#technology automation

[blueskywalk]

U-Shape Home Bar Manchester

a sizable urban home bar image with louvered cabinets.

[thererisesaredstar]

Automation and comprehensive mechanization are the material basis for the gradual transition from socialist to communist labor. Fight for automation and comprehensive mechanization of production! (1961)

[cubbihue]

So.... why'd Peri get assigned Dev as his first godchild?

Jorgen’s usually not the one in charge of assigning godchildren. There’s an entire department that weighs and classifies potentail Godkids to the right Fairy. Although it’s on strike at the moment.

So Jorgen has to do it by hand, until the union negotiations are resolved. Turns out trying to use paperclips is very hard. Itty bitty paperclips. Big muscular biceps. Not a good combo.

Bitties Series: [Start] > [Previous] > [Next]

Peri's Assignment: [Previous] > [Next]

[savagechickens]

Häagen-Bot.

And more robots.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Wellness surveillance makes workers unwell

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TORONTO on Mar 22, then with LAURA POITRAS in NYC on Mar 24, then Anaheim, and more!

"National conversation" sounds like one of those meaningless buzzphrases – until you live through one. The first one I really participated in actively was the national conversation – the global conversation – about privacy following the Snowden revelations.

This all went down when my daughter was five, and as my wife and I talked about the news, our kid naturally grew curious about it. I had to literally "explain like I'm five" global mass surveillance:

https://locusmag.com/2014/05/cory-doctorow-how-to-talk-to-your-children-about-mass-surveillance/

But parenting is a two-way street, so even as I was explaining surveillance to my kid, my own experiences raising a child changed how I thought about surveillance. Obviously I knew about many of the harms that surveillance brings, but parenting helped me viscerally appreciate one of the least-discussed, most important aspects of being watched: how it compromises being your authentic self:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2014/may/09/cybersecurity-begins-with-integrity-not-surveillance

As I wrote then:

There are times when she is working right at the limits of her abilities – drawing or dancing or writing or singing or building – and she catches me watching her and gets this look of mingled embarrassment and exasperation, and then she changes back to some task where she has more mastery. No one – not even a small child – likes to look foolish in front of other people.

Learning, growth, and fulfillment all require a zone of privacy, a time and place where we are not observed. Far from making us accountable, continuous, fine-grained surveillance by authority figures just scares us into living a cramped, inauthentic version of ourselves, where growth is all but impossible. Others have observed the role this plays in right-wing culture war bullshit: "an armed society is a polite society" is code for "people who make me feel uncomfortable just by existing should be terrorized into hiding their authentic selves from me." The point of Don't Say Gay laws and anti-trans bills isn't to eliminate gender nonconformity – it's to drive it into hiding.

Given all this, it's no surprise that workers who face workplace surveillance in the name of "wellness" feel unwell as a result:

https://www.ifow.org/publications/what-impact-does-exposure-to-workplace-technologies-have-on-workers-quality-of-life-briefing-paper

As the Future of Work Institute found in its study, some technologies – systems that make it easier to collaborate and communicate with colleagues – increase workers' sense of wellbeing. But wearables and AI tools make workers feel significantly worse:

https://assets-global.website-files.com/64d5f73a7fc5e8a240310c4d/65eef23e188fb988d1f19e58_Tech%20Exposure%20and%20Worker%20Wellbeing%20-%20Full%20WP%20-%20Final.pdf

Workers who reported these negative feelings confirmed that these tools make them feel "monitored." I mean, of course they do. Even where these tools are nominally designed to help you do your job better, they're also explicitly designed to help your boss keep track of you from moment to moment. As Brandon Vigliarolo writes for The Register, these are the same bosses who have been boasting to their investors about their plans to fire their workers and replace them with AI:

https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/advanced_workplace_tech_study/

"Bossware" is a key example of the shitty rainbow of "disciplinary technology," tools that exist to take away human agency by making it easier to surveil and control its users:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/01/bossware/#bossware

