July 2022 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

What the Metaverse Is (Really) and Why We Need to Know About It

by don Luca Peyron

Un buon pezzo da un punto di vista diverso dal solito Buona lettura dl https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/cyber.2022.0124 _________________________ don Luca Peyron Direttore Ufficio per la Pastorale Universitaria Arcidiocesi di Torino www.universitari.to.it via XX settembre 83, Torino tel. 011 5156239

July 13, 2022

ANNUAL CONFERENCE of the Master in Intellectual Property | 15 luglio 2022, ore 9.15-13.00

by Nexa Media

Gentilissimi, Vi invitiamo a partecipare alla *Conferenza Annuale del Master in Intellectual Property*: /*International Seminar on "Intellectual Property, Resilience and Recovery"*/, organizzato dal World Intellectual Property Organization, ITC ILO e Università di Torino, che si terrà *venerdì 15 luglio*, dalle ore 9.15 alle ore 13.00, presso il Centro Internazionale di Formazione dell'Organizzazione Internazionale del Lavoro, Viale Maestri del Lavoro, 10 - Torino. L'evento sarà inoltre fruibile on-line qui <https://itcilo-org.zoom.us/j/81866346384?pwd=a0loNXRlbnBNeCs5M2ZlRGh2QW94dz…>. Passcode: 12345 Partecipano al convegno, tra gli altri: *Prof. Alessandro Cogo*, Faculty Fellow del Centro Nexa, Università degli studi di Torino; *Prof. Maurizio Borghi*, Trustee del Centro Nexa, Università degli studi di Torino; *Prof. Marco Ricolfi*, Co-Fondatore e Co-Direttore del Centro Nexa, Università degli studi di Torino. Maggiori informazioni e il programma completo della conferenza sono disponibili alla pagina: https://nexa.polito.it/annual-conference-master-intellectual-property <https://nexa.polito.it/annual-conference-master-intellectual-property> <https://nexa.polito.it/annual-conference-master-intellectual-property> Si prega di confermare la propria partecipazione, sia online che in presenza, al seguente indirizzo email: llm_ip(a)itcilo.org Cordiali saluti, -- Anita Botta Communication Manager Nexa Center for Internet & Society Politecnico di Torino – DAUIN Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24 - 10129 Torino web: https://nexa.polito.it/ mail: anita.botta(a)polito.it tel: 011 090 7219

July 13, 2022

"Meet the Ex-CIA Agents Deciding Facebook’s Content Policy"

by J.C. DE MARTIN

*Meet the Ex-CIA Agents Deciding Facebook’s Content Policy * Alan Macleod July 12th, 2022 It is an uncomfortable job for anyone trying to draw the line between “harmful content and protecting freedom of speech. It’s a balance”, Aaron says. In this official Facebook video <https://about.facebook.com/regulations/>, Aaron identifies himself as the manager of “the team that writes the rules for Facebook”, determining “what is acceptable and what is not.” Thus, he and his team effectively decide what content the platform’s 2.9 billion active users see and what they don’t see. Aaron is being interviewed in a bright warehouse-turned-studio. He is wearing a purple sweater and blue jeans. He comes across as a very likable, smiley person. It is not an easy job, of course, but someone has to make those calls. “Transparency is incredibly important in the work that I do,” he says. Aaron is CIA. Or at least he was until July 2019, when he left his job as a senior analytic manager at the agency to become senior product policy manager for misinformation at Meta, the company that owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. In his 15-year career, Aaron Berman rose to become a highly influential part of the CIA. For years, he prepared and edited the president of the United States’ daily brief, “wr[iting] and overs[eeing] intelligence analysis to enable the President and senior U.S. officials to make decisions on the most critical national security issues,” especially on “the impact of influence operations on social movements, security, and democracy,” his LinkedIn profile <https://www.mintpressnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/FireShot-Capture-0…> reads. None of this is mentioned in the Facebook video. [...] continua qui: https://www.mintpressnews.com/meet-ex-cia-agents-deciding-facebook-content-…

