[AI Skeptics] The Nerd Reich (Chapters 5 & 6)
Hi everyone, we're continuing The Nerd Reich, by Gil Durán with chapters 5 and 6:
- Chapter 5: The Unicorn: JD Vance and the Road to the White House
- Chapter 6: Apokálypsis: Tech Fascism Unveiled
We're finishing The Nerd Reich next week; if you want to get ready for the next book, we'll be starting The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence by Matteo Pasquinelli September 28. More info on next book (and future books) down below.
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Ok, let's get back to the rest of the thing.
routine stuff
As a reminder, there are a few good ways to keep up with the reading group:
- newsletter: I send updates on Mondays and Fridays. In the Monday updates, I'll point to what to read; in the Friday 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: Fridays at 3p ET we'll have a video chat on jitsi where we talk about the week's readings.
- group chat: if you want to chat with friends, we have a few pretty active group chats: We're using Fluxer, which is similar to Discord or Slack. We also have a signal group chat (but keep in mind that Signal group chats can get overwhelming, especially at large scales like this).
reading plans
My reading plan for The Nerd Reich looks like this (it's looking a lot more certain now that we're in the final stretch):
| Week | Reading |
|---|---|
| August 31 | Introduction & Chapter 1 |
| September 7 | Chapters 2, 3, & 4 |
| September 14 | Chapters 5 & 6 |
| September 21 | Chapters 7 & 8 |
next books
Our next book will be The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence by Matteo Pasquinelli.
We'll probably start Eye of the Master on September 28.
After Eye of the Master, we'll read Hyperscale: The Ambition and Excess of Big Tech's Data Empires by Paris Marx.
Hyperscale comes out October 20, so I'm aiming for us to start around then. It'll be fairly time-sensitive to preorder, or put in a request at your library to acquire some copies, or we might get a little ahead of you while you're waiting for your copy to arrive.
last thoughts
If you come across something you think we'd like to read, I'd love to hear about it; contact me.
Okay, that's it for now; see you Friday.