Anupam Guha @Anupam_Guha@mastodon.social

Ah, everyone is introducing themselves, quite useful. Here is mine.

I'm an AI scientist turned AI policy researcher. I'm faculty at IITB.

My lens on AI policy is informed by how it affects labour etc. In general I care a lot about workers and students. My technological impulse thus is deeply political.

Hang around me if you want to get bored on AI, labour, Marxism, decentralisation, and connected topics!

Or just discus books, history, and food.

#Introductions #india

Haven't poasted here in ages because of the anti CAB/NRC protests going on, and the birdsite is better for soapboxing.

But, here are some resources to read and to use at pamphlets. See you at the barricades on 19th.

English: https://docs.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=https://cjp.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/NRC_pamphlet-FINAL.pdf
Hindi:https://docs.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=https://cjp.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/CJP-NRC-A5-Pamphlet-Hindi-FOR-PRINT.pdf
Marathi: https://docs.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=https://cjp.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/CJP-NRC-A5-Pamphlet-Marathi-FOR-PRINT.pdf/
Urdu: https://docs.google.com/viewerng/viewe

After that deluge of folks transferring here from the birdsite, I'm wondering how are people feeling now, now that some time has passed?

Red Rosa now has vanished too.
She told the poor what life is about,
And so the rich have rubbed her out.
May she rest in peace.

- Bertolt Brecht

In Berlin, finally met my teacher, where they had murdered her. It would do well for us to not forget the history of our movements, of strategic errors and the price of failure.

In some of the panels I've been listening in this IGF, a common refrain is Trust (deliberately capitalised) has broken down. That the way to better govern data and the digital infrastructure is through Trust.

Well it is true Trust has broken down. But that is because the neoliberal order, and in this case it's digital monopolies and states which deal with them without caring for their citizens economic rights, they have broken it.

Some academic travels.

If you are interested in the things I'm interested in namely AI policy and want to meet,

I am in Berlin attending a JNC event and then the UN IGF from 23 to 29 Nov.

Then I'll be in Bangalore for 10th and 11th Dec at IIITB, in their AI+ethics winter school giving a bunch of talks.

More details for the latter I'll post.

Right now in Delhi students are marching to preserve their public education. They have my full support. Follow the JNU protests, one of the last bastions of preserving public education in the capital.

As for those who are latjicharging them, cowardly curs. ACAB

In general, support the very few voices of systemic dissent that still ask hard questions from an almost totalist polity which has appropriated and assimilated all "progressives"

Btw don't know if I have suggested this before, but if you are not already following their stuff, listen to material analysis podcast, probably India's only leftist pod. They take on all difficult things that need talking about.

https://twitter.com/AnalysisPod/status/1195959575553478658

Just want to share something that made me happy recently. My proposed elective has been approved. Will be teaching 'AI, data, and policy' from next sem

"The prospect of hunger and thirst has driven us to this; there is no clothing, there is no ointment, there is no fish, there are no vegetables"

This glorious event is preserved in the "Strike Papyrus" in the Egyptian Museum in Turin, Italy.

Some stuff to ward off ennui and despair for the young leftist. You are not alone and your worries are connected to a red thread of struggles spanning eons.

Today is (probably) a anniversary of a millennia old (recorded) first worker's strike. And it had worked.

This day around 3000 years back, year 29 of the reign of Ramses III, workers of Deir el-Medina conducted the first recorded strike

Random thought, but it is harmful to the person doing it and to others when they perform guilt, politically. Don't self flagellate. Don't uncritically amplify media which prompts you to do so.

Just realised that I may have (unknowingly) amplified some stuff which does

Everyone be super nice to him. Go say hi.

Hi comrade @marginalscribbles, welcome!!!

Guys guys guys, the most bitter dunker from the birdsite, @marginalscribbles , who promised me many times he would not come here if it's the last thing he does, cause we don't do dunking, is here.

We are winning.

Am interested to know if people find these kind of explainers useful and will read them. Thinking of doing a series on AI, history policy and future stuff

Wrote something after ages for a newspaper, on why we should resist reifying AI governance and pushing blame on algorithms w r t human decisions, in the light of the birdsite going after @sanjayuvacha and @ladkidyutiful.
I get nervous with non academic writing, as I don't want to dilute the argument but still want to make it as accessible and as non jargony as possible. Do have a read.
https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/artificial-scapegoat-why-algorithms-cant-be-blamed-political-or-corporate-decisions-112248

I don't want to spread birdsite stuff here, but it will be hard to recreate this gigantic thread I once wrote on the history of space fiction (a subgenre of science fiction) right from ancient times (around 200 BC) to premodern times (till 19th C), across various cultures. Have a read!

Since we are all trying different ways of engaging than birdsite mores, will share more weird stuff I happen to like.

https://twitter.com/Anupam_Guha/status/1057996804069957635