Bossware is one of the stages of the Shitty Technology Adoption Curve: the process by which abusive and immiserating technologies progress up the privilege gradient as their proponents refine and normalize dystopian technologies in order to impose them on wider and wider audiences:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb-rumsfeld-monsters/#bossware

The kinds of metrics that bossware gathers might be useful to workers, but only if the workers get to decide when, whether and how to share that data with other people. Microsoft Office helps you catch typos by underlining words its dictionary doesn't recognize; the cloud-based, "AI-powered" Office365 tells your boss that you're the 11th-worst speller in your division and uses "sentiment analysis" to predict whether you are likely to cause trouble:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/21/great-taylors-ghost/#solidarity-or-bust

Two hundred years ago, Luddites rose up against machines. Contrary to the ahistorical libel you've heard, the Luddites weren't angry or frightened of machines – they were angry at the machines' owners. They understood – correctly – that the purpose of a machine "so easy a child could use it" was to fire skilled adult workers and replace them with kidnapped, indentured Napoleonic War orphans who could be maimed and killed on the job without consequence:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/12/gig-work-is-the-opposite-of-steampunk/

A hundred years ago, the "Taylorites" picked up where those mill owners left off: choreographing workers' movements to the finest degree in a pseudoscientific effort to produce a kind of kabuki of boss-pleasing robotic efficiency. The new, AI-based Taylorism goes even further, allowing bosses to automatically blacklist gig workers who refuse to cross picket-lines, monitor "self-employed" call center operators in their own homes, and monitor the eyeballs of Amazon drivers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

AI-based monitoring technologies dock workers' wages, suspend them, and even fire them, and when workers object, they're stuck arguing with a chatbot that is the apotheosis of Computer Says No:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/11/robots-stole-my-jerb/#computer-says-no

There's plenty of research about AI successfully "augmenting" workers, making them more productive and I'm the last person to say that automation can't help you get more done:

https://www.ibm.com/thought-leadership/institute-business-value/en-us/report/augmented-workforce

But without understanding how AI augments class warfare – disciplining workers with a scale, speed and granularity beyond the sadistic fantasies of even the most micromanaging asshole boss – this research is meaningless.

The irony of bosses imposing monitoring to improve "wellness" and stave off "burnout" is that nothing is more exhausting, more immiserating, more infuriating than being continuously watched and judged.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/15/wellness-taylorism/#sick-of-spying

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[thepastisalreadywritten]

"The Writing Boy"

In 1774 AD, during the reign of Louis XVI (1754-1793), Swiss watchmaker Pierre Jacques Dro (1721-1790) unveiled a remarkable engineering feat that would go down in history as the world's first android or programmed automaton.

Known as "The Writing Boy," this creation appeared at first glance to be a simple wooden doll with a porcelain head, barefoot, and holding a goose feather.

But hidden within this seemingly ordinary toy was a technological marvel, a writing mechanism powered by 6,000 intricate moving parts, making it the first automatic calligrapher.

"The Writing Boy" was a groundbreaking achievement, as it was capable of writing complex sentences, such as "My inventor is Jacques Dro."

The automaton was a product of 20 months of meticulous work by Pierre Jacques Dro, and its debut in Paris stunned the court of King Louis XVI.

The android's ability to perform such an intricate task showcased the high level of craftsmanship and innovation of the time.

This astonishing creation marked a significant milestone in the history of robotics and engineering.

Not only was it the world’s first programmed android, but it also demonstrated the potential of machines to replicate human actions.

"The Writing Boy" paved the way for future advancements in automation, solidifying Pierre Jacques Dro’s legacy as a pioneer in the field of robotics.

[noosphe-re]

[adafruit]

OPT4048 - a "tri-stimulus" light sensor 🔴🟢🔵

We were chatting in the forums with someone when the OPT4048 (https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/texas-instruments/OPT4048DTSR/21298553) came up. It's an interesting light sensor that does color sensing but with diodes matched to the CIE XYZ color space. This would make them particularly good for color-light tuning. We made a cute breakout for this board. Fun fact: it's 3.3V power but 5V logic friendly.

