And so what now?
Hello, friends.
The dissertation is in. I probably need to keep it a little hush-hush until it’s marked – it’s all anonymised and externally moderated, so I don’t want to jeopardise the blind review. But I’ll share a summary once mortarboards are thrown in the new year. Writing philosophy feels like cutting a lawn with scissors: painstaking but undeniably tidy if done well. Having had my nose on the turf for so long I’ve no idea now whether I did well enough to earn my distinction. But I gave it a go.
I took a little holiday to Iceland. Geothermal spas, sharp rocks pillowed by moss: beautiful, pricey, cold. The borealis is less vivid than cameras make it seem, but it was still quite the display. Craig Bellamy’s new-look Wales (my initial excuse for going) squandered a two-goal lead, just like old times. I neglected to sample the harðfiskur.
Recent work
Future Ethics and its Spanish translation La Ética del Futuro are back on direct sale, thanks to my stumbling at last upon a provider that can handle post-Brexit VAT confusion. Ten bucks plus tax gets you DRM-free PDF, Kindle, and Apple Books formats. Click click click:
→ https://cennydd.gumroad.com/l/future-ethics ←
I was on Larry Swanson’s Content+AI podcast. I’m tired of the unhelpful with-us-or-against-us polarisation of AI boosterism vs. doomerism. I think I see more potential AI upside than many of my critical tech peers do, but I agree its trajectory is worrying and we need counters to its purported inevitability. So my position was pessimistic but open to silver linings, say. Larry and I talked about automated product development and how it may push aside thoughtful excellence in favour of iterating from mediocrity. Because AI doesn’t need to be better than us, does it? It just needs to be good enough. Sure, it’s kind of fun to gloat right now at AI’s slide into a minitrough of microdisillusionment, but the tech’s still improving and good enough will soon tick enough boxes to really, really appeal to execs and politicians. I stand by my position that AI will tip our lives upside down sooner than we think, for both better and worse.
A few talks and workshops, including another Service Design College cohort with Ariel (our fourth) and a talk for J Paul’s and Gemma’s School of Critical Design which was well received.
Finally, I’ve been thinking about death, helping a psychologist friend with some work on the ethics of voice cloning (inc. posthumous cloning). A public workshop for the British Academy went swimmingly, and off the back of it I gave a short talk for Made My Many’s new AI ’Rogue Talks’ series.
And so what now?
After years of deadlines and essays and applications, the next chapter is unnervingly blank. Probably some mix of the following (forgive the pandering for leads):
1. Some client work. The last twelve months has skewed heavily academic, so I’m looking forward to some practical work again now I have capacity. My oeuvre, as you probably know: consulting and advice – maybe I’ll start using this trendy ‘fractional’ label – on responsible / ethical innovation. Training product teams (designers, PMs, engineers, etc) how to anticipate and mitigate ethical harms, talks on the same.
I’m about to kick off an AI ethics project with a new charity client, working in a space dear to my heart, and in my tech advisory board role I’m hoping to steer Our Future Heath on a new strand of work that poses some interesting ethical questions. If you know someone else who needs this sort of help, please point them my way. Updated website coming soon.
2. Academic continuity. I’m poking at PhD options for 2025/6. It’s tough going so far. So many programmes are not quite right in so many different ways, and the process itself is maddeningly opaque. As I understand it so far: a) encounter a sorcerer on a winding canyon trail and persuade them to join your party, b) convince an enigmatic syndicate to fund your adventures, c) vanquish sharp-fanged foes, not least your own sanity. Fine, fine, pass me the dice.
I’m still an Oxford student until September, so I’m enjoying some academic tourism, squatting in the Bodleian and joining internal seminars: ethics of LLMs / interpretations of freedom of thought / AI vs. mental health / nudges and moral progress, etc. I’m also indulging in some interdisciplinary lectures, which are equally invigorating and exhausting – like surfing an intellectual wave in full knowledge you’re about to wipe out hard – and that involve words like ‘dyadic’ and ‘aetiology’ and hopelessly rambling post-talk questions from people who’ve not learned a philosopher’s scalpel precision.
Hopefully I can do more teaching too, so I’m keeping my eyes open for adjunct-type or visiting lecturer opportunities – ethics in design, computer science, engineering, either undergrad or postgrad.
3. Piles of writing. The dream for 2025 is to empty my brain. I’m slowly shape-rotating a couple of book ideas of varying realism and achievability: a short practitioner translation of my dissertation would be an obvious choice but I’ll need a few more weeks before I can bear to look at it. Ideally I’d like to get a couple of papers submitted for publication soon too. (Again, potential collaborators welcome. Hit me up.)
A wilful ebbing
More personally, I’m feeling an urge to narrow my horizons. A proxemic renegotiation, if you like. A simpler life, some work, some writing; hobbies; cooking. More time spent on things within my control. I suspect there are several reasons. Jettisoning a well-paid career means I have to tighten my spending, and for sure I still need to recover from the emotional expenditure that was America. And yes, there are the obvious age-related and post-summertime blues. But is there a broader trend here? Don’t our world’s increasing horrors make us all want to recoil?
I particularly want to reinvest in my city. Something they don’t tell you about being a Londoner is you’ll have to listen blankly to countless people – even friends who don’t realise the insult – sharing their unsolicited dislike of your home town. Whatever, dude: twelve years in and I love this place more than ever. Walthamstow’s middle finger to the far right filled me with belonging and hope, and there are so many of London’s multitudes I still don’t know. Time to fix that.
Couple of photos from the F1 exhibition down in ExCeL. As expected, it was Insta bait for 40-something dudes, but what can I say? I fit the description.
Lastly, it being autumn, the chess season has restarted. I’ve been studying a lot this year and definitely understand the game far better now. Nonetheless I’ve started the year with three straight losses. Only solution is to keep playing. Such is life.
Replies welcomed as always. Talk soon,
Cennydd
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