationship always the same or historically variable? Where is this unknown force heading?

Calm Technology

The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.

Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology

A witty, often terrifying that chronicles our transform…

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.

Serenity and the Myth of "Getting Out the Signal" - Reactor

We want to believe that knowledge will change the world for the better, but it's not always that simple.

On technological optimism and technological pragmatism

"There are no guarantees that things are going to turn out very well for anyone.”

The more we rely on tech, the more we deskill our bodies | Aeon Essays

We are, moment by moment, doing less sensing, navigating, remembering, walking, choosing, and attending

A People’s History of Tech

A collective storytelling project to build a more representative history that reflects the human impacts of technology.

The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology, Second Edition

“In an age in which the inexhaustible power of scientific technology makes all things possible, it remains to be seen where we will draw the line, where we will be able to say, here are possibilities that wisdom suggest we avoid.” First published to great acclaim in 1988, Langdon Winner’s groundbreaking exploration of the political, social, and philosophical implications of technology is timelier than ever. He demonstrates that choices about the kinds of technical systems we build and use are actually choices about who we want to be and what kind of world we want to create—technical decisions are political decisions, and they involve profound choices about power, liberty, order, and justice. A seminal text in the history and philosophy of science, this new edition includes a new chapter, preface, and postscript by the author.

Abeba Birhane on Twitter / X

a classic case of “the human mind is afforded less complexity than is owed, and the computer is afforded more wisdom than is due.” Baria and Cross (2021)that "vibe" is at the core of what makes us human. it defies formalization and datafication https://t.co/AXELAqlYcq— Abeba Birhane (@Abebab) February 17, 2024