#CFP for "Symposium on Black Methods in Science, Technology, and Innovation Research in Canada and Beyond" closing today -- there's still time to submit!
"Muddy Thinking in the Mississippi River Delta uses the story of mud to answer a deceptively simple question: How can a place uniquely vulnerable to sea level rise be one of the nation’s most promiscuous producers and consumers of fossil fuels?"
Now that it's been accepted to ACM FAccT'24, I've updated the preprint of my paper on why artists are right that AI art is a kind of theft. I hope this promotes more serious thought about the visions of generative AI developers and the impacts of these technologies.
On May 7 at 4:30 PM EDT, Jon Leydens will deliver the Bovay Lecture in the History & Ethics of Engineering at Cornell University. His research concerns how engineering education can contribute to social justice, sociotechnical thinking, and humanitarian engineering.
#STS and adjacent people, I'm looking for reading recs on scifi + "capital S monolithic Science" as religion/pseudoreligion
not looking for the actual historical ties between religious institutions and research disciplines (tho I won't be mad if you share those too)
looking more for stuff like... how we went from early scifi tales and allegories at a time when many disciplines and methods where only starting out, to the rampant Scientism and TESCREALism of today... how that's played into technocracy and modulated colonial narratives and education and actual R&D initiatives and etc...
there's tons of individual connections to make between religious narratives and contemporary scifi-treated-as-reality, like general AI as both gods and eschatological prophecy. interested in that sort of thing too
Please join us April 30th 2pm Central/3pm E. for the Tomash Fellow Lecture w/ 2023-24 Tomash Fellow MIT HASTS' Alex Reiss-Sorokin's "From Research to Search: Legal Research Technologies, 1964-1994." Register now! (free, required)
No cute bunnies or lambs in my files, I'm afraid. I do, however, have a lot of queer chickens. This is a painting of a hen-cock (c. 1900), a prize fighter, by English artist Herbert Atkinson. 🥚🐥🐔
Absolutely delighted that NYU MCC Prof. Mara Mills & UCSB Prof. Patrick McCray @LeapingRobot have signed on as new CBI @BabbageInst Research Fellows. Please see article link on these two incredible scholars! #sts#history
Here's a podcast on New Books Network where I talk about (surprise surprise) my new book, 'Visions of a Digital Nation', and why Margaret Thatcher's 1984 #privatisation of British Telecom was a pivotal moment for both #neoliberalism and #digitalisation.
Just a reminder that, following the Royal Society event in Jan, my article 'Mendel's Closet: Genetics, Eugenics and the Exceptions of Sex in Edwardian Britain' has been made freely available until the end of Feb/LGBTQ+ History Month.
My first sole-authored book just came out! Visions of a Digital Nation: Market and Monopoly in British Telecommunications is about the privatisation and digitalisation of the UK's telecom infrastructure, and why that was such a pivotal moment for the rise of neoliberalism.
ew Interfaces Essay Jan. '24 William Aspray "Is AI an Existential Threat? Let’s First Understand What an Existential Threat Is." provides a compelling analysis of existential threats & institutions studying them.