Accompanying the proliferation of generative AI have been parallel increases in AI optimist and doomer discourses. Here, Ruby Thelot critiques AI doomerism through an eschatological lens, arguing that the narratives AI doomers trumpet about the impending doom of superintelligent AI mirror those found in Judeo-Christian religious texts about the end of times.

In his upcoming book, Your Data Will Be Used Against You, Andrew Guthrie Ferguson examines how the ubiquity of technological self-surveillance both exposes us to potential government overreach and can help police solve crimes. In the introduction, reproduced here, Ferguson lays out examples of potential government exploitation of self-surveillance data to use in prosecution and explains how much the law trails technological advances.

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Originally published in his Substack, Asian Labor Futures, this piece by 2024 Just Tech Fellow Kriangsak Teerakowitkajorn examines the labor conditions of data workers in Asian countries whose work props up AI and tech companies from the shadows. He concludes by outlining potential paths for greater worker inclusion in policymaking.