Short interview with Cory Doctorow on how to respond to tech that serves the producer rather than the user - what he calls 'enshittified tech'. "We need to seize the means of computation," he argues. "If there's a technology that you get benefit out of, but that is exploitative, you should be able to adapt it and modify it. I find it baffling that the response instead so often seems to be: just stop using it." Of course, we can't simply "seize" Microsoft or Apple or OpenAI. That leaves (to my mind) two options: either we build alternatives ourselves, or we use legal means to open up the tech we already use. "Kids and educators can play a role in the kind of activism that we need. One great exercise would be for educators to support a kid who runs up against something that's offensive in their school's tech environment... then FOIA the school district's information about how much they've spent on this technology, what the procurement process was," etc. See also Tom Watson, A Tech Freedom startup stack? "Don't start with what is the alternative to Microsoft Teams. Start with we need a way for people to talk to each other."
Today: Total: [Direct link] [Share]
