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Doug discusses the new Apple Watch feature, Live Rewind, which allows users to recall the last 15 seconds of a conversation as a text snippet, and explores the potential implications for privacy and the recording of conversations. He notes that while Apple has implemented various measures to protect user privacy, the feature still raises concerns about the legibility and permanence of spoken words. Doug argues that the issue is part of a broader debate about the role of technology in society and the need for a public discussion about the impact of such features on our lives.
Doug discusses Jay Springett's zine, INTERNET OPERATOR, which explores the concept of identity and how it is co-created with an audience. Jay argues that identity can be understood through the equation Figure + Operator + Audience + Apparatus = The animation of an identity, and that this applies to both human and non-human entities, such as AI personas. Doug reflects on the implications of this idea, including the relationship between our online and offline selves, and the tension between authenticity and the curated personas we present online.
We ought to observe also that even the things which follow after the things which are produced according to nature contain something pleasing and attractive.
For instance, when bread is baked some parts are split at the surface, and these parts which thus open, and have a certain fashion contrary to the purpose of the baker's are, are beautiful in a manner, and in a peculiar way excite a desire for eating.
Doug discusses the frustration of being mis-cited in academic articles, where authors often rely on summaries rather than his actual work, leading to misinterpretations. He criticises the use of his ideas in a paper that presents a bar chart as an objective measure of digital literacies, which he finds offensive. Doug argues that this highlights the limitations of academic journals as a gold standard.
Doug discusses the unlikely event of AI-engineered superviruses causing widespread harm, citing expert Claus Wilke's views on the matter. According to Wilke, fundamental laws of physics and biology limit the potential of AI-designed viruses, making it unlikely they could be both highly lethal and contagious. Doug notes that the real concerns should be focused on preventing outbreaks of existing diseases, such as COVID and measles, through good public health practices and basic research.
It's now 16 years since I've been in the classroom, but you never really get out of the mindset of being a teacher. As one mug I saw put it "Teachers don't get old, they just lose their class" 😅
I loved teaching History, and particularly 1066 and the Battle of Hastings. This new online resource from the British would have been so great to use with very enthusiastic Year 7's (11-12 years old).
Doug has decided to attend the #SysPrac26 conference at the end of the month, rearranging his commitments to do so. He is particularly interested in attending various talks on systems thinking, including those by Tony Korycki and Benjamin Taylor. The conference aligns with Doug's goal of focusing on systems thinking with practical impact in the second half of his career.
On the afternoon of Wednesday 25th November (UK time) I'm going to run a free session based around Sightlines. I'm going to keep it to 10 places to keep it participatory and conversational. It's a bit of an experiment.
Doug is considering a new zine, tentatively titled Field Notes on Ambient Surveillance, which explores how surveillance has become normalised in everyday life. The zine would examine the ways in which seemingly benign technologies, such as read receipts and location histories, contribute to a culture of ambient surveillance. Doug believes this topic offers fertile ground for a zine, as it highlights the ordinary, yet pervasive, nature of observation in modern society.
I think the root of the problem is the globalization of all problems.
Now, it feels like anything bad that happens anywhere in the world is somehow relevant to me and my responsibility. It’s like, I’m not allowed to be happy as long as someone, somewhere, is having a bad time.
Today, my wife Hannah and I celebrate our 23rd wedding anniversary – meaning we've been married for more than half our lives ❤️
Although she hasn't retained the accent, Hannah is originally from Liverpool, so it feels appropriate to quote the ending theme song from Surprise Surprise featuring famous Scouser, the one and only Cilla Black:
Doug will be attending three events in the next couple of weeks, including TechFreedom: Is the biggest risk to your organisation even on your risk register? and AI, Communities & Coops. These events will take place on 9th, 15th, and 17th September, with locations including online and London. Doug is also planning to run a TechFreedom cohort with Tom in October and November.
This is why Aristotle thought that you can't judge whether a man was "happy" until after he's dead. And sometimes until long after he's died, because it would depend on the actions of, say, his offspring (which would reflect the way he helped raise them).
This morning, the slowly-moving car crash that is my method of thinking things through served up an idea related to a previous note about consequences and boundaries.
Essentially, when we're talking about boundaries we're talking about legibility which is an important component of literacy. Literate practices involve encoding and decoding texts, and sit within an existing power dynamic. There are many forms of literate practices, which as I will keep repeating until I'm blue in the face, are dependent upon literate communities.
Doug discusses the concept of living an NPC life, where one gives up their autonomy to become a side character in someone else's story. This idea is explored in an article by signalundefied, which Doug references. The article challenges the notion that being an NPC is necessarily a negative experience, offering an alternative perspective.
In her Mastodon post, where I came across this, Bonni Stachowiak calls herself a "dork" but I absolutely love that she went to the trouble of recording an unboxing video of my zine.
Doug has discovered a connection between his previous thoughts on consequentialism and Critical System Heuristics (CSH), a framework that involves asking 12 boundary judgement questions to inform a system of interest. These questions can be applied twice, firstly to assess the current system and secondly to envision an ideal system, allowing for comparison and iteration towards a more ethical and representative system. Doug's previous work on CSH includes a set of tables that have become distorted during archiving, but the core principles remain applicable.
Doug suggests that people tend to be consequentialists when considering others, but intentionalists when it affects themselves, highlighting a disparity in moral judgement. He proposes a 2x2 grid to help consider AI ethics more holistically, examining duty and responsibility, legitimacy and governance, direct harm and benefit, and systemic consequences. By using this grid, Doug argues that individuals can make more informed decisions about AI by considering multiple moral questions and perspectives.
I remember being told: 'When there is agitation, look where there is no agitation.' So if you have agitation inside, then go and look at a tree. It’s not agitated. It’s doing what it needs to do. Go and watch the ants work when they’re gathering crumbs. Just look at something that’s working and let it ground you.
Doug is planning his next zine, CW-PUB-002: Interfaces of Refusal, which will explore the design language of refusal in technology, including errors such as 404 and Access Denied. He aims to highlight how machines can hinder our goals and how we often passively accept these refusals. The zine will be the second in a three-part series, following on from CW-PUB-001: Field Notes on Productive Friction.
