Field Note #111. On "AI + Power"

Source: Kate Crawford, Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence (2021)

The Context.

In Field Notes 105 (On "Tech: In Medias Res") and 107 (On "Non-Neutrality of Phone + Social"), I re-presented the theme of technology as embedded in a socio-political context in contrast to popular treatment of tech as neutral / agnostic to context at the design / creation level.

AI/ML is no exception to the theme.

Despite my penchant for theory, I have no intention of being stuck in an ivory tower (I tried once and rebelled; I do best with occasional visits).

The pragmatic question I'm pondering is how to deploy and tune an existing investing / risk / interdisciplinary skill stack in harmony with the concluding statement of Kate Crawford's Atlas of AI, the subject of this Field Note:

"There are sustainable collective politics beyond value extraction; there are commons worth keeping, worlds beyond [just] the market, and ways to live beyond discrimination and brutal modes of optimization.  Our task is to chart a course there." (p. 227; insertion is mine)

As I noted in Field Note 105, "The first move I can responsibly have here is this discursive one."

Now, what is the second move?  What's the pragmatic next incremental step?

🦇🚨Please consider this a humble bat signal for those similarly at "move two" (and beyond).

The Details.