Bastian Greshake Tzovaras

[![A black and white image of a hammer used by the
Luddites](/assets/images/2024-05-15-enoch.jpg)](https://www.flickr.com/photos/gedankenstuecke/53709195737/)
[*Enoch's Hammer* of Luddite fame, at the Tolson Memorial
Museum.]{.small}

*I gave a talk at the* [Pint of Science
Festival](https://pintofscience.co.uk) *-- an international science
festival that takes places at local pubs and cafes across the world --
this evening. As part of this,* The Alan Turing Institute *organised a
session called* [Imagined futures: Tales from
tomorrow](https://pintofscience.co.uk/event/imagined-futures)*. The
premise: A bunch of time-traveling researchers come back into the year
2024 to give a brief rundown of how the future looks like. Below is my
contribution, **hot of the press** from the year 2074, with a whole
bunch of links to the sources that inspired this vision.*

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wow! It's really great to see so many of you turn out for this very very
special day! Back in 2074, today is the 50th birthday of our good friend
Jo, and if that's not a great reason to celebrate! Don't worry, we'll
get do the singing and the cake in about 10 minutes! But first, I wanted
to be *that guy*, who uses this chance to look at how the world has
changed throughout Jo's lifetime. And oh dear, what a different world it
was back then compared to now!

May 15, 2024. In 2074, we look back at this time as the top of the "AI"
hype cycle: Generative "AI" was the gold rush topic of the day, and [the
UK government had just doubled down on their own efforts to get "AI"
engrained into all spheres of life -- and the public
sector](https://www.techuk.org/resource/uk-government-doubles-down-efforts-to-deploy-ai-across-the-public-sector.html):
From healthcare over education,
[crime](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts/ai-tool-used-thousands-criminal-cases-facing-legal-challenges-rcna149607)
"prevention" to immigration and access to public services. We saw a lot
of these things being implemented rather quickly. You know the saying:
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. As a result,
a lot of public services got *"AI enhanced"* -- in the name of
increasing productivity and saving money. And despite Brexit, many of
these "AI" systems were directly copying the most "successful" ones used
across countries in the EU.

These "AI systems" directly affected our friend Jo from early life
onwards: Instead of investing in healthcare professionals, "AI" started
to take over a lot of the NHS *"frontline"* work. So, in 2028, when Jo's
parents were worried about their child needing support for their
invisible disabilities, direct access to doctors and human experts was
no longer an option. Instead, [chatbots had taken over the initial
triage](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rise-and-fall-of-babylon-healthcare-the-doctor-in-your-pocket-3p6q6jjfx)
which -- wrongly -- did not provide any support or referrals to human
experts for Jo.

As a result, Jo never got the accommodations they would have needed in
school. Which set them up for more and more challenges going forward:
Their struggles in school remained unaddressed, as the now
["AI"-enhanced](https://www.rtl.nl/nieuws/artikel/5450163/scholen-hebben-meer-kennis-nodig-over-algoritmen-anders-kans-op),
[predictive](https://phys.org/news/2023-07-ai-classroom-conversations-academic-success.html)
evaluation [in
schools](https://www.nesta.org.uk/feature/ten-predictions-2019/beginning-end-exams/)
did not take into account the possibility of any medical conditions that
were not formally diagnosed.

So, in 2042, when Jo had aged out of the school systems, they
unfortunately -- but unsurprisingly -- kept struggling with finding and
keeping employment. This was despite (or because) of the [newly deployed
"AI systems" to automatically assign - or rather force - people to take
on jobs these systems assigned to
them](https://algorithmwatch.org/en/italian-neofascists-artificial-intelligence/).
But at the end of the day, these systems tended to *"give up"* on people
whom they deemed not worth "investing in" any further. And so, Jo and
their family spend the next few years fighting for various benefits. And
what a fight it was -- because "AI" did not make it any easier for them
to get benefits. In -- by then already [time-honoured
tradition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal) --
the "AI systems" [used
across](https://schoolsweek.co.uk/revealed-secret-deal-to-let-benefit-fraud-squad-snoop-on-pupil-data/)
the various [government
departments](https://www.laquadrature.net/2023/11/27/notation-des-allocataires-lindecence-des-pratiques-de-la-caf-desormais-indeniable/)
kept [accusing them of fraudulently receiving for
benefits](https://www.politico.eu/article/dutch-scandal-serves-as-a-warning-for-europe-over-risks-of-using-algorithms/).

Of course, it wasn't just Jo and their family being affected by this --
hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people across the country
struggled with the ["AI
bureaucracy"](https://www.danmcquillan.org/ai_thatcherism.html) that
became more and more entrenched. By 2048, there was widespread
discontent with "AI" and its automated oppression -- leading to
thousands of people at protests across the country -- calling for
[*another "AI"
winter*](https://theconversation.com/weve-been-here-before-ai-promised-humanlike-machines-in-1958-222700),
to safe both society **and** the environment. Beyond those protests, it
also led to direct action in a renewed ["AI from
Below"](https://tzovar.as/AI-from-below/) movement. A movement that Jo
and their friends joined early on and were quite instrumental in. They
started by investigating how and why these systems fail, beyond the
obvious political will for deploying them. Instead of taking a
*"technology first"*-stance, they took a *"people & problem"*-first
viewpoint.

