Posts by David M. Berry
lol - you were the one that originally suggested the term to me back in the day when you sent my your Virtual Geography (I was a PhD student and very grateful!)
Writing on a 2016 PC laptop (Thinkpad), due to my 2024 MacBook having died, creates a real sense of digital friction. It concentrates the mind on the paradigm shift we’re living in.
stunlaw.blogspot.com/2026/03/the-...
Scholarslop: The Dangers of an Algorithmic Idea of the University - great piece by @berrydm.bsky.social
"academics will need to find new means to defend the university and contest the use of scholarslop before it is too late" stunlaw.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-...
Involution and Artificial Intelligence
Geertz observed that just as wet-rice cultivation became increasingly elaborate and labour-intensive without corresponding productivity increases, I want to argue that AI exhibits a form of technological involution.
stunlaw.blogspot.com/2025/07/invo...
Remembering Eliza, one of the first chatbots: Lessons, warnings it holds for AI today indianexpress.com/article/expl...
API: AUTHORITARIAN PROGRAMMING INTERFACE
Why the Trump Administration's Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) access to legacy financial systems is so serious.
stunlaw.blogspot.com/2025/02/api-...
World's first AI chatbot has finally been resurrected after decades
ELIZA is famous as a rudimentary artificial intelligence and the first ever chatbot, but versions online today are actually knock-offs because the original computer code was lost – until now
www.newscientist.com/article/2463...
The reconstruction of historical computer code, what we might call digital ruins, presents unique challenges for digital preservation and historical understanding.
stunlaw.blogspot.com/2025/01/digi...
That’s pretty impressive!
I love the walks around there to Bovisands. Looks great in photo!
As our December issue is due tomorrow, you can check out some interesting articles from the last month, including an article by @berrydm.bsky.social and Mark Marino on ELIZA and Critical Code Studies 20 years after Marino's Critical Code Studies Manifesto. electronicbookreview.com/essay/readin...
Reflections on Method for Critical Code Studies
Critical code studies offers a crucial intervention for understanding the algorithms by studying source code through close reading techniques
stunlaw.blogspot.com/2024/12/refl...
TEAM ELIZA submitted the full draft of our book about the code of the world's first chatbot.
Sarah Ciston, David Berry, Peggy Weil , Jeff Shrager, Arthur Schwarz, Anthony Hay, Mark Marino and Peter Millican with Foreword by Janet Murray
findingeliza.org
This is very interesting. Thanks for sharing.
A better (i.e historically accurate version of ELIZA) is here in case it is useful.
findingeliza.org
IS IT BECAUSE YOU ARE THE BARKER THAT YOU CAME TO ME
It is. ELIZA, I need your help.
electronicbookreview.com?mailpoet_rou...
who could have predicted that the full commodification of all human endeavor would result in feelings of dysphoria and meaninglessness
Very interesting. We pick up this point a bit in this paper: monoskop.org/images/2/21/... also Frederic Kaplan talks about similar ideas
Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art
To create a novel or a painting, an artist makes choices that are fundamentally alien to artificial intelligence.
By Ted Chiang
www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
CfP: Critical Code Studies and Code Conversations
We invite contributions to a Special Issue on Critical Code Studies. We take up the idea of the code conversation as a means of critically interrogating computer source code.
link.springer.com/journal/146/...
#critcode #digitalhumanities
“Universities’ management systems are not up to that task. … The quality of university leadership is variegated: the nimble mixed with the static, the precise blended in with the clumsy, and the forward-looking cheek-by-jowl with the antediluvian. “
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/pol...