[bioethicists]

it's quite offputting to me when ppl can't disentangle their hatred for capitalism from a hatred for... new technological innovation? the ways in which capitalism has shaped the development of certain technologies has been deeply negative, not to mention that imperialism ensures that new technology is usually produced via extractive relationships with both the planet + ppl in the global south.

but this weird tying of capitalist impact on innovation (+the idea of what is/is not innovation) to hatred of innovation itself (or even more disturbing valorization of "the good old days"/implications that technology is causing social degeneracy) is baffling to me. perhaps it is impossible to achieve specific technologies without unconscionable resource extraction practices, in which case they should not be pursued. but so many ppl act like there is something inherently morally suspect in pursuit of tech such as autonomous vehicles or AI or automation, independent of the material conditions that produced them/that they may produce.

tesla is evil because they exploit ppl for profit + participate in an economy built on the exploitation of the global south + use 'innovation' as a marketing tool to mask serious safety concerns. they're not evil bcuz they want to make vehicles that move on their own. there are actually a great deal of fantastic applications for vehicles which move on their own? equating technology with moral decay is not a radical position; you need a material analysis of why technological innovation has become characterized by harmful practices.

[disease]

LIST: iOS SHORTCUTS

• Spotify to MP3 | "Download Spotify tracks to MP3." • All Media Downloader | "This shortcut helps you download content from social media apps." • Web Services | "Customise the internet for you." • Better GIF Maker | "Convert videos and live photos to GIFs at highest quality using ffmpeg" • Water Eject | "Powerful water ejection system." • Paywall and Cookie Bypass | "Bypass website paywalls and cookies." • iUtilities | "The only shortcut you’ll need" • Reverse Image Search | "Search by image instead of keywords" • Google Translate | "Quickly translate using the Google Translate API" • iTweak Final Version | "A Jailbreak Alternative With Multiple Features!"

...WHAT ARE SHORTCUTS?

for those unaware: the pre-installed Shortcuts app on iOS/macOS/iPadOS can potentially be a life-changing application in regards to digital productivity.

it's utilized as a hub for your collection of shortcuts and automations. shortcuts allow for just a single click—which many times is conveniently incorporated onto your "share" sheet option panel—to execute one or multiple actions; automations are chosen commands that run at specific/relative times of day without prompt.

people tend to overlook the Shortcuts app due to its available "gallery" of shortcuts being rather limited... with the only other option provided being to build these desired actions yourself, which requires the skill of digital coding. however! that's where RoutineHub comes in: it's a website allowing users to share their own complex shortcuts, free of charge, and has a large selection to choose from.

RoutineHub: Shortcuts {by Popularity}

[alwaysbewoke]

[rthidden]

What is an Algorithm in 30 Seconds?

An algorithm is simply a series of instructions.

Think of a recipe: boil water, add pasta, wait, drain, eat. These are steps to follow.

In computer terms, an algorithm is a set of instructions for a computer to execute.

In machine learning, these instructions enable computers to learn from data, making machine learning algorithms unique and powerful.

[zergys]

Обычные люди- скачивают приложение и не парятся. А я не хочу быть в потребности от враждебных серверов и перепрошиваю свежекупленный выключатель даже не включив его на заводской прошивке... Благо там типовой микроконтроллер оказался. Через пару недель приедет комп под сервер и мой умный дом оживёт! Хотя конечно весело что каждая умная розетка/выключатель просто держит на себе сайт с кнопкой вкл/выкл и мне даже не нужно никакое приложение для дистанционного управления, только браузер. Но хочется именно автоматизации и голосового управления. Будет весело прикручивать голос хд надеюсь все получится.

[wronghands1]

[wahroh]

Vindicitiveness.