Thanks Michael, hidden history indeed, had never heard of Cooley so lots to follow up there - and a good way to push back against the historical amnesia of much automation discourse. Will comb the AI and Society archives too... -best, Luke
On Wed, 24 Feb 2021 at 08:41, Michael Reinsborough <[email protected]> wrote: > Interesting old stuff from the 1970s/80s might be to look at how the > labour movement thought about building their own technology and addressed > the issue of Artificial Intelligence/automation. > > Mike Cooley passed away last year but he was one of the leading thinkers > in the Lucas Aerospace worker-written business plan to address lay-offs in > their arms manufacturing company due to post-fordism induced industry > restructuring (UK). They advocated for socially useful production/preserve > jobs/people to run machines rather than the other way around. This stuff is > recirculating in recent years with the idea of re-applying this thinking to > the need for bottom-up solutions to climate change > http://lucasplan.org.uk/lucas-aerospace-combine/ Also a recent film The > Plan. Mike Cooley has several books all published in the last decade which > note the negative experience of automation when implemented from above- > top-down by management. But as an engineer he and others in the labour > movement were interested in automation/AI/design issues. Here is Cooley’s > 1980s article on human-centered AI philosophies > https://philpapers.org/rec/COOHCS He started the journal Artificial > Intelligence and Society now edited by Karamjit S. Gill who has done some > recent work to uncover more of this historical background > https://www.wit.ie/news/business/influential-irish-engineer-and-cybernetician-prof-mike-cooley-archive-donat > Generally that journal might be a place to find some interesting links to > the people who first confronted the 1970s wave of automation and thought > about how it could be done differently or wrote/researched on its effects > (such as Swasti Miller on the global impact of automation upon women > https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00146-018-0864-2 ) > > > > *From:* [email protected] <[email protected]> *On > Behalf Of *Luke Munn > *Sent:* Monday, February 22, 2021 1:13 AM > *To:* a moderated mailing list for net criticism <[email protected]> > *Subject:* <nettime> alternative visions/projects of automation > > > > Hey Net-timers, > > > > I'm writing a short book on automation and am looking for examples of > alternative visions of the "future of work" broadly speaking, i.e. projects > or movements that run counter to the near-future scenarios envisioned by > Siemens, IBM, Google, and so on. > > > > "Alternative" in this context might mean technologies or projects with > different sets of values - e.g. more egalitarian, more ecologically attuned > - than the usual axioms: accumulation of capital, increased efficiency, > etc. > > > > Or "alternative" might mean more localized interventions that take into > account specific community needs, as opposed to the globalized, homogenized > future typically on offer. > > > > I'm sure there are a lot of inspiring and ingenuous projects out there I'm > unaware of - please post away! :-) > > > > best, > > Luke > > > > > > > > >
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