Weeknotes 315 - more-than-human agents for commons good
Has the exodus really started? Leaving X for BlueSky, the dark future for a bright sky? My followers count is rising through an appearance at a starterpack, an interesting smart move from BlueSky to accelerate the building of a social network. Despite all developments (trends) towards smaller networks within chatgroups instead of public social platforms, there is still room for a newsy social media, which Threads is not offering with too much filtering of the threads. It is carving out different types: more news and opinion-driven with Mastodon and BlueSky, more social sharing as the new Facebook with Threads, and the right-wing activist that will be the leftovers at X. And pure entertainment with TikTok and Instagram and other video-based platforms. It is not so black and white, I know. It is interesting to see if these kinds of functional boundaries are more important than the usual age groups.
Just before finishing this newsletter, I returned from a very successful PhD defense of Iohanna Nicenboim (cum laude, the first I heard from at Industrial Design Engineering). Well deserved! Iohanna has a unique combination of being a stellar designer, design philosopher, academic, and ‘maker’ in focusing on research through design. I am very happy to have her back at ThingsCon this year! Check out her thesis here: Designing-with AI: More-than-human Design in/through Practice.
Triggered thought
As a result of the U.S. elections, blockchain and especially cryptocurrency have returned to the spotlight. This resurgence feels like a turning point—but not necessarily the one advocates for decentralized systems might have hoped for. This renewed interest is fueled by political shifts, where deregulation rhetoric promises to breathe new life into crypto markets. But: Who is this resurgence really for?
One 'fork' of the blockchain—the cryptocurrency side—is gaining a lot of attention and momentum. Not necessarily in a good way. Much of this energy is focused on the speculative, monetary aspects of blockchain: the power of coins as speculative assets, the Ponzi-like schemes that continue to emerge, and the use of blockchain systems to move wealth quickly and evade regulation.
Kara Swisher, in her recent Pivot podcast, aptly referred to this phenomenon as "Craptocracy"—a variation of kleptocracy. In this craptocratic model, we see a government increasingly influenced by businessmen who use power not to serve the public but to play out maximum influence with minimal guardrails. Blockchain, in this context, risks becoming a tool for these craptocratic goals: a means to consolidate wealth and evade oversight, rather than a technology for decentralization and empowerment.
Blockchain has always been a paradox. On one hand, it promises decentralization, transparency, and empowerment. On the other, it has become a haven for speculative markets and a tool for accumulating wealth in the hands of a few. This duality is at the heart of the current debate surrounding blockchain's future.
The potential of blockchain for commons-based governance is immense. It offers a technological framework for communities to co-create and self-manage resources like in energy microgrids or open source projects on digital commons. It can even become more systemic in supporting commons-based economics structuring, for instance, the energy market, which is now built on traditional marketplaces to balance the grid. That asks for trust in new systems. Which seems at odds with the current trajectory. The resurgence fueled by post-election market optimism seems less about enabling grassroots governance or commons-based systems and more about creating opportunities for elite actors to secure financial and political advantages. When the loudest voices in blockchain belong to venture capitalists and politically connected figures, it's harder for smaller, purpose-driven projects to gain traction. Worse, this could alienate communities who might otherwise see blockchain as a tool for empowerment. Let’s hope the craptocracy is not spreading and commons can be embraced as a more inspiring driver. There might be a path to empowering collaborating more-than-human agents carefully crafted to embrace diversity and inclusion.
For the subscribers or first-time readers (welcome!), thanks for joining! A short general intro: I am Iskander Smit, educated as an industrial design engineer, and have worked in digital technology all my life, with a particular interest in digital-physical interactions and a focus on human-tech intelligence co-performance. I like to (critically) explore the near future in the context of cities of things. And organising ThingsCon. I call Target_is_New my practice for making sense of unpredictable futures in human-AI partnerships. That is the lens I use to capture interesting news and share a paper every week.
Notions from the news
Find here the selection of 1000+ RSS and several newsletter entries of this week. Funny enough it delivers every week around the 30 articles to explore more.
Since last week, I have tried to pick a couple that stand out or are on my list to explore further.