July 13, 2022

Inside a radical new project to democratize AI - A group of over 1,000 AI researchers has created a multilingual large language model bigger than GPT-3—and they’re giving it out for free

by Vetro' Antonio

Segnalo il lancio del nuovo modello linguistico BLOOM che potrebbe stabilire nuovi standard di responsabilità nel settore dell’ IA: secondo quanto riportato dall’articolo del MIT review indicato sotto: è stato costruito da più di 1000 ricercatori, usando una grande varietà di sorgenti dati per le diverse lingue, condividendo i dettagli sulla raccolta dei dati, l'addestramento, il test, e l’uso del modello è disciplinato da una licenza di “AI responsabile” https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/07/12/1055817/inside-a-radical-new-pr… antonio

July 12, 2022

The Uber files | The Guardian

by Alberto Cammozzo

<https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/uber-files> In particolare segnalo due pezzi: <https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/jul/12/uber-paid-academics-six-figure…> Uber paid high-profile academics in Europe and the US hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce reports that could be used as part of the company’s lobbying campaign. The Uber files, a cache of thousands of confidential documents leaked to the Guardian, reveal lucrative deals with several leading academics who were paid to publish research on the benefits of its economic model. The reports were commissioned as Uber wrestled with regulators in key cities around the world. University economists were targeted in France and Germany where enforcement by the authorities was increasingly fierce in 2014-15. One report by a French academic, who asked for a €100,000 consultancy fee, was cited in a 2016 Financial Times report as evidence that Uber was a “route out of the French banlieues”, delighting Uber executives. <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/11/uber-files-democracy-…> There were taxis before there was Uber, just as there were bookshops before Amazon and friends before Facebook. A large part of innovation is new ways to deliver old ideas. Technology gives the innovator an edge by lowering costs, enabling nimbler delivery and outcompeting established traders who are stuck with obsolescent methods. That is the foundational myth of Silicon Valley folklore. It was the story that Uber propagated about itself in the years of its most explosive growth from a service for hailing rides around San Francisco to a global tech powerhouse. Here was the archetypal digital disruption – an app to match demand to supply with a slickness that blew competition off the road. When those competitors (licensed taxi drivers) complained, their objections were dismissed by the newcomer as the death rattle of monopolists and luddites who were getting in the way of progress. There was then, and still is, an argument to be had about regulation that inhibits innovation, and when it needs to change in step with changing times. That debate looks somewhat different in the light of leaked communications, dating from between 2014 and 2017 and published yesterday by the Guardian, showing the ruthless, aggressive methods that Uber used to force entry into various markets around the world. The company’s mercenary ethos is encapsulated in an exchange between senior executives discussing the threat to Uber drivers from attack in Paris, when the city’s established taxi operators went on strike. Travis Kalanick, Uber’s co-founder and former chief executive, wanted his drivers to defy the strike with mass civil disobedience. When warned that this might provoke violent retaliation, Kalanick responded: “I think it’s worth it. Violence guarantee[s] success.” The implication, which Uber denies, is that the company saw the threat to its drivers as part of a suite of public relations tools, alongside its many levers of private influence, to press for regulatory change. The scale of that operation, recruiting top politicians and power brokers around the globe to agitate for the company’s interests, is breathtaking. (Also expensive. In 2016 alone, the company spent $90m on lobbying.) Uber now says it is under different management with a different modus operandi. Kalanick left the company in 2017. It’s not unusual for an ambitious young company to pursue commercial interests with abrasive force. Ruthlessness is a historic driver of economic evolution. Some innovators have a philanthropic streak, others are rapacious. The pattern across history is that technology smashes its way into an economy and only later, once the wider implications are visible, does society organise a political response to mitigate the downsides. The Industrial Revolution generated phenomenal wealth for industrialists before there were laws against child labour. It took workers organising themselves into trade unions to bring a counterweight to forces that tended naturally towards mass exploitation and poverty pay. (Only last year, the UK supreme court upheld an employment tribunal ruling against Uber, which had claimed that it didn’t need to provide its drivers with the minimum wage, paid leave or pensions because they were not technically categorised as workers.) The success of liberal democracy – the best model yet devised for organising people into prosperous and free societies – depends on a balance between the wealth-generating impetus of the market and the obligations politics must impose on business for the greater good. Today, the difference between mainstream left and right in economic policy has come down to the question of where to adjust the levels between those competing demands; where the emphasis falls between the individual freedom to get rich and the collective duty to share. Periodically that distinction is declared irrelevant by the forward march of history. But it keeps bouncing back. The Marxist project to eliminate capitalism entirely degenerated into tyranny and bankruptcy wherever it was tried in the 20th century. That failure was then seized as moral vindication by free-market fundamentalists who saw any state regulation of the economy as an assault on liberty. The post-cold war triumphalist moment for the west coincided with the digital revolution, producing a culture of arrogance and political complacency around the new-tech economy. The Silicon Valley ethos combined California’s gold-rush model of lawless capitalism with traces of utopian evangelism that the hippies had brought to San Francisco. The result was a cultish veneration of the internet startup as a new kind of business to which old rules did not apply, and whose purpose was improving humanity as well as making money. The Uber files are a snapshot of a particular moment – the peak of political credulity and negligence around the growing power of tech companies. But the basic rules of the new digital economy turned out to be not so different from the old analogue ones. The type of regulation that might be needed to restrain corporate excess will be different in sectors that didn’t exist a generation ago. The pattern of politics getting captured by corporate lobbyists is dismally familiar. The revelation of Uber’s sharp practices tells a simple truth about the tech revolution. It is the same one that is told by the arduous working conditions in an Amazon warehouse and the poisoned reservoirs of public debate where Facebook discharges hatred and misinformation. The cost of innovation might be invisible to the consumer, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. And the job of democratic politicians is to be guardians of public interest, not the lubricants to private gain.

