Hello! We've been reading Why We Fear AI by Hagen Blix & Ingeborg Glimmer. Last week we read chapter 3 and "The Ends of AI" by Mél Hogan. This week we're turning back to local writers:

• Why We Fear AI chapter 4: "On Summoning Demon Gods: AI in the Economy"
• "botzine - zines about generative AI" by Angie Berkley

I wanted to share the additional reading this week for a couple of reasons:

1. These zines are made by Angie Berkley at the University of Michigan Sweetland Center for Writing. The AI Skeptics Reading Group supports a broader local organizing effort to stop the data center that the University of Michigan & Los Alamos National Laboratories have been pushing). There's been a lot of pushback against the UM-LANL data center, and against generative AI in general, at UM - so I'm super keen to read the work of people on the inside.
2. The zines are going to be part of a symposium on AI at Wayne State University in Detroit on April 10 (this Friday), and this is kind of an opportunity to get a sneak peek and chat with the author about it.
3. Angie's agreed to join us this week to talk about the zines, and probably broadly about generative AI and writing. I hope you'll join us, because I've been really excited about these zines for a while and I'm really looking forward to hearing what you all think of them too. I'll share some brief thoughts on Thursday before we get together, but for now I'll just say... read through all the zines, or just whichever ones call out to you.

stickers?

Would people be interested in stickers? I was thinking something like these:

You should consider subscribing! It's free, and it ensures you always hear about upcoming events and interesting news

If you want to help support the reading group as a premium subscriber, you can also opt to pitch in a few dollars a month. If we get to $50/month, then I'll get a run of one or two of the sticker designs (or a submitted design, if people are enthusiastic about a submitted design) and reach out to premium subscribers to mail them a handful of stickers. Sort of a "thank you" for helping to get them made.

At the moment, we're about 2/3 of the way to the goal, so it's looking likely - but I hate to make promises without absolute certainty.

local stuff

Whenever there are interesting local things related to AI happening in southeast Michigan, and particularly when I'll be there, I'll try to give you a heads up.

Symposium at Wayne State University

On April 10 (this Friday) Wayne State University is hosting a symposium: "The Humanities and Untested Technologies: The Question of Artificial Intelligence". Angie Berkley's zines (and half a dozen other folks from WSU and from the SE Michigan community) will be presenting (schedule will be coming soon).

If you can make it, it'll be happening from 9a-3pm in The David Adamany Undergraduate Library in Community Room 3210 (on the 3rd floor) at WSU. I'll be speaking in the afternoon but I'll be there for the entire symposium; if you can make it, I'd be thrilled to chat.

Hope to see you there!

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 the additional readings, but I'm thinking about ways to archive what we read each week - it just doesn't fit well in a table sent via email. If you have suggestions (the signal chat has recommended Zotero - if you have thoughts; please join the signal chat and let us know.)

next book(s)

After Why We Fear AI, we'll read Disabling Intelligences by Rua Williams. If you go to the link to order the book, I've been advised that the discount code PALAUT will give you a 20% discount on the book. Please order the book at your earliest convenience!

I'm also thinking about what our book after Disabling Intelligences will be; if you have suggestions, please feel free to reach out and make a suggestion!

last thoughts

If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, etc... please feel free to reach out. Talk soon.

Also, 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; see you Thursday to discuss the chapter and other reading.