This episode focuses on Harold Innis’ 1947 presidential

address to the Royal Society of Canada, “Minerva’s Owl” and his appendix to the

address. Barry and Mike discuss how Innis charts the relationships among power,

knowledge, and technologies and their relations to the durability of imperial

systems.

In this episode Barry and Mike revisit Gilles Deleuze’s essay “Postscript on the Society of Control.”  They attempt to reframe the central arguments of the essay in terms of our current digital culture.

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss Alan Turing’s 1950 essay, “Computer Machinery and Intelligence” and discuss whether or not Turing’s concept of machine intelligence is a contradiction in terms.

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss “The Indoor Plumbing Test” by cultural critic Freddie deBoer and ponder the question:  Is AI only hype?

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss Derek Thompson’s Atlantic essay, “The Anti-Social Century.”  They discuss how the evolution of media technologies over the last 50 years, culminating in the development of AI  have produced our current state of technologically enhanced solitude.

The Anti-Social Century

I'm In Love With Chat GPT

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss Wai Chee Dimock’s PMLA editor’s column, AI in the Humanities.  After a brief summary of her argument they focus on the practicality of a humanistic approach to designing AI and its possible impacts.

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss Matteo Wong’s Dec. 9th article in The Atlantic, “The GPT Era Is Already Ending.”  They trace the algorithmic shift from Chat GPT to 01 and discuss whether this transition gets any closer to genuine intelligence.   

We encourage you to listen to the previous episode on Benjamin Labatut’s “The Gods of Reason” as a primer for this one.

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss Benjamin Labatut’s essay, “The Gods of Logic: Before and After Artificial Intelligence. In tracing his historical approach to the development of AI, Barry and Mike highlight the unpredictability of language as opposed to the certainty of mathematics.

Link to article.

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss Jodi Dean’s book, “Blog Theory.” They focus on her notion of “communicative capitalism,” treating the book as a time capsule of sorts.  They take her arguments from 2010 and suggest their relevance to our current situation in 2024. 

In this episode Barry and Mike discuss chapter one of Bolter and Grusin’s book and attempt to define their foundational term, remediation.