I’m about the only person not playing Zelda this week. Instead I write to you from a very nice hotel in Charlottenburg in Berlin at the tail end of just over a week of travelling the Germanic world. I know I haven’t written in a while and I know I say that every time there is simply no good reason; I’m just a busy person. Every week I don’t write it is harder to again the next week.
I’m going back to the office more which means introducing two hours of sitting on a bus into each day (as opposed to 50 minutes on a bike #carssuck). As of yet I haven’t found a good way to blog or do anything with that time other than look out the window, listen to podcasts and do some Duolingo; I cannot type on phone keyboards and no one has solved the navigation problems of switching between windows effectively.
Recently, a couple of people were (jovially) saying I was really opinionated and it struck a discord somewhere. We can never know ourselves of course (I was recently told in an organisational psychology assessment that my results suggested I could be manipulative and I was like ‘how would I know?’) but I don’t know that it rings true. The things I have opinions about are often strong ones, usually because they’re developing theories, folk-observations, bewaring others of respect for water or about how much I hate cars. But there’s a huge amount of things (most sport, epidemiology, archaeology, theology, set theory, the Greek classics etc. etc.) that I have no opinion on, largely because I am reluctant to develop an opinion on something I have no understanding of. In the midst of Covid I was very clear that I had no opinion on ventilation, vaccination strategies or macroeconomic responses. Also I find the intellectual-progressive tendency to tear itself apart over its opinions really counter-productive/revolutionary.
Like, I understand the criticism of the AI letter, but isn’t the spirit of it right? Isn’t the spirit of the AI Dilemma right even if you disagree for critical or intellectual reasons with the individuals? ‘We’ expend so much energy on each other while the other side attack immigrants, ban abortion and gerrymander elections. I was actually sort of happy about the vibe of ambivalence around the coronation in the UK. I was expecting anti-monarchist vitriol from everywhere but happily people seemed to generally leave each other alone to respond how they wished and in a way that made them happy (other than the obvious nefarious arrests); whether that’s a protest, ignoring it or standing in the rain. If this weird spectacle makes you happy; great, people spend all sorts of money on all sorts of stupid things to make themselves happy.
Anyway, a lot has happened to tell you about though I can’t commit to giving you any more hot takes or elite opinions. They’ve all been used elsewhere.
PhD
Last week I capped off the chunk of work I need for the upgrade; the more-than-halfway point that is a submission of a good chunk of the work. Mostly this has involved addressing the front-stuff; tightening up the methodology and introductory sections but I also wrote a new piece on how I’m using theories from other domains. The process is really not straightforward; I loosely collect quotes or notes on things as I read in a blank document then iterate over and over and over again, grouping and cutting until an argument starts to emerge. Sometimes I’ll spend ten minutes trying to get a sentence just right or grab at an idea I can’t quite vocalise properly.
Anyway, it’s submitted now and when I get back tomorrow I’ll review the feedback from Matt, Joe and Wes, make any further changes and send off to the examiners. Feels good to be having it done but I know that really it’s just firing the starting gun on a much bigger chunk of work to finish the whole thing.
Recents
Can you believe it’s been almost six weeks? I’ll try and rattle through recent activities as quick as possible but in no particular order.
I was in Milan to do a panel with Viraj Joshi, Alexandra Mihai and Simone Rebaudengo hosted by Domus Academy and the Speculative Futures Milan guys on AI and design. Easily one of the most fun and interesting panels I’ve done in ages. We laughed about the fun stuff and got serious about the serious stuff, and had a wonderful evening rave in the hotel lobby. It was also great to be back in Milan for the first time in years and just run into loads of old friends, meet some new ones and talk about design again. I forget sometimes that people think about me as a designer and want to talk to me about design, no middle management.
Malina and I did a class on speculative design for Milan’s ‘Service Design Masterclass.’ I was also the inaugural guest on the Service Design Network’s YAP podcast talking about design, futures and working at Arup. Back on From Later again with Rob, Syd and Viraj (once again) talking about cloud seeding and CGI and all sorts of nonsense. Did a good research-heavy design talk for the Service Design College. I’m sort of glad no one’s asked me to write anything for a while. I can use my words good with my mouth brain but writing is hard.
Anyway, I’m in Berlin because we’re at the tail-end of Arup Foresight’s Regenerative Futures exhibition and events here for Berlin Design Week. The team made a new film – ‘Common Ground’ – and we ran a small series of public and private events which were bloody lovely. Before that (last week) I was in Austria for Desired Futures 6. Three days of great talks and discussions from a who’s-who of futures nerds. On Friday I hosted Julian in a conversation about imagination which was great.
I’m sure there’s things I’ve missed and there’s lots of the same coming up tbh. I know there’s like three talks next week and it’s really hard to keep on top of it all. I do try and share them in good course on the social networks. My phone is buzzing to say I have to go elsewhere so I need to cut this short.
Short Stuff
Sorry, a lot of this is old news.
- Not a huge amount but a bit of insight on tech companies laying off or redeploying ethics teams. They say; ‘we’re developing AI responsibly anyway’ we say; ‘inconvenient cost in race-to-the-bottom of the market’
- Also Washington Post mapping out the different camps in the AI debate and, importantly, what their financial incentives are.
- I’m very much on the ‘Robots have never and aren’t going to take your job (but they will take the things you love)’ side of things, Noah Smith’s analysis of an analysis of why 300 million jobs aren’t going to be erased.
- Brazil is looking to get Chinese investment to start a semiconductor industry.
- Emily Bender on tech wsu – ‘critics say’ as a positioning tool
- Matt Webb and Campbell Orme’s prizewinning LARES. Matt’s done a writeup here.
- There is no AI from Jaron Lanier on his usual optimistic drive. Unfortunately, he assumes that given a fairer system, everyone will play fair. For example, one suggestion is that people referenced in training data (eg. illustrators of cats) be paid for their effort when a new thing (cat image) is produced. This fails to take into account all the companies that would just spam training data (with cats) to overweight their contribution and profit. Over and over again, problems with AI are problems with capitalism not AI.
- Side FX from K Allado-McDowell, really thoughtful reflection on the beginnings of critical practice with AI.
- Britain really isn’t doing so well in the eyes of the world.
Ok I love you, and it is easier if I keep up with these things each week so I will immediately start preparing next week’s letter for you ok.