We, the makers of the machines, are more than the sum of our parts. Let’s domesticate tech to aid human flourishing.
The machines are fine. I'm worried about us.
On AI agents, grunt work, and the part of science that isn't replaceable.
Taking on the Technosphere: A Kitchen Debate
In his original writings on the technosphere from the early 2010s, Peter Haff identified its existence as a grand metabolizing system. Back in early 2016, spurred on by the preparation for HKW’s Anthropocene Campus: The Technosphere Issue, a vehement debate sprang up in the home of science and technology scholars Gabrielle Hecht and Paul N. Edwards: How valid is Haff’s approach? What is its overall reality? And what is its heuristic purpose? In this republication of their dispute, you, the reader, can engage alongside Hecht and Edwards in the ongoing question of whether the concept of the technosphere is indeed “a useful tool,” “silverware,” or “a barren gadget” in understanding the current and future condition of planet Earth.
Coming of a New Sun
Reporter Jenny Gesteson visits a south Texas 'dark factory' to see how the machines there - and the minds that operate them - are learning to run themselves.
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
Seven Theses from Feeding the Machine
New Book – Publication 18 July 2024 (UK) / 8 August 2024 (US)
Elphinstone Farm (and regenerative solarpunk lab)
An aspiring small-scale agritech solarpunk venture on the Sunshine Coast, BC — building syntropic agroforestry labs, a native plant nursery, and a collaborative workspace.
It’s Time to Investigate the AI Labs - Cal Newport
Over the last several months, the two leading frontier AI labs have shown some brazen behavior. It started with a series of carefully planned announcements ... Read more
A Research Lab for Open Source ✸ Software Stewardship Lab
Today, we're launching a world-class research lab dedicated to Open Source sustainability with a team of some of the most experienced people in the world.
Caring for the Chips: Repair and Reuse as Permacomputing – Michelle Kaczmarek
The scientific enterprise is a human enterprise
An excerpt from my newly-defended PhD dissertation.
Are We Really Engineers?
This is part one of the Crossover Project. Part two is here and part three is here. A conference talk based on this work is now available here. I sat in front of Mat, idly chatting about tech and cuisine. Before now, I had known him mostly for his cooking pictures on Twitter, the kind that made me envious of suburbanites and their 75,000 BTU woks. But now he was the test subject for my new project, to see if it was going to be fruitful or a waste of time.
Nature is Laughing at the AI Build Out -
I was catching up on Acquired episodes this week and listened to the spectacular “Google: The AI Company” episode that Ben and David put together. What the two of them have created with their podcast fascinates me in the inevitability of its success. I think Acquired proves that if you are smart and work your […]
The Machines Ran on Anguish
I The machines ran on anguish. Everybody knew that. How? “It’s very scientific.” – the Guild would say – “You wouldn’t understand.” The machines were also very dangerous, or so it was claimed. “But we
Aristotle Explorations Inc.
San Francisco Bay Area software company working on creating the machine that creates the machine.
After Forty Years, Still No Silver Bullet
As always, technology can help with production. What’s scarce is orientation.