July 12, 2022

Memento | 153° Mercoledì di Nexa | 13 Luglio 2022

by Nexa Media

Gentilissimi, vi ricordiamo che *mercoledì 13 luglio**,**alle ore 18.00*, si svolgerà il 153° Mercoledì di Nexa, con un incontro dal titolo: /*"I meccanismi di cooperazione e coerenza per la definizione di casi relativi a trattamenti transfrontalieri a quattro anni dall'applicazione del GDPR"*/. Ospite: *Monica A. Senor* (Funzionario presso l'Autorità garante per la protezione dei dati personali e Fellow Centro Nexa). L'Avv. Senor, partendo da un'analisi sul concreto funzionamento dei meccanismi di cooperazione e coerenza e di alcune importanti decisioni su casi transfrontalieri adottate nell'ultimo anno, svilupperà nel corso dell'incontro alcune considerazioni sul tema dell'enforcement del GDPR e sulle sue prospettive future, anche alla luce del pacchetto digitale e sulla strategia dei dati della Commissione europea. Sarà possibile partecipare al seminario connettendosi al seguente indirizzo: https://didattica.polito.it/VClass/NexaEvent Sarà possibile guardare la diretta streaming dell'incontro al seguente link: https://youtu.be/tfzg3Y3IzoA Maggiori informazioni sull'evento sono disponibili alla pagina: https://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi-153 Vi ricordiamo che trattandosi dell'ultimo Mercoledì di Nexa prima della pausa estiva al termine dell'incontro ci sarà, come di consueto, un brindisi virtuali per salutarci e augurarci buone vacanze. Cordialmente,   -- Anita Botta Communication Manager Nexa Center for Internet & Society Politecnico di Torino – DAUIN Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24 - 10129 Torino web: https://nexa.polito.it/ mail: anita.botta(a)polito.it tel: 011 090 7219

