💾 🤗 Call for Participation for the Critical Code Studies Working Group (CCSWG 24) #critcode #dh

(Deadline extended to January 31!)

Topics for this year include:
☑ Queering Code
☑ CCS and AI
☑ The DHQ Special issues
☑ Teaching Code and Code Studies

https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1TVYqLOIbYYs6qsMd5ah-DQEaQCEhe5GEQCk7ITdDvoI/mobilebasic

Finding fake AI generated on Amazon is surprisingly fun and easy. After @verge coverage (https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/12/24036156/openai-policy-amazon-ai-listings) I found examples (https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=cannot+fulfill+this+request&crid=34D2L1IC2F566&sprefix=cannot+fulfill+this+request+%2Caps%2C50&ref=nb_sb_noss) but Amazon is quick to ban the search terms!

The 1st research article in our Special Issue on AI Controversies in Big Date & Society is out ! Guillaume Dandurand @fenwick and Jonathan Roberge show how legacy media freeze out AI's controversiality & demonstrate the force of controversy analysis as a critical approach #ShapingAI #STS @cka https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20539517231219242

All the scrollytelling* that's fit to publish**

https://www.theverge.com/c/23998379/google-search-seo-algorithm-webpage-optimization

* sorry
** seriously tho this is brilliant, great job The Verge

@danjokaz00ie Mid-career pivot to nuclear power?

This paper is really important, presenting empirical evidence of the imbrication bet. AI & the surveillance biz model. This is notable particularly given that most production surveillance tech is proprietary, its existence and use hidden from the public.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.15084?ref=404media.co

@natematias Fantastic thread and so happy to read all the good news. Also always have time for updates about cycling trips!

Excited to have co-authored a major piece of the #ShapingAI project. Our piece, Freezing out: Legacy media's shaping of AI as a cold controversy, that I think is a reflection on the dynamics that have made AI's controversiality uncontroversial in Canada.

Read it here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20539517231219242

And please share.

Thanks to Guillaume Dandurand and Jonathan Roberge too for co-writing!

cc @cka @NoortjeMarres

📣 The Conference Programme is live „Shifting AI Controversies“ Berlin, 29-30 JAN, 2024. https://www.hiig.de/en/events/conference-shifting-ai-controversies/.

🧑‍🏫Opening Panel "Where Do We Stand? Patterns of Thinking and Talking about AI" incl @SallyWyatt @LouiseAmoore
🎆Evening Panel "Not my Existential Risk! The Politics of Controversy in an Age of AI" incl @markscott @spielkamp @NoortjeMarres
🎤Closing Panel "Where Do We Go From Here? Future Trajectories of AI Controversies and Developments" incl @abpowell @info_activism @fenwick

Expect big debates over the use of "open source" datasets in AI development.

On one hand, LAION published thousands of examples of illegal CSAM and got them incorporated into AI training models- which is a huge fail for them and everyone else who trained on it.

On the other hand, the Stanford Internet Observatory was able to detect and alert people to this because it was an open dataset.

https://www.404media.co/laion-datasets-removed-stanford-csam-child-abuse/

@rwg @aram And here I am saying I quit Twitter to avoid all the toxic comments

We are alarmed by this. Many people use dropbox for highly sensitive communication.

@ck @dalias @signalapp There's also a reckoning to be had within the FOSS community IMO, which in the 1990s took its eye off market actors even as it remained vigilant about government surveillance/overreach. The acceptance of corporate tech (and implicitly its surveillance business model), led by folks like ESR via the break from Free software to "open source," did a lot to get us here.

**From disinformation to hate speech: Platform Governance Archive (PGA) reveals how social platforms regulate our communication**

Have you seen this? We have relaunched the PGA, now a full-fledged resource for the research and expert community (👀 @platgov @AoIR)

🌎 We now cover 18 platforms
🏃🏻‍♂️ Continuous update of platform policy changes
💿 Datasets available for bulk download
📄 Two Data papers

This is a collaboration of @pgmt, @zemki , @hiig_berlin, @opentermsarchive@lescommuns.org.
https://www.hiig.de/en/platform-governance-archive-v2/

@jfmezei But only the new episode. I want some back episodes!

@jfmezei Where can I check if I am a subscriber?

>> Firefox supports a new “Copy Link Without Site Tracking” feature in the context menu which ensures that copied links no longer contain tracking information.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/120.0/releasenotes/

Parsing the fallout from the AI board split, try our paper! We argue that AI involves competing, but reenforcing, governmental projects, one existential, the other mundane. That latter seems to be winning, neither seems great.

Check it out:

Recursive power: AI governmentality and technofutures
by
Fenwick McKelvey and Jonathan Roberge
in
Handbook of Critical Studies of Artificial Intelligence

https://www.elgaronline.com/edcollchap/book/9781803928562/book-part-9781803928562-7.xml

Pre-print here: http://www.fenwickmckelvey.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/RECURSIVE-POWER-PREPRINT.pdf

I'm giving a talk today at 1pm called A Copy of What? ChatGPT and the Commons today as part of the Humber Presidential Lecture Series. You can live stream the talk here:

https://liberalarts.humber.ca/current-students/resources/conferences-and-lectures/presidents-lecture-series.html

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/sketchbook/is-my-toddler-a-stochastic-parrot