AI and Automation of Mediactivm

Session (en anglais) animée par Igor Galligo (Université Paris 8 ; Université de Leuphana ; Automedias.org)

Intervenants: Geert Lovink (Institute of Network Culture, Amsterdam), David Chavalarias (CNRS), Hadrien Pelissier (Technostructures.org)

Propos:

In contemporary activism there is a growing realization that there is an urgent need to distinguish between tools for (save, decentralised) organization and (broad) mobilization that scale up. Social media platforms have mixed the two up (news & personal messages), up to the point of becoming unworkable, exhausting, unleashing mental health crises, on top of creating dangerous situations in terms surveillance. The social media hegemony is not yet broken but there are many cracks in its architecture—and appeal. While the Internet Question seems stagnant and unresolved, the hype caravan has moved on. From VR, crypto and Web3 where now all in the grip of ‘AI' as the latest marketing term for machine learning and large language models that feeds its generic ’summary’ content back into the Web. While the ‘infuencer’ persona is in decline, the mass obsession with likes, views, comments, swiping from one TikTok video to the next, retweets funny memes continues. What will disrupt the 'bored billions’ is the automation of mediactivism (already visible in the current waves of fake news and deep fakes). While officials raise the ethics issue of AI for Good, asking the impossible question how to buid ‘responsible’ extraction software, hackers, designers and other artists are coding subversive tools that disrupt and undermine the totalitarian system of control, ‘polluting’ data bases, turning fake news and monstrous images upside down. The message is clear: the world prepares for planetary cyberwarfare. Are you ready?