Title: Introduction: Harm in Computational Infrastructures
Slug: 01-s2-introduction
Date: 2020-11-01 12:00
Summary: Previously we have become acquainted with a view on *digital infrastructures* that highlights their reparative and connective characteristics. In this track we will trace the term *computational infrastructures,* which forefronts how infrastructures are made from material elements and how they move said elements in the world.
Summary: Previously we have become acquainted with a view on *digital infrastructures* that highlights their reparative and connective characteristics. In this track we will trace the term *computational infrastructures,* which forefronts how infrastructures are shaped by political, economic and social forces, how they are made from material elements and how they move said elements in the world.
Previously we have become acquainted with a view on *digital infrastructures* that highlights their reparative and connective characteristics. In this track we will trace the term *computational infrastructures*, which forefronts how infrastructures are material systems that move all sorts of elements in the world.
Computational infrastructures are complex entities shaped by different technological, social, economical and political dimensions. As is the case with any type of infrastructure, they come with embedded values. Their specificities and configurations shape the possibilities and restrictions of the whole system, defining what can be built on top of them and what not. The logics of computational infrastructures are shaped by global capital, material components, political values, and in turn shape labour relations, environmental ecosystems, as well as the political economies in which they operate.
To formulate a more precise understanding of what computational infrastructures are, how they operate and what forms of harm they produce, we will introduce the work of Seda Gürses in this track.
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content/Track 2 - Harm in Computational Infrastructures/2-introduction-seda.md
Summary: Computational infrastructures and POTs (Protective Optimization Technologies)
Summary: An introduction to computational infrastructures and Protective Optimization Technologies (POTs).
Seda Gürses is an Associate Professor in the Department of Multi-Actor Systems at TU Delft at the Faculty of Technology Policy and Management, a member of The Institute for Technology in the Public Interest and an affiliate at the COSIC Group at the Department of Electrical Engineering (ESAT), KU Leuven. Beyond her academic work, she collaborated with artistic initiatives including Constant vzw, Bootlab, De-center, ESC in Brussels, Graz and Berlin. She is currently part of The Institute for Technology in the Public Interest[^titipi], a trans-practice gathering of activists, artists, engineers and theorists initiated by Myriam Aouragh, Helen Pritchard, Femke Snelting and herself.
@ -9,13 +9,13 @@ Seda Gürses' work on *programmable infrastructures*, developed in collaboration
Gürses (et al.) proposes forms of intervention-based optimization practices in the form of POTs: *protective optimization techniques*. The paper critically enquires current optimization approaches, the interests that feed their design and the way in which they displace their societal impact onto the shoulders of other parties and individuals. A POT is introduced as follows:
> POTs provide means for affected parties to address the negative impacts of systems in the environment, expanding avenues for political contestation. POTs intervene from outside the system, do not require service providers to cooperate, and can serve to correct, shift, or expose harms that systems impose on populations and their environments. (2020, 1)
> POTs provide means for affected parties to address the negative impacts of systems in the environment, expanding avenues for political contestation. POTs intervene from outside the system, do not require service providers to cooperate, and can serve to correct, shift, or expose harms that systems impose on populations and their environments. (2020, 1)
The work departs from a thorough consideration of multiple forms of *harm* caused by computational infrastructures framed as *externalities*[^externalities]. Examples of such externalities include lack of privacy, discrimination, low wages and surveillance. How a *POT* might engage with them is then illustrated through a range of activist, artistic and deployed examples of repurposed optimization technologies. Following Michael A. Jackson’s theory of requirements engineering, it proposes to approach computational infrastructures as being far more than a technological system alone, thus shifting focus from the system itself to the economical, political and social context in which it operates.
We will introduce the work of Gürses and dive with her into the following questions:
* What are computational infrastructures?
* What are computational infrastructures?
* What are elements that shape (or are shaped by) computational infrastructures?
* How can we understand the harm caused by computational infrastructures and the systems which deploy them?
* What interventions are possible to mitigate or eliminate this harm?
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content/Track 3 - Introduction to Bots/1-introduction.md
Summary: This track will go over an introduction to what bots are, what they do and their importance in shaping power relations on digital infrastructures.
