Read on Twitter
a few random thoughts that have been stuck in my head
after listening to the @RadicalAIPod with @gleemie, i found myself thinking about how important stories are to framing how we understand the world and problems we face.
(link here https://www.radicalai.org/e9-lilly-irani )
after listening to the @RadicalAIPod with @gleemie, i found myself thinking about how important stories are to framing how we understand the world and problems we face.
(link here https://www.radicalai.org/e9-lilly-irani )
i think something i kept thinking about was that the systems we design are like encapsulated stories. an AI that reads license plates from video feed where the cars are passing at 60mph tells a story about the problems and the political structures that created that system
the same thing can be said of scholarship. my paper on street-level algorithms implicitly says "here's this problem that's worth thinking about" & goes further with "the way we talk about it doesn't call for a demonstrative system, but deep cuts from this book from 70 years ago"
i'd bet this isn't a novel concept in fields that practice reflexivity more consistently, but in HCI it doesn't seem to come up super often. the exceptions i can think of (eg "Who Gets to Future" by @jtranoleary) end up being more about reflexivity itself (thx, 10pg limits lol)
(you should check out the paper it's really good https://jasperoleary.com/future.html )
anyway i really loved the point Dr Irani made about the substance in stories and the intentions and worldviews they advance, and how encapsulated things like systems do the same.
(beware of terrible segue)
Dr Irani also mentioned Sara Ahmed and i happened to be reading "Living a Feminist Life", specifically a bit about how "citation is feminist memory" and "citation can be feminist bricks".
Dr Irani also mentioned Sara Ahmed and i happened to be reading "Living a Feminist Life", specifically a bit about how "citation is feminist memory" and "citation can be feminist bricks".
this struck a chord w/me. it used to be that references sections of CHI papers counted as part of the (10pg) limit. imagine how stifling that must have been, how often people must have left out important work literally only because the references would overflow to another page.
now it's better; references don't count (to my joy; our piecework paper started at the top of page 11 & ended on page 18 lol)
CSCW entirely dropped page limits in part (i think) recognizing that needed reflection often pushes work past 10 pages, & the field was suffering for it.
CSCW entirely dropped page limits in part (i think) recognizing that needed reflection often pushes work past 10 pages, & the field was suffering for it.
anyway, Dr Ahmed's book; a friend mentioned it talking about recognizing that one introduces the problem by bringing it up to talk about it, the "feminist killjoy" problem. or rather the "feminist killjoy problem" problem; the thought that we progress out of that phase linearly
lately i've been thinking a lot about pessimism itself - what it does to the person holding it and what it does to the people who feel it emanating off of that person. being critical tends not to be upbeat and fun, and occupies a space that maybe looks adjacent to pessimism
i think it's a perspective thing, though, in the same sort of way that photographers capture two people hundreds of feet apart with a telephoto lens and we all dunk on them for not social distancing.
being critical doesn't come from a place of pessimism, it comes out of optimism
being critical doesn't come from a place of pessimism, it comes out of optimism
i don't think my critiques would be this strong if i thought everything was hopeless. optimism about our potential is why it bothers me so much that instead tech advocates come up with shit that amplifies harm & why it feels like a betrayal when they back away from responsibility
so there are 3 things of varying lengths and formats to consume - a podcast, a paper, and a book lol
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lol this thread got lost in the woods but hopefully it wasn't too meandering
