“most striking about the tale of the Bell rocket belt is the shape of the deception that Moore and Bell pulled off” #jetpacks
“exactly what the #selfdriving car #robotaxi bros did over the past decade to convince us all that the human driver was already obsolete. The playbook was nearly identical”
“we have vested an alarming amount of power in the hands of #tech#billionaires”
#EU#Italy#Fascism#AI#Unemployment#Algorithms#Solutionism: "Back in April, the far-right Brothers of Italy party presented “Notes on a Conservative Program”. In a chapter on work, they called for an “artificial intelligence system” that “traces the list of young people who finish high school and university every year and connects them to companies in the sector.” This, the authors of the chapter wrote, would finally solve "youth unemployment,” as “the young person will no longer be able to choose whether to work or not, but [will be] bound to accept the job offer for himself (sic), for his family and for the country, under penalty of loss of all benefits with the application of a system of sanctions.”
The proposal did not make it to the final program that Brothers of Italy published prior to the election on 25 September, when they became Italy’s largest party with 26% of the vote.
Ironically, the neofascists most likely had intended to use Artificial Intelligence to “create a fog around them, around what they are and what they want, because they want to attract a more moderate right-wing electorate,” says sociologist Antonio Casilli. Guido Crosetto, the Brothers of Italy co-founder who edited the work chapter, is not considered knowledgeable on technology, though he once tweeted about being “in favor of introducing artificial intelligence to the Ministry of Justice”. Unlike in other countries, there is no noticeable overlap between the Italian tech scene and far-right parties like Lega Nord and Brothers of Italy."
The article shows that apart from a performativity effect, there is not much to the predictions of #predictivepolicing software. In fact, there are negative effects when people - especially from vulnerable groups - are mistakenly affected by these predictions.
The text ends with a good statement against technological #solutionism: "The problem with predictive policing is the policing part [...] The data about where crime victimization occurs, that’s something that should be studied. But that doesn’t mean that the solution is policing."
#SuperApps#Solutionism#SiliconValley: "For some tech firms like Microsoft, super apps may provide an opportunity to break the hold of more established monopolies like Apple or Google. And for consumers, one application with a core function brings together a diverse array of services such as calling a cab, investing money, or even making a quick buck.
But app-based solutions to structural problems are just shining examples of insisting the disease is the cure. Silicon Valley has long exploited existing societal and infrastructural gaps. Ride-hail platforms have savaged public transit and the taxi industry, but the need for drivers in cities without adequate transport options remains. The same goes for platforms offering app-based solutions to housing or financial services: Their popularity is less a testament to their innovation than to how desiccated the nonmarket alternatives were, thanks to older deregulatory campaigns stretching back to the ascent of neoliberal governance in the 1970s. In the end, they perpetuate problems with the systems they claim to hack. The crypto industry preys on nonwhite communities without access to the traditional financial system, and on-demand labor platforms have been hard at work eroding this country’s threadbare labor laws."
"If the #electricity for a vertical farm is supplied by solar panels, the energy production takes up at least as much space as the vertical farm saves. "
Having seen James C. Scott's seminal "Seeing like a State" getting referenced several times this past week, I'm now going through some of my old bookmarks related to the book. It struck me how well the below recipe also summarizes Silicon Valley's attitude & culture of naive #solutionism
"Here's the recipe:
Look at a complex and confusing reality, such as the social dynamics of an old city
Fail to understand all the subtleties of how the complex reality works
Attribute that failure to the irrationality of what you are looking at, rather than your own limitations
Come up with an idealized blank-slate vision of what that reality ought to look like
Argue that the relative simplicity and platonic orderliness of the vision represents rationality
Use authoritarian power to impose that vision, by demolishing the old reality if necessary
Also (somewhat conflating other aspects in here), the evolution of the SV-owned Social Web of the past 18 years seems currently somewhere between steps 6 and 7, for better or worse...
If we live in a "solutionist age" (remember: E. Morozov), why are technological solutions to the climate issue ( #geoengineering e.g. direct air capture) so unpopular (meaning: at least in Germany, I don't see any significant public support)?
Oh yes, Morozov has set something in motion. Probably the explanation is a bit more complex - he might be the charismatic carrier who needs rank-and-file monks.
And yes, as a sociologist, I am familiar with #marcuse.