[Petit Fours #434] On reenactments, trust issues, and human-centered cybersecurity
Hi, all! We are halfway into the focus period and, later, I will have (happy) things to say about all that it has entailed. For now, I just want to remind you about our exhibition and share a few other things:
#1 A new Data & Society publication, entitled Trust Issues: An Anthology, is now freely available online. This collection speaks to how trust exists within embodiment, institutions, relationality, and information ecosystems. It is an outcome from a 2024 workshop and I’m glad to have had the chance to contribute in a modest capacity.
#2 I did not have time for much reading last week, but this text by Drew Harry stuck with me: The Gambler and the Genie: How it feels to write code in partnership with a large language model “The Genie ends these roles. It does the scientific work of the Doctor, the Mechanic’s work of installing new capabilities, and (less well) the Detective’s work of synthesizing the evidence required to make sense of a mysterious bug. In their place emerges “the Gambler.” The Gambler does not study the code or make plans. The Gambler keeps asking the Genie for code until something they desire appears in front of them. Then they start asking for something new. And so on until the Gambler gets exhausted, because the Genie never will.“
#3 Here’s a nice interview with Asreen Rostami, a long-time colleague and friend here in Stockholm: Championing Human-Centered Cybersecurity: Asreen Rostami’s Journey from Digital Futures to RISE
#4 For something quite different, this Thursday, Derek Holzer from KTH will defend his PhD thesis Reenactments: Engaging with Historical Audio/Visual Instruments. As a deputy member of the grading committee, I look forward to the conversation.
-A