Having just unfolded what infrastructural harms could be, we now move to exploring bots. When we say bots, we refer to software applications that automatise certain tasks and can run autonomously or semi-autonomously. Some of the most popular examples include voice assistants such as Alexa or Siri, but they can also be web crawlers indexing the web or even bots maintaining Wikipedia.
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content/Track 3 - Introduction to Bots/2-infrastructural-embodiment.md
Summary: *Communicative bots*, *communicative embodiment* and *infrastructural embodiment*.
Summary: Unpacking the terms *Communicative bots*, *communicative embodiment* and *infrastructural embodiment*.
Andreas Hepp is Professor for Media and Communications at the ZeMKI (Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research), University of Bremen, Germany. In his 2020 article[^paper], mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, he distinguishes three kinds of *communicative bots*: artificial companions, social bots and work bots. For Hepp, communicative bots are characterised through a double embodiment: a *communicative embodiment*, referring to the bots' human-like representation, and an *infrastructural embodiment*, referring to the bots being embedded in the materiality of the infrastructure on which they are active.
Andreas Hepp is Professor for Media and Communications at the ZeMKI (Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research), University of Bremen, Germany. In his 2020 article[^paper], mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, he distinguishes three kinds of *communicative bots*: artificial companions, social bots and work bots. For Hepp, communicative bots are characterised through a double embodiment: a *communicative embodiment*, referring to the bots' human-like representation, and an *infrastructural embodiment*, referring to the bots being embedded in the materiality of the infrastructure on which they are active.
Thinking about the bots in terms of embodiment helps to situate them in relation to digital communication infrastructures and their user base.
Summary: Could bots be a form of digital infrapunctures? Using the proposed concept of *bot logic*, we'll be looking at what kind of user a bot is.
*Infrapuncture* is a helpful term at a time when there is a lot of discussion around the political roles of bots in communication platforms, e.g. their undue influence in political elections or bots which are created in order to harass activists. Making a bot can be a way to probe and understand potential forms of interventions, create new imaginaries or attempt to deflate existing hegemonic structures.
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content/Track 6 - Critical Interventions Through Bots (exercise)/1-introduction.md
Title: Critical Interventions through Bots (exercise)
Slug: 01-s6-step-1
Date: 2020-11-01 12:00
Summary: Start of the bot-making excercise.
Summary: In this track we'll be looking at the materiality of bots. Together we'll go over a simple code template which is connected to a bot running on a Mastodon instance.
In this last track of the module we will make a bot in order to get hands on with the language from which bots are made: code. 🤖
Summary: Here we look at an overview of what we have been discussing in this module.
Summary: This track is an overview of what we have been discussing in this module.
These different tracks have intersected, overlapped and sometimes diverted from one another, taking us along multiple roads that were looking at:
The different tracks of this module have intersected, overlapped and sometimes diverted from one another. Roads that were not smooth or straight took us along multiple paths that were exploring:
* the potential of infrapunctures to address harms caused by digital infrastructures,
* the differences between digital infrastructures, computational infrastructures and platforms and what kind of friction that brings forward,
* the differences between the terms *digital infrastructure*, *computational infrastructure* and *platform* and what kind of frictions emerge from the distinctions,
* how we can start understanding harms around, within and through computational infrastructures,
* bots as infrastructural embodiment,
* bots as infrastructural embodiments,
* examples of bots as possible infrapunctures,
* the proposed term *bot logic* in relation to platform logic,
* bot behaviours,
* bot behaviours.
and two ways to engage with bot logic by writing a fictional scripted dialogue and diving deeper into their materiality by running a simple bot code template which toots on botsin.space.
We also proposed two ways to engage with bot logic:
* by writing a fictional dialogue script to consider the social dimensions in which bots are situated,
* by running a simple code template which toots on the federated Mastodon instance botsin.space to dive deeper into bots' materiality.
While this short module is not a programming lesson, a tutorial, or a set of methodologies to understand the possibilities of bots as infrapunctures, we hope that it can point towards a few ways in which bots either support or challenge the relations and interaction that a digital infrastructure makes possible.