July 11, 2022

Re: [nexa] Could new countries be founded – on the internet? | Sam Venis

by Italo Vignoli

Curioso soprattutto il fatto che a proporre un contraltare ai walled garden delle grandi aziende private multinazionali sia una persona che utilizza OnlyOffice per poter usare il formato proprietario Microsoft, che è la massima espressione del walled garden. Spiace dirlo, ma chi utilizza il formato Microsoft per i propri documenti è estraneo al mondo del software libero e open source, in quanto supporta la principale strategia di lock-in di Microsoft e dei suoi "soci" come OnlyOffice, e non aiuta a educare il resto del mondo all'utilizzo degli standard aperti (OOXML non è uno standard sotto nessun punto di vista, e ovviamente non è aperto). On 7/7/22 17:18, Giuseppe Attardi wrote: > Curioso. > > Nel mio TedTalk a ottobre scorso su "Distopia o Utopia: > l’Intelligenza Artificiale nel 2050”, introdussi il concetto di Utopia > Virtuale, ossia di gruppi di persone che si costituiscono in comunità > rette dalle proprie regole, ispirate a principi condivisi dalla comunità. > Le Utopie Virtuali dovrebbero superare gli stati nazionali e costituire > un contraltare alle grandi aziende private multinazionali, che > ingabbiano le persone all’interno dei loro walled garden, obbligandole a > seguire le loro regole, orientate a massimizzare loro interessi privati. > > Ho elaborato l'idea in questo articolo: > > https://personal.onlyoffice.com/products/files/doceditor?fileid=drive-63308… > <https://personal.onlyoffice.com/products/files/doceditor?fileid=drive-63308…> ho > > > Stavo aspettando qualcuno che mi aiutasse ad articolare questa visione e > a farla circolare, e mi auguro che sia Srinivasan a riuscirci. > In realtà avrei preferito che la visione nascesse dal b asso, da una > elaborazione condivisa, comunque un libro può essere un buon punto di > partenza. > > — Beppe > >> On 5 Jul 2022, at 15:46, nexa-request(a)server-nexa.polito.it >> <mailto:nexa-request@server-nexa.polito.it> wrote: >> >> From: Alberto Cammozzo <ac+nexa(a)zeromx.net <mailto:ac+nexa@zeromx.net>> >> To: Nexa <nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it <mailto:nexa@server-nexa.polito.it>> >> Subject: [nexa] Could new countries be founded – on the internet? | >> Sam Venis >> Message-ID: <CC0A1DBF-F2CC-4F21-BBE1-EAAC9CDCD571(a)zeromx.net >> <mailto:CC0A1DBF-F2CC-4F21-BBE1-EAAC9CDCD571@zeromx.net>> >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" >> >> <https://es.sonicurlprotection-fra.com/click?PV=2&MSGID=20220705134620025998… >> <https://es.sonicurlprotection-fra.com/click?PV=2&MSGID=20220705134620025998…>> >> >> In The Network State, a buzzy new book by Balaji Srinivasan, the >> former chief technology officer of Coinbase, poses a devious question: >> how do you Larp a country into existence? >> >> Released provocatively this 4 July, the book presents Srinivasan’s >> case for a new model of digital statehood run and managed in the >> cloud. A network state, as he describes it, is basically a group of >> people who get together on the internet and decide that they’re going >> to start a country. With a social network to connect them, a leader to >> unite them, and a cryptocurrency to protect their assets, Srinivasan >> says a country can be born with laws, social services and all. A >> network state is a country that “anyone can start from your computer, >> beginning by building a following” – not unlike companies, >> cryptocurrencies, or decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). In >> a world where billionaires can run companies larger than countries, >> Srinivasan asks, could such a state achieve recognition from the >> United Nations? >> >> Like all utopian visions, this one, too, is diagnostic – an answer to >> a growing list of “wicked” social problems like surveillance >> capitalism, economic stagnation, political polarization, and conflict >> among great powers. Just when we need leaders to solve our problems, >> Balaji argues, they are failing, and the reason isn’t just corruption >> or incompetence – the reason is technological. Central government is >> simply no longer capable of addressing our needs because the world for >> which it was designed has changed. >> >> The internet, for example, has made place less important, so national >> borders seem increasingly arbitrary. And cryptocurrencies like bitcoin >> have proven that if enough people believe in the value of an idea you >> can create something worth trillions of dollars. Software has made it >> so that a few engineers can outcompete nations (think hacker groups >> and startups). And, in the age of social networks, millions of >> anonymous people can fit into groups that act and coordinate together; >> just look at r/wallstreetbets and Gamestop. >> >> “Very few institutions that predated the internet will survive the >> internet,” Srinivasan said recently, in a lecture describing the book. >> So the solution, he argues, is to build an institution based on it. >> Here’s how it would work: a person on Twitter decides to start a >> country so they float the idea to their pals and begin to gather >> recruits. They put together a vision statement and a list of values, >> and soon enough people begin to join and tell their friends. It starts >> off like a social network. >> >> By pooling their money and lending their skills, the community begins >> to develop social services and spawn its own mini-culture, providing >> things