Your Computer Is on Fire

by Thomas S. Mullaney (Editor), Benjamin Peters (Editor), Mar Hicks (Editor), Kavita Philip (Editor)

Overview

Techno-utopianism is dead: Now is the time to pay attention to the inequality, marginalization, and biases woven into our technological systems.

This book sounds an alarm: after decades of being lulled into complacency by narratives of technological utopianism and neutrality, people are waking up to the large-scale consequences of Silicon Valley-led technophilia. This book trains a spotlight on the inequality, marginalization, and biases in our technological systems, showing how they are not just minor bugs to be patched, but part and parcel of ideas that assume technology can fix--and control--society.

Contributors
Janet Abbate, Ben Allen, Paul N. Edwards, Nathan Ensmenger, Mar Hicks, Halcyon M. Lawrence, Thomas S. Mullaney, Safiya Umoja Noble, Benjamin Peters, Kavita Philip, Sarah T. Roberts, Sreela Sarkar, Corinna Schlombs, Andrea Stanton, Mitali Thakor, Noah Wardrip-Fruin 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262360784
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	03/09/2021
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	416
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Thomas S. Mullaney is Professor of History at Stanford University and the author of The Chinese Typewriter (MIT Press). Benjamin Peters is Hazel Rogers Associate Professor and Chair of Media Studies at the University of Tulsa and the author of How Not To Network a Nation (MIT Press). Mar Hicks is Associate Professor of History at Illinois Institute of Technology and the author of Programmed Inequality (MIT Press). Kavita Philip is President’s Excellence Chair in Network Cultures at the University of British Columbia, and the author of Civilizing Natures.

Table of Contents

When Did the Fire Start?
Part One | Nothing is Virtual
1 The Cloud is a Factory
2 Your AI is a Human
3 A Network is Not a Network
4 The Internet Will Be Decolonized
5 Capture is Pleasure
Part Two | This is an Emergency
6 Sexism is a Feature, Not a Bug
7 Gender is a Corporate Tool
8 Siri Disciplines
9 Your Robot Isn't Neutral
10 Broken is Word
11 You Can't Make Games About Much
Part Three | Where Will the Fire Spread?
12 Coding is Not Empowerment
13 Source Code Isn't
14 Skills Will Not Set You Free
15 Platforms are Infrastructures on Fire
16 Typing is Dead
How to Stop Worrying about Clean Signals and Start Loving the Noise
How Do We Live Now? In the Aftermath of Ourselves

Editorial Reviews

Strategy & Business Best Business Books 2021, Tech & Innovation

"An all-star collection of readable and complex stories, all aimed at ensuring the naive view of neutral technology gets buried and, please, left in the past." —Public Books

"The collection of impactful tech issues interrogated over the span of decades in this book makes it recommended reading for anyone interested in the impact of tech policy in businesses and governments, as well as people deploying AI or interested in the way people shape technology."
—VentureBeat

"Technology is so embedded in our lives that we can sometimes forget it is there at all. Your Computer is on Fire is a vital reminder not only of its presence, but that we urgently need to extinguish the problems associated with it."
—New Scientist

"The book tech critics and organizers have been waiting for."
—Los Angeles Review of Books

"The authors fearlessly dismantle the technology industry’s most sacred assumptions, forcing a rethinking of everything we’ve come to accept as true about our digital lives and the multibillion-dollar digital transformations going on inside our companies. Titles such as 'Gender Is a Corporate Tool,' 'A Network Is Not a Network,' and 'Coding Is Not Empowerment' pull no punches.”—Strategy & Business

"A compelling case for the value of the humanities – and of history, in particular – in offering us a critical perspective to challenge the fantasies of genius innovators and streamlined progress."—Times Literary Supplement

From the Publisher