Ways of working with the Wayback Machine - Internet Archive Europe Guest post by Jonathan W. Y. Gray. How do researchers, journalists, and artists work with archived pages from the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine? What kinds of tools, methods, and approaches do th...

How do researchers, journalists & artists work with the Wayback Machine?
At a recent gathering in Amsterdam, we explored how web archives support digital investigations, platform research & media art — and how we can build better tools & collaborations.
👉 www.internetarchive.eu/2026/02/18/w...

#2 Critical AI Seminar Series: Vector Media January 13, 17:30-19:00 (CEST): Vector Media This talk presents a new history and theory of the vector space in contemporary artificial intelligence systems. I will argue that the inevitable bias of s...

✨Welcoming Fabian Offer for the next #CriticalAI Seminar (online) on his upcoming book "Vector Media" on January 13, 2026 5:30-7 PM (Amsterdam)✨

The talk presents a new history and theory of the vector space in contemporary #AI systems

🗓️ Register here: www.create.humanities.uva.nl/events/2-cri...

CfP ✨Consider submitting to this fantastic panel on Deep Learning and Culture at the STS NL Conference ✨

Organised by @louravn.bsky.social @annaschjoett.bsky.social Dasha Simons, Paula Helm and Tobias Blanke (@d-eepculture.bsky.social)

Call for Papers n° 19 : Towards New Social and Historical Studies o... Abstracts are due by January 16, 2026. Today public opinion on generative artificial intelligence is deeply divided. Techno-optimistic promises clash with ethical critiques, against the backdrop of...

‪🇬🇧 New RESET call for papers on "Towards New Social and Historical Studies of Artificial Intelligence"!

A special issue edited by @vgoujon.bsky.social, Mathilde Fichen and @alexcampolo.bsky.social

One-page abstracts are due by January 16, 2026: journals.openedition.org/reset/6250

Congrats Alex! Very excited to read it 😃

I have a new paper out in @jhokjournal.bsky.social - "Loss: A notion of error in machine learning." It attempts to draw some wider historical comparisons than are perhaps usual. I would love to know what you think. journalhistoryknowledge.org/article/view...

❗ We are urgently looking for a new Lecturer in Cultural Data & AI at the University of Amsterdam: werkenbij.uva.nl/en/vacancies...

The deadline for applying is very soon: Jan 4th.

You’ll work with @tpoell.bsky.social, @riederb.bsky.social, @dluitse.bsky.social, @louravn.bsky.social, me, & more

We are excited to report that we have started developing our first *Little Tools of Difference*.

While deep learning has been driven by a culture of uniformity, we asked: What if we used these same state-of-the-art architectures to do the opposite?

More prototypes are coming soon, so stay tuned!

Excited to announce @leverhulmecal.bsky.social posts - we are looking for 7 interdisciplinary fellows to join our Leverhulme Centre for Algorithmic Life, closing date 30 January 2026 (1/3) durham.taleo.net/careersectio...

In addition, they will propose a series of critical reading strategies for scholars in the interpretive social sciences and humanities, who, in their own way, face the problem of reading texts for whom they are not the intended audience

In their talk 'On Reading Machine Learning‘, they will reflect on the characteristics of computer science literature, its distinctive tropes, style, and conventions

🚨On November 12, we are delighted to welcome @amoorelouise.bsky.social and @alexcampolo.bsky.social as the opening speakers of the 2025/2026 Critical AI Seminar Series (online)✨

🗓️ November 12, 2025 from 5:00-6:30 PM (CEST) on Zoom

✨Register via: www.create.humanities.uva.nl/events/1-cri...

Google zet gekleurde AI-antwoorden midden in campagnetijd aan, uit, en weer aan GroenLinks-PvdA, D66 en de VVD worden in de antwoorden op algemene politieke vragen het vaakst genoemd. Kleinere partijen komen veel minder vaak aan bod.

With @best.wel.moe and @nieuwsuur.nl, we studied Google's AI Overviews for political searches in the NL. We found that larger parties often benefit and that Google changed its use of AI Overviews *three times* during the run-up to the Dutch elections.

Read the article here: nos.nl/nieuwsuur/ar...

So exciting! Very much looking forward to reading it

Politics of the prompt: Government in the age of generative AI This paper addresses the politics of the technique of prompting in machine learning, at a time when bureaucratic and democratic government is undergoing transformation. Drawing on the case of the U...

Our article on the politics of AI prompts is out now @econsocjournal.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... 1/n

International fellowships to explore AI’s impact on science New £4 million programme funds early career researchers in the UK, US and Canada to investigate how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming science.

✨excited to start my UKRI AI Metascience fellowship, where I’ll examine how AI-generated synthetic data is (re)shaping medical research cultures and knowledge practices. Super happy to be staying at Durham University with @amoorelouise.bsky.social as my mentor!

www.ukri.org/news/interna...

Interview with Louis Ravn Louis Ravn is a PhD Candidate on Deep Culture at the University of Amsterdam, working in the fields of science and technology studies and critical data/AI studies. Moreover, he is assistant editor for...

Super fun to contribute to this brief interview with Terminally Online, a student-led organization on New Media at the University of Amsterdam.

We spoke about my wonderful team‘s research (@d-eepculture.bsky.social), who inspires me, and some of my own work.

🔗: www.linkedin.com/pulse/interv...

What is digital about abstraction? This chapter examines abstraction as a central principle of computing, not merely as a cognitive skill or epistemological category, but as a material and organizational practice that structures how so...