like healthcare and insurance and passports and dope parties. >> With something like a hybrid of Twitter and Discord, they could >> connect, share ideas, and vote (think up- and down-voting on your >> favorite legislation). And with a currency like bitcoin, they could >> control their own money supply and protect their funds from >> encroaching governments. First they would buy small plots of land, >> like a national Soho house, and eventually, they would begin to >> migrate into chosen cities – probably to sympathetic jurisdictions >> like Miami, which, Srinivasan says, will compete to acquire these >> brave new digital citizens. >> >> To make it happen, no wars need to be fought and no laws need to be >> violated. With rockstar leaders to blaze their path and negotiate on >> the international stage, these new states would slowly but surely >> obtain rights and recognition, eventually breaking off from their home >> countries once and for all. When it works, Srinivasan writes, “it will >> eventually become a template … the modern version of Jefferson’s >> natural aristocracy.” First, there was Brexit; then other movements >> like Wexit; now, a few years later, there’s a new romantic vision of >> escape for techies – “Texit”? >> >> When The Network State drops this week it is likely to solicit a >> number of heated reactions. Some, grumbling about rightwing Silicon >> Valley figures like Peter Thiel and Curtis Yarvin, will call the ideas >> of The Network State fascist and tyrannical, and others, likely those >> on the libertarian right, will call it visionary and scholarly. >> Srinivasan, you might hear from them, is a soothsayer – a >> truth-teller. But beneath the posturing there will be a lingering >> question: is any of this actually possible? >> >> While the concept might bend our idea of nationality, the fact remains >> that a lot of precursors already exist. Consider Dudeism, a religion >> based on a character from the Coen Brothers’ 1998 film, with a >> reported population of 450,000 Dudeist priests. Or even, as Srinivasan >> points out, the state of Israel, which brought together a people >> scattered around the world and organized them around a common ideal. >> Many countries, Srinivasan says, that are recognized by the UN have >> populations around five to 10 million people with economies much >> smaller than what an equal size of tech workers might produce. That a >> bunch of crypto bros might test their fate on an eccentric leader >> doesn’t seem too far-fetched. Plus, the tech already exists. >> >> And with over 650,000 Twitter followers – an army of young, tech-savvy >> and politically credulous acolytes – Srinivasan might just be the man >> to do it. There’s an expression that circulates on Twitter about him >> every so often: that “Balaji was right” is the most terrifying phrase >> in the English language. Among the crypto-rich and the billionaire >> class this book will be positioned as a north star, levied to support >> the long-running claim that technologists can run society better than >> the bureaucrats. And now, with this book, Srinivasan has given them >> the framework to prove it. >> >> What doesn’t fit so neatly into Srinivasan’s vision are little things >> like death and ageing and sickness. How will poverty be dealt with in >> a network state? “The future,” he wrote in 2015, “is nationalists vs >> technologists. A full-throated, jealous defender of borders, language, >> and culture. Or a rootless cosmopolitan with a laptop, bent on callow >> disruption.” It’s romantic, sure, but one could ask: what about people >> that just want a stable job? >> >> Of course, Srinivasan isn’t the first technologist to offer a tarot >> reading of our tech-mediated future. In 2019, the theorist Aaron >> Bastani wrote another popular formulation, this one from the left, >> explaining how robots will make us all rich. His book Fully Automated >> Luxury Communism starts with the same general diagnoses: that we’re >> going into the third industrial revolution, that we’re at an epochal >> moment of human history, that technology has rendered our systems >> obsolete. But his conclusion, as the title suggests, is that we need >> more centralization, not less. Let the robots do our work, the book >> argues, and let us enjoy the spoils. Hunger, disease, energy crises, >> jobs – these will all be relics of a scarce and squalid past that came >> before the age of abundance. The future is the nanny state, Bastani >> suggests – only better. >> >> What these visions point to is a growing cleavage among the strange >> cohort of people who call themselves futurists. On the one hand, there >> are those who imagine a world of centralization, marked by super-blocs >> and mass redistribution of wealth. And on the other, there are those >> who claim that the world already mirrors the feudal systems of yore. >> In this sort of vision, like the one offered by Balaji Srinivasan, >> fragmentation is on the docket and rugged individualism is the >> outstanding moral code. And this book, or better yet, this playbook, >> is just the first attempt to make it official. > > > _______________________________________________ > nexa mailing list > nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it > https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa -- Italo Vignoli - italo(a)vignoli.org mobile/signal +39.348.5653829 GPG Key ID - 0xAAB8D5C0 DB75 1534 3FD0 EA5F 56B5 FDA6 DE82 934C AAB8 D5C0

