[AI Skeptics] The Nerd Reich (Chapters 7 & 8)
Hi everyone, we're finishing The Nerd Reich, by Gil Durán this week.
- Chapter 7: "Antichrist: Silicon Valley's New Religion"
- Chapter 8: "The Future: Billionaires or Democracy"
Next week we'll be starting The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence by Matteo Pasquinelli. If you haven't gotten the book yet, please get on that ASAP.
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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).
next books
Our next book will be The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence by Matteo Pasquinelli.
We're going to jump straight into The Eye of the Master, so please put in a request at your local library for it right away, or find it at a local bookstore if you want to own it.
reading plans
For what it's worth, my reading plan for The Eye of the Master looks like this. I realize it looks like a fast pace.
| Week | Reading |
|---|---|
| 9/28 | Introduction & Chapter 1 |
| 10/5 | PART I: Chapters 2 - 5 |
| 10/12 | PART II: Chapters 6 - 9 & Conclusion |
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.