Fieldwork at the Effective Altruism conference this weekend. So many bright young minds strategizing to prevent hostile takeovers by technologies that don't exist...all while a human-led hostile takeover may already be underway

I didn't attend the Paris AI Safety Summit this year, but I did visit the same site in 2016 for Monumenta. I photographed Huang Yong Ping's "Empire": a skeletal serpent winding among shipping containers. IMO that pic depicts the industry more accurately than any picture from last week's event:

Visiting a new office today for field work. Every office is full of books. It’s as if they leave them out on purpose—little clues…or diversions?

Planetary ambitions from Burning Man to NeurIPS

With more scale, this model will solve all ethics

SF tech founders are already trying to live in one neighborhood, and now this sauna trend? It's like they're trying to reinvent gay culture www.wsj.com/lifestyle/sa...

I wrote about trust, technology, and the value of IRL tech communities using some old fieldwork on blockchain in Berlin. You can expect more work on trust and technology, including AI. DM for a copy or find it here: journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Well...that happened! My first thoughts on Burning Man in context of my larger project on AI here: spencermkaplan.com/2024/09/27/t...

My article about gay bankers has been making its rounds this week. First on a course syllabus (exciting!) and last night on right wing twitter (spooky!)

In the anthropological spirit of professional amateurism, I built a model and wrote about it: spencermkaplan.com/2024/03/07/a...

Lots of worthy entries, but the ML paper acronym of the week is: "Measuring Agents’ Competence & Harmfulness In A Vast Environment of Long-horizon Language Interactions (MACHIAVELLI)"

Today I was told that brain-computer interfaces funded by crypto will save us from AI extinction. But don't worry, the AI extinction people laughed at the crypto part. Oh and this was the view from the venue:

Nobody told me my research grants might count as taxable income when not strictly reimbursements...unless I'm doing it wrong? 🫠

If anyone wanted a vibe check on AI in SF…

Been thinking about what makes a good interview from interlocutor’s perspective in a given field. With gay bankers a good interview they considered almost “therapeutic.” In AI a good interview is “interesting” (presumably something they could bring up at dinner)

Haven’t even stepped 100 feet into the field

This weekend my studio held its annual holiday sale and I sold my pottery for the first time ever…to total strangers!

My research really messes with the recommendation algorithms. I guess I'm a "fan" 🫠

Use discount code E24MSSRI and get the book for a cool $20 (and delivery mid-Feb) when you pre-order at www.dukeupress.edu/in-the-land-...

Clubs in Toronto have great décor:

The models’ believers hallucinate just as their models do

First Santos, now Altman. Did not think about them as the same sub genre of gay man but whatever that genre is, they’re not having a good week

"Just because we're at the party doesn't mean they want to talk to us!": how I explained alien communications to students in Anthropology of Outer Space (before ranting about semiotic processes)

Not...this...upon opening the AAA conference app

Is this a university or fashion house? Either way, it's backed by private equity

What a fine example of computation as culture www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcYL...

A seminar about "Women, money, and power" appeared in my inbox from my...credit union? (More interesting than any my university sent today)

Got my first AI-generated party invitation (in SF). Spooky!

My attempt at writing ethnographically about an already somewhat passé topic, based on last year's summer research. Hopefully more to come!

Are outdated editions of books still useful? 🤔 Yes! For researchers like Spencer Kaplan, understanding how new concepts were originally presented is critical. Learn more about Kaplan’s work: https://blog.archive.org/2023/07/24/empowering-anthropological-research-in-the-digital-age/

PhD student Spencer Kaplan is an anthropologist of technology. Last summer Kaplan used the Wayback Machine to study trust relationships across the blockchain community on Twitter. What did he learn? ▶️ https://blog.archive.org/2023/07/24/empowering-anthropological-research-in-the-digital-age/

Hello bluesky...might as well start off with some pics from my end of summer southwest road trip (ft. 80 miles of hiking)