technology

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• 3/26/2023
  

  ChatGPT Wants to Join SEIU in Breakthrough for Organized Labor

  by Jim Castagnera

  Business owners looking to replace workers with automation beware; ChatGPT is a union bot. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  3/12/2023
  

  O'Mara: Politics and Commercial Pressure, not ChatGPT, are the Threats

  Historian of technology and Silicon Valley Margaret O'Mara says that the peril of artificial intelligence chatbots and artificial intellience will lie in how it is marketed; the rush to be first to the market creates conditions for sloppy tech and abusive applications. 

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• SOURCE: The Drift
  

  Silicon Valley Was and Is The Child of the Military-Industrial Complex

  by Jeannette Estruth

  "The technology sector attributes its economic power to its own creativity and rogue innovation, but throughout its history it has been dependent on the federal budget."

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• SOURCE: The New Republic
  2/6/2023
  

  Don't Like Where Society's Heading? Blame Palo Alto

  by Scott W. Stern

  Journalist Malcolm Harris attempts to excavate the history of how a worldview shaped by the tech industry—most notably its rampant individualism and subordination of the self to surveillance, metrics and monitoring—conquered the world, while also keeping the flames of unregulated capitalism and eugenics burning. 

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• SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
  1/19/2023
  

  11 Movies and Shows that Document the March of Technology

  From the office-sized computer to the landline, plot points that hinge on obsolete technology are a fun way to track how technologies structure our lives and our anxieties. 

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• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  1/18/2023
  

  Why I'm Not Afraid of ChatGPT

  by Christopher Grobe

  The limits of AI writing technology present writing teachers the opportunity to show students how to demand more of their writing than the bots can possibly provide. 

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• 1/22/2023
  

  As the Progressive Era Ideal of Regulation Vanishes, What Will Stop the March of AI?

  by Walter G. Moss

  If capital decides that artificial intelligence is sufficiently profitable to put in charge of driving our cars, writing our essays, or even teaching our history classes, what is left to stop it, even if the products are terrible or even dangerous? 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  1/10/2023
  

  China's Rising Surveillance Capacity Ill Omen for Other Modern States, Too

  by Kathleen Keller

  The inherent desire of states to protect their power and interests means that the aggressive implementation of electronic surveillance measures in China is likely to be repeated, with dire consequences for social solidarity. 

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• SOURCE: Zócalo
  12/19/2022
  

  Today's Tech Bro and the Victorian Genius Both Reflect a False Narrative of Progress

  by Iwan Rhys Morus

  The cults of "disruption" and genius obscure the fact that innovation is typically cooperative, and dependent on a society that sustains and implements new knowledge. 

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• SOURCE: NPR
  12/6/2022
  

  50 Years Later, Remembering Pong's Success

  Pong's develper and Atari cofounder Allan Alcorn: "I didn't think the company would last long because most startup companies didn't. And so I thought it would fail after a while, but it'd be a lot of fun."

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• SOURCE: WBUR
  12/1/2022
  

  An Experiment Teaching African American History in the Metaverse

  Morehouse's Ovell Hamilton believes the technology of virtual reality has the potential to engage students with the sensation of inhabiting the past. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  11/2/2022
  

  Is the Feeling of Safety from Home Security Cameras Worth the Invasion of Privacy?

  Historian Matt Guariglia of the Electronic Frontier Foundation warns that the cozy relationship between tech companies and police departments threatens to make camera footage less private according to the wishes of law enforcement. 

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• SOURCE: Foreign Affairs
  11/1/2022
  

  Can Silicon Valley Be Redeemed? (Review Essay)

  by Margaret O'Mara

  Three books collectively demand a reckoning with Silicon Valley's immense social power; tech executives would do well to listen, says a technology historian. 

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• 9/11/2022
  

  Pessimistic Economic Forecasts Ignore a History of Dynamism

  by John Landry and Howard Wolk

  Many economic histories portray the American prosperity of the century between the Civil War and the 1970s as the picking of low-hanging fruit. But the story of entrepreneurial innovation during that time is more complicated, and more relevant to the present, than we think. 

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• 9/4/2022
  

  Considering the Automobile's Influence on Society—Before the Next Influence Takes Over?

  by Bryan Appleyard

  The story of the car—a story of genius and folly in equal measure—is the story of the making of the modern world. A new book weaves the threads of the automobile's influence through landscape, war and peace, mass production and individualism, and the environment. 

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• SOURCE: Contingent
  8/12/2022
  

  The Missouri Social Worker Who Founded the Global Internet Name Registry

  by Ayden Férdeline

  Marilyn Cade played a major role in establishing the global governance structure of the internet. 

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• SOURCE: Boston Review
  8/3/2022
  

  The Internet is Lousy Because of Capitalism, Not Bad Apple CEOs

  by Matthew Crain

  "Surveillance advertising was created by marketers, technology start-ups, investors, and politicians, a coalition bound by the desire to commercialize the web as quickly as possible."

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• SOURCE: The Nation
  6/13/2022
  

  Reviewed: The Bio of Hippie Capitalism Pioneer and Technofuturist Stewart Brand

  by Malcolm Harris

  From LSD to the computer revolution, Stewart Brand appeared in some way in the biggest cultural trends to emerge from California in the late 20th century. A new authorized biography tells a version of his story, but is it the whole story? 

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• SOURCE: The Baffler
  6/9/2022
  

  Meet the New Middleman, Same as the Old Middleman

  by Kathryn Judge

  The internet's promise to cut out any number of middlemen from the consumer experience has been a failure. 

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• SOURCE: The Baffler
  4/6/2022
  

  The Automation Myth (Review Essay)

  by Clinton Williamson

  Neither utopian nor cataclysmic predictions about the effects of automation made in the 20th century have come exactly to pass; technology has changed, but not replaced, work. Several new books try to connect the past and future of work.