Howard Zinn: "To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. 1/

"Rather than treating automation as an inevitable force that workers must adapt to, we need to recognize it as a social process that can and should be shaped by those it affects most—workers themselves." New Tech Labor forum piece from dana calacci 🦋 @dana.witchy.business, out now in interactions !

The Texas Tribune interviewed Sam Shorey (TEXAS Moody) on the risks of automating government work and empowering AI technologies to make more decisions. “It might move us towards the end goal more quickly. But is it moving us towards an end goal that we want?”

From a 1979 IBM presentation

Howdy! SAVE THE DATE for another installation of the American Studies Workshop featuring TEXAS Moody communications professor Dr. Sam Shorey on February 9, 2024 @ 11:30AM in BUR 436A!

If this isn't a metaphor about the futures we were promised versus the one we live in...

Why are we so excited about Large Language Models? I, for one, would be more excited about Small Laundry-Folding Models or even Medium Dish-Washing Models. Give me a Foundation Model for chores and I'll give you *all* my money.

📢 Registration is now LIVE for Take Back Tech II! Join us in Chicago from June 21-23 and unite with organizers, advocates, academics, & tech workers as we reclaim tech for our gente. 🔗 ➡️ takebacktech.com

sorry to be a spoiler but there is no way around a genuinely socially responsible AI without directly tackling systemic inequalities and building accountability mechanisms on the current concentration of power in the hands of big corps/AI companies

there is this scene in the new Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader docuseries where the producer observes "It must be hard having this thing that's your dream also be..." and the cheerleader responds "...the thing that hurts me? Yeah." And I felt it right in my R1 tenure-track heart.

✨Incredibly excited to share a newly published article with Sam Shorey in a special issue of icsjournal on Platforms, Power and Friction! We explored how workers navigated the frictions teeming in AI repair labor.

#OutNow in #ICS Through a Feminist Science and Technology Studies lens, Dominique A. Montiel Valle and Samantha Shorey, examine repair labour on AI robots evidencing the frictions between technological imaginaries of efficiency and communal care. tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

🎊Today, we announce some additions to our 2024 cohort of think tank fellows! We welcome 2 new senior fellows and 5 new program fellows who will enrich the progressive policy community with a breadth of voices and expertise. Meet the new Roosevelters ⬇️ rooseveltinstitute.org/2024/08/07/roo…

New pub alert! 🚨 "My Data, My Choice? Privacy, Commodity Activism, and Big Tech’s Corporatization of Care in the Post-Roe Era" with my beyond brilliant co-authors Dominique M. Valle and Sam Shorey is out now in Social Media+Society. Read for free: doi.org/10.1177/205630…. 🧵to follow.

LRT: it’s true, I’m hiring PhD student(s) to fire up the Labour Lab at University of Toronto Faculty of Information. We’re going to study how new tech and data tools reconfigure the workplace and think about how data tools and forms of tech expertise work to support the labour movement! Shoot me email/dm 👋

🤔What tasks do we want robots to handle? Are these preferences based on saved time or feelings we associate with the tasks? Introducing Why Automate This?—a study exploring automation preferences across social groups, using feelings & time-spent as key factors. 👇 (1/5)

NEW 📰: AI automation is making government jobs more stressful & error-prone, hurting workers & constituents. Sam Shorey offers a scan of the existing landscape of AI implementation from across the country & the true impact on workers & efficiency. rooseveltinstitute.org/publications/a…