Midterm Project: The Life Span of a Technological Object  Due Friday 10/28 â€“ be prepared to present your project in class.

Loosely based on Kate Crawford’s Anatomy of an AI System , your midterm is a research project in which you create a multi-modular project such as a web site, video essay or podcast that provides a “map of a technological object” of your choice. Trace its production and development as you consider its environmental sustainability, the physical labor and digital labor practices involved in its development, and its ethical relationship to the end user and society at large.

Consider the three major parts of the objects life span:

  • Production/materials/labor/
  • User experience/ethical relationship to user and society/digital rights/historical roots/evolution of object/etc.
  • Sustainability/recycling/right to repair/

Update: Biden proposes new “Bill of Rights” to protect Americans from AI harms. Here’s the what Ars Technica has to say.

Hi all, looking forward to seeing you all on Friday. So much to talk about as we continue to explore the sometimes seemingly impenetrable walled gardens of our digital landscape. As we whirl through ideas that that only begin to unpack: big data’s role in our lives, data brokers, AI bias, anti-trust laws and surveillance in the digital age – let’s keep in mind the promise of freedom and the role of governance.

  • We’ll begin by talking about your midterms and: The Amazon Echo as an anatomical map of human labor, data and planetary resources by Kate Crawford 1 and Vladan Joler 2 (2018) Anatomy of an AI System Ai Anatomy Map
  • Then we’ll look at and discuss some Chris Gilliard’s work.
  • John Oliver will unpack how our data is sold.
  • Finally we’ll take a look at some of Cory Doctrow’s on surveillance capitalism.

As always we’ll see how it goes!

A Detroit community college professor is fighting Silicon Valley’s surveillance machine. People are listening. Washington Post article featuring the work of Chris Chris Gilliard

PREPARED TESTIMONY AND STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD
OF Christopher Gilliard, PhDHEARING ON “Banking on Your Data: the Role of Big Data in Financial Services”

A Black Woman Invented Home Security. Why Did It Go So Wrong? Chris Gilliard

Data Brokers: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

Big Tech and the Crisis of Surveillance Capitalism | Cory Doctorow – Medium in Conversation

1,809 views Mar 9, 2021 Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist, and journalist. His latest book is Attack Surface, a standalone adult sequel to Little Brother. He is also the author How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism, a nonfiction book from Medium about conspiracies and monopolies. He works for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is a MIT Media Lab Research Affiliate, is a Visiting Professor of Computer Science at Open University, a Visiting Professor of Practice at the University of North Carolina’s School of Library and Information Science, and co-founded the UK Open Rights Group.

3:30 – 23:00

How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism

Pluralistic: 28 Sep 2022 Maintaining monopolies with the cloud