Will AI become artificial consciousness in the end or are we the consciousness one in close relations with have with our personal AIs?
I liked the New Aesthetics as a representation of digital visual styles in real stuff we use; is there now a More-Than-Human Aesthetic?
What role plays creativity in times of agents, and are we redefining our relations with materials?
Sari Azout
Environment
Bigger questions, but in the meantime there seems scaling laws for AI too.
Casey Newton
Human-AI partnerships
The concept of co-performance with AI has been mentioned here a lot, of course. It is one of the core concepts I am inspired by when exploring the news and thinking about our relation to AI. It seems the concept is now getting some traction.
From AI to AC: artificial consciousness.
On tooling; perplexity is planning for ads… the beginning of the end or the only savior? And Stripe is offering tooling for adding LLM to your own agentic workflows.
Look AI in the mind. As long as it delivers.
The announcements on agentic AI are continuing.
More-than-human aesthetics. James Bridle was interviewed on this.
In case you fear AI is only bringing bad things, that is not true of course.
In the meantime the first responses to the new Apple Intelligence function are popping up.
Artificial intelligence has the potential to shift our focus from productivity to creativity.
Speculative materials, it might be a form of generative things?
Robotic performances
One new service does not make it a category. Zoox is now testing robotaxis in SF.
You would expect that SF is more likely to become the Silicon Valley for robotics (outside Japan and China). Or will New York make a dent too?
The robot block dance. And doughnuts and other car tricks with autonomous cars.
Immersive connectedness
I am not sure I should pay attention here. Security cams, with or without AI, are an underwhelming category to me. But well, it is part of our immersive, chilling world that we can deliberately get into our houses. Do we trust Apple more than those other players?
Social tooling can be a kind of immersive. We got a new popular kid on the block (not new, but now picked up): BlueSky https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/15/24297442/bluesky-no-intention-train-generative-ai-posts It fits also more the anti-AI tech mode.
Tech societies
Every new technology has its own challenges in security. Jailbreaking LLM-Driven robots.
If you like you can read 5 hours of interview.
The backlash of everything synthesized will hang to real analog; earlier, the trend for using old digital cameras that are not connected was noticed. Could be an app to; “anti-AI” as category.
Energy systems, as geopolitics, is a common principle. China is apparently intensifying this, with a green energy focus.
The consequences of that one election on 5 November will remain topic for reflection. Here on the role of tech companies and media treatment.
AI impact on labor market in the latest stats.
Make AI more diverse.
Other things
In this incidental category I capture interesting of just nice new things. Like this urban EV motorcycle that is retro futuristic I think, referencing a science fiction feel.
Paper for the week
Human-AI collaboration: Designing artificial agents to facilitate socially shared regulation among learners.
Socially shared regulation of learning (SSRL) is a crucial process for groups of learners to successfully collaborate. Detecting and supporting SSRL is a challenge, especially in real time, but hybrid intelligence approaches such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents may make this possible. Leveraging the concept of trigger events which invite SSRL, we present a design of an AI agent, MAI, which can detect SSRL and prompt students to raise their group-level metacognitive awareness with the aim of facilitating SSRL.
Edwards, J., Nguyen, A., Lämsä, J., Sobocinski, M., Whitehead, R., Dang, B., Roberts, A.-S., & Järvelä, S. (2024). Human-AI collaboration: Designing artificial agents to facilitate socially shared regulation among learners. British Journal of Educational Technology, 00, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13534
Looking forward
TH/NGS 2024 is nearing, the program page is getting more and more complete, the exhibition space is filling, after all these 10 years I am still always surprised when and how much work is popping up… But it is rewarding! The first iterations of designs in the contest for provotypes of Generative Things are very promising too. Be sure to check the program and join!
We also have a separate Salon powered by CLICKNL, where we dive a bit more into the practice of designing in the context of generative things. More info here.
This Wednesday I will join an interesting Sensemakers evening on AI for hardware security. And Just City Amsterdam host an event on Thursday. And if I had the time I would have checked the Cultural Currency Conference in Rotterdam…
Enjoy your week!
