Ok, full disclosure—I was on vacation this week! But now that I’ve got a few hundred subscribers, I obviously need to make sure there’s some content, right? So before I left, I set aside some timeless pieces about AI.

Algorithmic Agnotology

I came across the term “algorithmic agnotology” on BlueSky and had to look it up. Agnotology is the study of ignorance, and there’s plenty to learn about that. In this extensive interview, Alondra Nelson—former head of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy and now a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study (in Princeton, where our very own Dijkgraaf led for 10 years!)—explores the topic. The entire interview is well worth your time, but this term really stuck with me: the idea that ignorance can be used as a tool in the AI discourse. For instance, creators can say, “Yeah, we don’t understand the algorithm either!” You saw that play out during the benefits scandal. But not understanding something doesn’t absolve you of responsibility!

It made me think of when I recently tried to change a hotel booking, and the guy on the phone said it simply couldn’t be done. Not that he didn’t want to help, but “Computer says no.” That’s another form of ignorance—a “I don’t know how to do this in the system” excuse. You see what you lose when you move from a simple reservation system to a more complex one: bypassed rules, over-smoothing, and making things impossible simply because the system can’t handle them. I even wrote something similar about this recently in Elsevier!

NPR:

A great piece (also available as a podcast) on how the internet is gradually disappearing. I often tell my students that once you put something on the internet, you can’t just take it back. That’s certainly true for social media, but with many personal or even news websites it’s different—40% of the websites that existed in 2013 are now gone! So whole chunks of history will eventually just… vanish! (This was also the topic of my final BNR column for the end of 2024.)

The Verge:

And then there’s this delightful long read on how Apple has long failed to bring an AR headset to market. I’ll admit, it’s a prime example of rubbing one’s hands together and saying “I told you so.” Nobody wants that junk—neither with Google Glass, nor now.

Oh, and as a parting note… Watch this 15-minute video by Stanford psychiatry professor Anne Lembke, and you’ll feel like throwing your phone into the sea. I’m going to do the same—I’ll officially switch to a “dumb phone” soon. More on that later!