[AI Skeptics] Disabling Intelligences (chap 1 + other readings)
Hello, and welcome. We're starting Disabling Intelligences by Rua Williams in earnest this week.
If you haven't bought the book, there's still some time, but you should order the book ASAP (and if you can get an ebook, that might be best).
We're reading the following:
- chapter 1: "AI's Eugenic Legacies, Our Disabled Future"
- "Let Us Explain: Body Fascism" by Da'Shaun L. Harrison (for Scalawag Magazine)
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Okay, let's get back to the email
routine stuff
If you've read these emails before, this is mostly the same stuff as last week (except for the discount code at the end). You can probably skip it if you're caught up.
format
As a reminder, there are numerous ways to keep up with the reading group:
- newsletter: I send updates on Mondays and Thursdays. In the Monday updates, I'll point to what to read; in the Thursday updates, I'll send some reflections and an icebreaker question to think about, and a reminder of where & how to join the video chat.
- video chats: Thursdays at 8pm ET we have a video chat on jitsi1 where we talk about that week's readings. Sometimes we'll have a guest to talk about something related to what we read that week (like this week!).
- group chat: if you want to chat with people on signal, we have a pretty active group chat. You can join the signal group chat here.
schedule
Here's my tentative schedule for the book. I'm not including any additional readings in this table, but sometimes I'll tack on additional readings, especially if there's something timely, or a particularly good fit for that week's themes.
| Week of... | Reading... |
|---|---|
| April 27 | Preface |
| May 4 | ch1: "AI's Eugenic Legacies, Our Disabled Future" |
| May 11 | ch2: "A Taxonomy of AI" |
| May 18 | ch3: "The Broken Promises of AI in Everyday Life" |
| May 25 | ch4: "Social Stratification Engines and the Ideology of Replacement" |
| June 11 | ch5: "A Just AI Toolkit" |
next book(s)
If you have suggestions for future books to read after Disabling Intelligences, please reach out, I'd love to hear them.
I'll pick a book in the next week or two, to give everyone time to acquire our next book.
last thoughts
Okay, that's it; see you Thursday to discuss the preface and to talk about what we're anticipating or hoping for from this book :)
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I use Jitsi for video chats. Jitsi is a free web-based video chat service kind of like Zoom, but it's free, absent of generative AI stuff, and not connected to people's work accounts. ↩
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If you've made (written, recorded, etc...) something you'd like to share - a zine, an blog post, an academic paper, a video, or whatever else - email me or message me on signal. ↩