futuribile / curating futures - Issue #26 - Closing the 2010s

Aloha,

This last 2019 issue comes a bit later than I planned, but… life. 🌪️ 🌪️It probably finds you rushing with pre-holiday season deadlines, as if in ten days you would start a new life in a parallel universe, right?

It’s the end of a decade we spent waking up to obvious threats (from environment to surveillance, to populism), coming together through social media to fight some form of power (Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Spring, #metoo, 15M, Black Lives Matter and the Hong Kong protests all happen in the 2010s) and alienating ourselves from problems (binge-watching, mindless scrolling, exploiting delivery cyclists under the rain…). Since 2017 there’s a proliferation of articles about how every possible “digital revolution” aspect went wrong. The Guardian defines the 2010s the decade that “disrupted everything but resolved nothing”. #ExpectationsManagementFail 💩

To move forward you need a dose of awareness - and here we are in total overdose, and some capacity to leave things behind. I guess the next decade is the one when instead of denouncing or reducing the harms of unintended consequences, we ditch the paralysing aspects of awareness and get things straight from the start.

See you in 2020,

#1 Big corps making themselves the default option in further fields. Amazon Braket provides a single environment to design, test, and run quantum algorithms without having to setup and manage infrastructure and code. Amazon is also working on Sidewalk, a new wireless standard. Facebook is likely to build cloud-based compliance services. Apple, Google, and Amazon are teaming up to develop an open-source smart home standard. #positioning 😱😱In this landscape, Twitter announcing that it will commit a small team to work on an “open and decentralized standard for social media” is almost harmless. Or not?

#2 The final details about Horizon Europe, the 2021-2027 European research and innovation funding framework: final budget (still catfighting about it); post-Brexit scenarios; third countries role. Regardless of the final configuration, the European Innovation Council sets out for becoming Europe’s "unicorns factory”. It will focus on deeptech innovation, especially on the intersection between digital, artificial intelligence and life sciences. Brace yourself!

#3 Legislation, application and consumers’ perception of surveillance cameras and algorithms, plus what impact they have on the notions of public space, security and freedom. The Panopticon is under deployment, and defining its range should keep us occupied. Goodreads: the European Union Agency for Human Rights report on facial recognition + the AI Now Institute shadow report of the New York City Automated Decision Systems (ADS) Task Force. It provides detailed guidance on how to engage with different stakeholders ranging from citizens to gov agencies in putting in place ADS.

#4 Decarbonising computing. Computing is responsible for 3.5/4% of global CO2 emissions, which is more than air transport. While it is unlikely that the digitalisation of everything will stop or slow down, there is still a lot of room for exploiting IoT pervasiveness for optimising energy consumption. Goodreads: this paper proposes the introduction of automatically-generated Energy Usage Reports as part of standard algorithmic accountability practices.

The 100 memes that defined the 2010s: the Harlem Shake and other fantastic wastes of time.

The whiplash decade: thematic accounts of major changes, from the way we talk about gender from comic book nerds becoming cultural overlords.

The 100 gadgets that made a difference and defined the 2010s. Defined by uselessness, IHMO.

How crypto-activism is trying to change the world.

The weirdness is coming: a glimpse of the near future as seen through the recent past.

“Data colonialism combines the predatory extractive practices of historical colonialism with the abstract quantification methods of computing.”

Mapbox just released a plug-and-play format for quickly publishing interactive experiences with high-quality map visuals. #scrollytelling

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That’s all for 2019, see you on the other side! Hit reply for harsh feedback and love declarations, forward or share to recommend. Unauthorised subscribing of acquaintances is also an appreciated Christmas gift.

Aloha,

Marta