Technology

A social history of AI that finally reveals its roots in the spatial computation of industrial factories and the surveillance of collective behaviour.

What is AI? A dominant view describes it as the quest "to solve intelligence," a solution supposedly to be found in the secret logic of the mind or in the deep physiology of the brain, such as in its complex neural networks.

The Eye of the Master argues, to the contrary, that the inner code of AI is shaped not by the imitation of biological intelligence, but the intelligence of labour and social relations, as it is found in Babbage's "calculating engines" of the industrial age as well as in the recent algorithms for image recognition and surveillance.

The idea that AI may one day become autonomous (or "sentient", as someone thought of Google's LaMDA) is pure fantasy. Computer algorithms have always imitated the form of social relations and the organisation of labour in their own inner structure and their purpose remains blind automation.

The Eye of the Master urges a new literacy on AI for scientists, journalists and new generations of activists, who should recognise that the "mystery" of AI is just the automation of labour at the highest degree, not intelligence per se.

I want to buy a laptop for a few purposes, not my main laptop:

• Use it to run !localllama@sh.itjust.works stuff and Stable Diffusion.

• Use it for games downloaded from repack sites. So for these two, it would need a decent GPU.

• I would like to pull out the WiFi card. I have offline computers and online computers. No need for this to use the internet.

• I would probably dual-boot Windows and Linux, or else have it boot Windows and use a live USB when I want Linux

Thank you all.

Money is no object.

Win10 x64 but considering switching that as well btw

Update: I tried Calligra and it crashed in a minute, reinstalling LibreOffice worked tho

Is there any laptop with a good webcam ?

4 years ago, the WSJ made a video testing some laptop webcam (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daqPLDDAntA). They all sucked. Do you know if it is still the case ?

I'm sharing this because it's fun, and can be a nice diversion from all the doomscrolling. There are lots of puzzles and random digital knick knacks. Enjoy!