July 8, 2022

Re: [nexa] Could new countries be founded – on the internet? | Sam Venis

by Alberto Cammozzo

Grazie Giuseppe, sentendo il bisogno estremo e direi urgente di una risposta a quella che definisci una "visione unificata di società", al punto da rimpiangere la contrapposizione ideologica di una volta che almeno denunciava una diversità di valori, mi permetto di fare due osservazioni che spero siano considerate costruttive. In primo luogo, temo che si senta assai poco il bisogno di utopie nella gente comune; vedo invece molto più definita l'utopia dei monopolisti tecnologici che vogliono disfarsi di sindacati e degli stati cui devono pagare le tasse e che potrebbero regolamentare contro di loro. Questi mi paiono molto più efficaci nel guadagnare le masse (o meglio -per usare la terminologia di Google- gli stormi o le coorti di utenti) alla propria utopia di quanto lo siano Berners-Lee o GNU. Per carità, si vedono dei movimenti, ma non li definirei ideologici o utopistici: sono ancora al livello di definizione delle tecnologie dalle quali dovrebbe derivare una libertà dalle piattaforme. Ovviamente la libertà non verrà da uno tecnologia o dall'altra, ma dal sistema di valori che questa serve. La consapevolezza è bassa: rabbrividisco vedendo che si organizza su Facebook perfino Extinction Rebellion, forse il più forte rappresentante di una utopia (o perlomeno di una protesta) ecologista globale, sapendo che pongono così le basi alla propria stessa estinzione globale appena venisse dichiarata organizzazione terroristica da un solo stato "importante". Come tu stesso accenni parlando di Meta, i veri "utopisti" di oggi sono proprio le multinazionali che le utopie virtuali dovrebbero combattere. E hanno questa facoltà perché rappresentano un modello di valori che non è in discussione e non ha alternative. In quel modello sono i più forti. In secondo luogo nei recenti avvenimenti globali vedo una "vendetta del territorio" sulle varie virtualità: in ultima istanza i cittadini sono sempre soggetti non solo alla necessità materiale di trovarsi in un luogo, ma a un codice giuridico esclusivo ad estensione prettamente territoriale che riguarda quel luogo. Nonostante la rete possa essere un sollievo, chi sta chiuso in un grattacielo a Shanghai resta chiuso li dentro. Come si comporterebbe una comunità utopica virtuale, per quanto sovranazionale, che rifiuti, poniamo, la vaccinazione o il supporto ad uno dei fronti bellici? O più banalmente come affronterebbe la mancanza di acqua dai rubinetti? A cosa gioverebbe farne parte? Il territorio si è ripreso un posto: o il virtuale riesce a stare al passo, o non manterrà troppe promesse. Vale la pena ricordare la sorte dell'utopia socialista, che pur vantava una forte base sovranazionale, dopo due guerre mondiali. Grazie e un saluto! Alberto On 07/07/22 17:18, Giuseppe Attardi wrote: > Curioso. > > Nel mio TedTalk a ottobre scorso su "Distopia o Utopia: > l’Intelligenza Artificiale nel 2050”, introdussi il concetto di Utopia > Virtuale, ossia di gruppi di persone che si costituiscono in comunità > rette dalle proprie regole, ispirate a principi condivisi dalla comunità. > Le Utopie Virtuali dovrebbero superare gli stati nazionali e > costituire un contraltare alle grandi aziende private multinazionali, > che ingabbiano le persone all’interno dei loro walled garden, > obbligandole a seguire le loro regole, orientate a massimizzare loro > interessi privati. > > Ho elaborato l'idea in questo articolo: > > https://personal.onlyoffice.com/products/files/doceditor?fileid=drive-63308… > <https://personal.onlyoffice.com/products/files/doceditor?fileid=drive-63308…> ho > > > Stavo aspettando qualcuno che mi aiutasse ad articolare questa visione > e a farla circolare, e mi auguro che sia Srinivasan a riuscirci. > In realtà avrei preferito che la visione nascesse dal b asso, da una > elaborazione condivisa, comunque un libro può essere un buon punto di > partenza. > > — Beppe > >> On 5 Jul 2022, at 15:46, nexa-request(a)server-nexa.polito.it wrote: >> >> From: Alberto Cammozzo <ac+nexa(a)zeromx.net> >> To: Nexa <nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it> >> Subject: [nexa] Could new countries be founded – on the internet? | >> Sam Venis >> Message-ID: <CC0A1DBF-F2CC-4F21-BBE1-EAAC9CDCD571(a)zeromx.net> >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" >> >> <https://es.sonicurlprotection-fra.com/click?PV=2&MSGID=20220705134620025998… >> <https://es.sonicurlprotection-fra.com/click?PV=2&MSGID=20220705134620025998…>> >> >> In The Network State, a buzzy new book by Balaji Srinivasan, the >> former chief technology officer of Coinbase, poses a devious >> question: how do you Larp a country into existence? >> >> Released provocatively this 4 July, the book presents Srinivasan’s >> case for a new model of digital statehood run and managed in the >> cloud. A network state, as he describes it, is basically a group of >> people who get together on the internet and decide that they’re going >> to start a country. With a social network to connect them, a leader >> to unite them, and a cryptocurrency to protect their assets, >> Srinivasan says a country can be born with laws, social services and >> all. A network state is a country that “anyone can start from your >> computer, beginning by building a following” – not unlike companies, >> cryptocurrencies, or decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). >> In a world where billionaires can run companies larger than >> countries, Srinivasan asks, could such a state achieve recognition >> from the United Nations? >> >> Like all utopian visions, this one, too, is diagnostic – an answer to >> a growing list of “wicked” social problems like surveillance >> capitalism, economic stagnation, political polarization, and conflict >> among great powers. Just when we need leaders to solve our problems, >> Balaji argues, they are failing, and the reason isn’t just corruption >> or incompetence – the reason is technological. Central government is >> simply no longer capable of addressing our needs because the world >> for which it was designed has changed. >> >> The internet, for example, has made place less important, so national >> borders seem increasingly arbitrary. And cryptocurrencies like >> bitcoin have proven that if enough people believe in the value of an >> idea you can create something worth trillions of dollars. Software >> has made it so that a few engineers can outcompete nations (think >> hacker groups and startups). And, in the age of social networks, >> millions of anonymous people can fit into groups that act and >> coordinate together; just look at r/wallstreetbets and Gamestop. >> >> “Very few institutions that predated the internet will survive the >> internet,” Srinivasan said recently, in a lecture describing the >> book. So the solution, he argues, is to build an institution based on >> it. Here’s how it would work: a person on Twitter decides to start a >> country so they float the idea to their pals and begin to gather >> recruits. They put together a vision statement and a list of values, >> and soon enough people begin to join and tell their friends. It >> starts off like a social network. >> >> By pooling their money and lending their skills, the community begins >> to develop social services and spawn its own mini-culture, providing >> things like healthcare and insurance and passports and dope parties. >> With something like a hybrid of Twitter and Discord, they could >> connect, share ideas, and vote (think up- and down-voting on your >> favorite legislation). And with a currency like bitcoin, they could >> control their own money supply and protect their funds from >> encroaching governments. First they would buy small plots of land, >> like a national Soho house, and eventually, they would begin to >> migrate into chosen cities – probably to sympathetic