Looking at the existing "AI" solutions, they quickly re-discovered that
one of the big reasons for why these approaches failed was the
underlying assumption that predicting towards an *"average"* or *"most
likely"* outcome would automatically also mean for it to be correct or
even good. Because, for all the advanced technology and mathematics,
that's what those systems did at the end. Of course, even early 21st
century Sci-Fi authors, such as Ted Chiang had warned about this.
Already in 2023, Chiang wrote about how "AI" is "[a blurry JPEG of the
Web](https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/chatgpt-is-a-blurry-jpeg-of-the-web)",
referring to how these systems tend to only regurgitate existing data
into average representations, creating "blurry" outcomes. He used this
to refer to "ChatGPT" -- which kids today can read about in the
history-section of *NeoWikipedia* -- but this of course applies to all
"AI" tools. And, as it turns out, none of us is really "average". That's
why back when we had cars, [you could move the seats in them back and
forth to fit for your
height](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/on-average/).

They also found how "AI" not only generates *"average"* outcomes, but
also can only produce these averages based on historic data -- with all
the biases, discriminations and other issues that are within the data.
So what if, *for example*, police tended to [over-police marginalised
communities](https://irr.org.uk/article/over-policed-and-under-protected-why-does-nothing-change/)?
Or if checks for [social security fraud particularly targeted certain
demographics](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/oct/23/uk-risks-scandal-over-bias-in-ai-tools-in-use-across-public-sector),
such as *"deprived neighbourhoods"* or those with disabilities -- like
Jo experienced first-hand? In those cases, "AI" was particularly likely
to negatively decide over these communities. And even worse, [all
attempts to address those overtly prejudiced systems just pushed them to
only become *covertly
prejudiced*](https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/covert-racism-in-llms)
instead, by trying to pick up on secondary signs in the data, such as
the way people write and talk!

Jo and their friends thus set out to do their own data science research
and create both the data and the "AI" deployments that would be useful
to them -- making use of their embodied, lived understanding of these
existing limitations. Given that [*nothing about us without
us*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_about_us_without_us) had been
a rallying cry for the disability rights movement and other marginalised
groups for decades, it was no surprise that the *"AI from below"*
movement started there in the early 2050s.

Collectively, they took inspiration from some of the examples of
movement-driven data collections for advocacy and citizen-driven science
that happened back in the early 21st century:

- They found [communities that created their own
  census](https://www.dw.com/en/whats-life-really-like-for-black-people-in-germany/a-53159443),
  to collect the "missing data" on how they were being disadvantaged and
  discriminated against.
- They found *gig workers* for *ride share companies* coming together,
  [collecting & using their own driving
  data](https://responsibledata.io/rd-reflection-stories/data-rights-for-workers-in-the-gig-economy/),
  to understand their hourly wages, ultimately unionising.
- They found people with chronic conditions, who [collectively engaged
  in patient-led research to create "AI" systems to provide the tools
  that the medical research system didn't provide for
  them](https://openaps.org/).
- They found communities of [trans
  people](https://www.physoc.org/magazine-articles/nothing-about-us-without-us/)
  and [disabled people](https://www.careables.org/), collecting their
  own data to fight back against medicalisation and to instead [create
  the research](https://www.transbiome.org/) they needed to actually
  improve their lives.

By their nature, these efforts that Jo and the *AI from Below* movement
put together throughout the 2050s typically remained small and
localised, and generally people looked at them in a somewhat bemused
way. But slowly, this practice became more accepted: After years of
*"using 'AI' to deploy interventions at scale"*, these large
interventions became less and less common, as people recognised the
benefits of small-scale, localised and community-driven "AI" approaches.
Ultimately, even the government agreed, and finally stopped all the
*"one-size-fits-all 'AI' deployments"* in 2069.

Of course: These changes were also helped by the world [slowly running
of resources such as water and
electricity](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/02/ais-craving-for-data-is-matched-only-by-a-runaway-thirst-for-water-and-energy),
which made such large efforts harder and harder. *Thanks, climate
change!* But that's not to lessen the credit to Jo and their fellow
grassroots researchers. Due to their efforts that we understood how
local, situated knowledge could be paired with tailor-made "AI"
solutions that were created by -- **and in service of** -- these
communities.

Back in 2074 this is a particularly old idea -- going back over a
hundred years: For science and technology to promote humanisation, it
requires people to be active participants in it. And not just be mere
*objects of scientific interest*. Thanks to the efforts of Jo -- and
their countless community collaborators -- we are now more on that path
than ever before. And with that, let us congratulate and celebrate Jo
once again! Have a lovely birthday celebration! And now it's time to
sing and cut the cake!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Added 2024-05-15 23:00:** In the Q&A at the event, the question for
potential readings (beyond the sources linked above) came up. My
recommended readings included:

- Dan McQuillan's [Resisting AI: An anti-facist approach to artificial
  intelligence](https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/resisting-ai),
  which provides a thorough review of the issues with "AI", and how
  mutual aid could help
- Brian Merchant's [Blood in the
  Machine](https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/), the newsletter and [the
  book](https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/brian-merchant/blood-in-the-machine/9780316487740/?lens=little-brown),
  which puts the Luddite's efforts for labour rights in the context of
  today's struggles against big tech
- Cory Doctorow's [The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of
  Computation](https://craphound.com/internetcon/) & [Chokepoint
  Capitalism](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/710957/chokepoint-capitalism-by-rebecca-giblin-and-cory-doctorow/)
  to understand how big tech operates these days, and how they use
  AI/data
- [We Need To Rewild The
  Internet](https://www.noemamag.com/we-need-to-rewild-the-internet/), a
  fabulous essay by Maria Farrell and Robin Berjon


Enoch’s Hammer

of Luddite fame, at the Tolson Memorial Museum.

 I gave a talk at the

Pint of Science Festival

 – an international science festival that takes places at local pubs and cafes across the world – this evening.

Rogue Scholar Beiträge

Imagined Future: Data democracy at Pint of Science 2074