So, there’s LOT happening right now, but A Working Library is 17 years old today and I’m going to be insufferable and say a few things about what it’s like to have a blog that’s nearly old enough to vote. Mute accordingly.
That’s been so much of this work, and part of what I think is so lovely about blogging as a mode of writing: it’s a way of sowing, tending, reaping ideas and language over time.
And language here is key: I’m not just writing to communicate information. Language is an art, and I’m grateful to have been able to practice it with such thoughtful and attentive readers over these many years.
One of the many distressing things about all the AI nonsense is that it commodifies language, it demeans the beautiful gift of the written word, language made solid, sharp, dangerous.
You should read every “here’s how AI will change your job” in the context of who has the power to change the conditions of work, and how that power is exercised. And remember that major changes to working conditions come about in one of two ways: as negotiation, and as coercion.
The thing that keeps coming up as I talk to people about AI in their workplaces is how *dehumanizing* it is. It’s dehumanizing to ask a machine to do something, and then have to correct it over and over; it’s dehumanizing to be told to read something that involved little to no human effort to make.
If you were (wisely) offline over the weekend, I wrote about the ideology of AI and why we need to shift our stance in relation to it: https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/toolmen
I’ve spent the last year reading, thinking, and talking with workers about AI and I’ve concluded that AI is not a technology—it’s an *ideology*, and it must be engaged with as such. https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/toolmen
“I want to be in dialogue with my website, my work & the people who find it. Not have it be just a space where I publish posts and art, but a *living work itself*. I want to engage with and collaborate with it. I want to inform it and for it to inform me.” https://fromemily.com/website-manifesto/
Some patterns I’ve observed in the moves and countermoves that workers are making in response to the direct, violent, and unconstitutional attacks on human rights, life-sustaining infrastructure, and work itself: https://everythingchanges.us/blog/keep-moving/
Among other things, targeting 18F sends a clear message that tech workers are being coerced into serving the needs of capital. Even for those who never took it, civic tech work held the promise of escape, the dream of using tech for good. And dreams are dangerous.
All of the nonsense about so-called artificial “intelligence” has the notion of intelligence backwards: becoming intelligent does not make you alive. To be alive is to be intelligent. https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/our-words
“What we’re called to ask is why the murder of one man must be described as unspeakable violence, but the systemic denial of life to 100,000 people is an acceptable business practice.” https://www.jphilll.com/p/whats-a-life-worth
Thinking about reading, work, and technology. Co-founded A Book Apart; former VP Product & CEO. Now helping people make space for more humane, sustainable work.