jurisdictions >> like Miami, which, Srinivasan says, will compete to acquire these >> brave new digital citizens. >> >> To make it happen, no wars need to be fought and no laws need to be >> violated. With rockstar leaders to blaze their path and negotiate on >> the international stage, these new states would slowly but surely >> obtain rights and recognition, eventually breaking off from their >> home countries once and for all. When it works, Srinivasan writes, >> “it will eventually become a template … the modern version of >> Jefferson’s natural aristocracy.” First, there was Brexit; then other >> movements like Wexit; now, a few years later, there’s a new romantic >> vision of escape for techies – “Texit”? >> >> When The Network State drops this week it is likely to solicit a >> number of heated reactions. Some, grumbling about rightwing Silicon >> Valley figures like Peter Thiel and Curtis Yarvin, will call the >> ideas of The Network State fascist and tyrannical, and others, likely >> those on the libertarian right, will call it visionary and scholarly. >> Srinivasan, you might hear from them, is a soothsayer – a >> truth-teller. But beneath the posturing there will be a lingering >> question: is any of this actually possible? >> >> While the concept might bend our idea of nationality, the fact >> remains that a lot of precursors already exist. Consider Dudeism, a >> religion based on a character from the Coen Brothers’ 1998 film, with >> a reported population of 450,000 Dudeist priests. Or even, as >> Srinivasan points out, the state of Israel, which brought together a >> people scattered around the world and organized them around a common >> ideal. Many countries, Srinivasan says, that are recognized by the UN >> have populations around five to 10 million people with economies much >> smaller than what an equal size of tech workers might produce. That a >> bunch of crypto bros might test their fate on an eccentric leader >> doesn’t seem too far-fetched. Plus, the tech already exists. >> >> And with over 650,000 Twitter followers – an army of young, >> tech-savvy and politically credulous acolytes – Srinivasan might just >> be the man to do it. There’s an expression that circulates on Twitter >> about him every so often: that “Balaji was right” is the most >> terrifying phrase in the English language. Among the crypto-rich and >> the billionaire class this book will be positioned as a north star, >> levied to support the long-running claim that technologists can run >> society better than the bureaucrats. And now, with this book, >> Srinivasan has given them the framework to prove it. >> >> What doesn’t fit so neatly into Srinivasan’s vision are little things >> like death and ageing and sickness. How will poverty be dealt with in >> a network state? “The future,” he wrote in 2015, “is nationalists vs >> technologists. A full-throated, jealous defender of borders, >> language, and culture. Or a rootless cosmopolitan with a laptop, bent >> on callow disruption.” It’s romantic, sure, but one could ask: what >> about people that just want a stable job? >> >> Of course, Srinivasan isn’t the first technologist to offer a tarot >> reading of our tech-mediated future. In 2019, the theorist Aaron >> Bastani wrote another popular formulation, this one from the left, >> explaining how robots will make us all rich. His book Fully Automated >> Luxury Communism starts with the same general diagnoses: that we’re >> going into the third industrial revolution, that we’re at an epochal >> moment of human history, that technology has rendered our systems >> obsolete. But his conclusion, as the title suggests, is that we need >> more centralization, not less. Let the robots do our work, the book >> argues, and let us enjoy the spoils. Hunger, disease, energy crises, >> jobs – these will all be relics of a scarce and squalid past that >> came before the age of abundance. The future is the nanny state, >> