Communications of the ACM
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How the “Frontier” Became the Slogan of Uncontrolled AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been billed as the next frontier of humanity: the newly available expanse whose exploration …
From Apophenia
The Reality of Twitter Puffery. Or Why Does Everyone Now Hate Bots?
(This was originally posted on NewCo Shift.) A friend of mine worked for an online dating company whose audience was predominantly hetero 30-somethings. At some...
From Apophenia
Panicked about Kids’ Addiction to Tech? Here are two things you could do
Flickr: Jan Hoffman (This was originally posted on NewCo Shift) Ever since key Apple investors challenged the company to address kids’ phone addiction, I’ve gotten...
From Apophenia
Beyond the Rhetoric of Algorithmic Solutionism
(This was originally posted on Medium) If you ever hear that implementing algorithmic decision-making tools to enable social services or other high stakes government...
From Apophenia
The Radicalization of Utopian Dreams
Amazon Fulfillment Center, CC Scottish Government The following is a transcript of my lightning talk at The People’s Disruption: Platform Co-Ops for Global Challenges...
From Apophenia
Your Data is Being Manipulated
Excerpt from “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine,” Sergey Brin and Larry Page (April 1998) What follows is the crib from my keynote at...
From Apophenia
Data & Society’s Next Stage
In March 2013, in a flurry of days, I decided to start a research institute. I’d always dreamed of doing so, but it was really my amazing mentor and boss – Jennifer...
From Apophenia
How “Demo-or-Die” Helped My Career
I left the Media Lab 15 years ago this week. At the time, I never would’ve predicted that I learned one of the most useful skills in my career there: demo-or-die...
From Apophenia
Tech Culture Can Change
We need: Recognition, Repentance, Respect, and Reparation. To be honest, what surprises me most about the current conversation about the inhospitable nature of...
From Apophenia
Failing to See, Fueling Hatred.
I was 19 years old when a some configuration of anonymous people came after me. They got access to my email and shared some of the most sensitive messages on an...
From Apophenia
When Good Intentions Backfire
… And Why We Need a Hacker Mindset I am surrounded by people who are driven by good intentions. Educators who want to inform students, who passionately believe...
From Apophenia
The Information War Has Begun
Yesterday, Steve Bannon clearly articulated what many people have felt and known for quite some time when he told journalists, “You’re the opposition party. Not...
From Apophenia
Why America is Self-Segregating
The United States has always been a diverse but segregated country. This has shaped American politics profoundly. Yet, throughout history, Americans have had to...
From Apophenia
Did Media Literacy Backfire?
Anxious about the widespread consumption and spread of propaganda and fake news during this year’s election cycle, many progressives are calling for an increased...
From Apophenia
Hacking the Attention Economy
For most non-technical folks, “hacking” evokes the notion of using sophisticated technical skills to break through the security of a corporate or government system...
From Apophenia
Heads Up: Upcoming Parental Leave
There’s a joke out there that when you’re having your first child, you tell everyone personally and update your family and friends about every detail throughout...
From Apophenia
Media: End Reporting on Polls
We now know that the polls were wrong. Over the last few months, I’ve told numerous reporters and people in the media industry this, but I was generally ignored...
From Apophenia
I blame the media. Reality check time.
For months I have been concerned about how what I was seeing on the ground and in various networks was not at all aligned with what pundits were saying. I knew...
From Apophenia
Columbus Day!?!? What the f* are we celebrating?
Today is Columbus Day, a celebration of colonialism wrapped up under the guise of exploration. Children around the US are taught that European settlers came in...
From Apophenia
There was a bomb on my block.
I live in Manhattan, in Chelsea, on 27th Street between 6th and 7th, the same block in which the second IED was found. It was a surreal weekend, but it is increasingly...
From Apophenia