"What is digital about abstraction?" - new chapter by @riederb.bsky.social

arxiv.org/abs/2508.18181

Critical AI seminar series Register via https://bit.ly/uvacriticalai2526 Program and Invited Speakers: Upcoming seminars November 12, 5-6:30 PM (CEST): Invited talk by Louise Amoore and Alexander Campolo, ‘On reading machine learning‘ January 13, 5:30-7 PM (CEST): Invited talk by Fabian Offert on ‘Vector Media‘ March 18, 3-4:30 (CEST): Invited talk by Helene Ratner and Nanna Thylstrup on ‘Ecologies of evaluation’ May 20, 12-1:30 PM (CEST): Invited talk by Thao Phan on ‘Testing-in-the-wild’

🚨The Critical AI Seminar Series returns in 2025/2026 ✨

This year we will have four talks and are beyond excited to welcome @amoorelouise.bsky.social & @alexcampolo.bsky.social, Fabian Offert, Helene Ratner & @nannathylstrup.bsky.social and @thaophan.bsky.social ✨

Sign up: bit.ly/uvacriticala...

New project to investigate societal consequences of using synthetic data to train algorithms Researchers in the University of York’s Department of Sociology will lead one of the first large-scale, systematic social science studies of synthetic data.

I am very excited and honoured to be the recipient of an ERC Starting Grant, starting January 2026 🔆 @erc.europa.eu. The five-year project will explore the broader social, political, and ethical implications of training algorithmic models on synthetic data. www.york.ac.uk/news-and-eve...

"This is a sobering but essential, must-read book. It lays bare the economic dynamics that are driving the development of AI and sheds new light on who will control its future, using which business practices and geopolitical strategies and towards which ends." -Helga Nowotny, Emerita of Science and Technology Studies, ETH Zurich, and former President of the European Research Council "Silicon Empires pulls back the curtain on the AI gold rush, tracking how chips, clouds and capital are marshalled by tech titans and rival states to lock down tomorrow’s power and profits. With clear, panoramic insight, Srnicek slices through the hype to show who wins, who loses; and why the future of AI should belong to all of us." -Mark Graham, Oxford University

I'm excited to share the final cover for Silicon Empires and very grateful for the kind words that others have offered. Pre-order here: www.amazon.co.uk/Silicon-Empi...

Do Artifacts Have Political Economy? - Kean Birch, 2025 Harking back to Langdon Winner's now classic essay “Do artifacts have politics?,” my aim in this article is to ask a very similar question—namely, do artif...

I have a new article out: "Do artifacts have political economy?" It's a riff on an old argument by Langdon Winner about the embedding of politics in technology

#STS #sociology #technoscience #technology #innovation

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

📣 New article out 📣 in the journal Digital Society, where I reflect on the relevance, limitation, and future challenges of studying algorithms through the lens of their referential 'ground truth' datasets

Available here: doi.org/10.1007/s442...

Artificial Intelligence and the ethics of navigating ambiguity - SJ Bennett, 2025 This paper examines ambiguity within AI practice, arguing for an ethics of AI which stays with fundamental ambiguities and accounts for their complex socio-mate...

🎉 A lovely wedding present from Big Data & Society! I bring together an ethnographic study of AI practitioners with Simone de Beauvoir’s ethics of ambiguity, exploring how ambiguity shapes AI practice and ethics
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

⚡Very happy to see another exciting publication out in our Topical Collection of "The Politics of ML Evaluation" in Digital Society!

Dankjewel🙏

✨This Friday (June 6) at #RESAW25 I'm excited to be presenting a methodological follow-up titled "Critical AI technography: Researching the material political economy and power of AI platforms" w/ @fvandervlist.bsky.social

www.mediacoop.uni-siegen.de/datafiedweb/...

Thank you so much to the wonderful jury—Barnita Bagchi, Sudeep Dasgupta and @ferraribraun.bsky.social—for the unanimous recognition; calling the work "a remarkable contribution to the ongoing debates around AI, and the politics of infrastructure more broadly" ✨

The text on the image: Dieuwertje Luitse’s article “Platform Power in AI: the Evolution of Cloud Infrastructure in the Political Economy of Artificial Intelligence” is a remarkable contribution to the ongoing debates around AI, and the politics of infrastructure more broadly. The committee was impressed with Luitse’s capacity to put forward methodological, empirical, and theoretical contributions in one single piece. The notion of “evolutionary platform technography”, which she introduces in this article, is a welcomed addition to the literature on technography as a method, and provides necessary tools to study technical systems characterised by vertical integration and heavy market concentration. The application of these methods in the empirical sections demonstrates remarkable scholarly rigor, and allows her to provide a typology of Big Tech strategies to condition technological innovation. It is hard to think of a more timely contribution to the field, considering the amount of market and political power amassed by the firms that she studied. Finally, this typology offers a valuable – dare I even say crucial – contribution to the theoretical debates around “platform power” in which many ASCA colleagues are involved. For all these reasons, the jury unanimously decided to award her this prize and wholeheartedly congratulates you for penning such an impactful piece of research.

✨ 🎉 I am very grateful and honored to be the recipient of the 2025 Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis Article Award @uvahumanities.bsky.social for my paper "Platform power in AI: The evolution of cloud infrastructures in the political economy of artificial intelligence" (tinyurl.com/ythnj7kf)

Then off to #RESAW25, presenting on the evolving audience data economy w/ @silvertje.bsky.social (Thu), platform histories panel (Fri) w/ @devikanarayan.bsky.social, @bumatic.bsky.social, & on technography for critical AI studies w/ @dluitse.bsky.social. 🔗 www.mediacoop.uni-siegen.de/datafiedweb/...