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You’re Doing It Wrong: Notes on Criticism and Technology Hype

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  • Feb 1, 2021
  • #Technology
Lee Vinsel @leevinsel@h-net.social
@STS_News
(Author)
sts-news.medium.com
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Maybe more people are writing about the real and potential problems of technology today than ever before. That is mostly a good thing. The list of books and articles from the last f... Show More

Maybe more people are writing about the real and potential problems of technology today than ever before. That is mostly a good thing. The list of books and articles from the last few years that have nuanced and illuminating perspectives on the contemporary technological situation is rich and long.

Recently, however, I’ve become increasingly aware of critical writing that is parasitic upon and even inflates hype. The media landscape is full of dramatic claims — many of which come from entrepreneurs, startup PR offices, and other boosters — about how technologies, such as “AI,” self-driving cars, genetic engineering, the “sharing economy,” blockchain, and cryptocurrencies, will lead to massive societal shifts in the near-future. These boosters — Elon Musk comes to mind — naturally tend to accentuate positive benefits. The kinds of critics that I am talking about invert boosters’ messages — they retain the picture of extraordinary change but focus instead on negative problems and risks. It’s as if they take press releases from startups and cover them with hellscapes.

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Yann LeCun @ylecun · Feb 15, 2023
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Excellent paper in which the word "criti-hype" is coined. Criti-hype designates the kind of academic and non-academic work that magnifies the imagined dangers of a new technology, feeding on and mirroring the hype from the advocates of said technology.
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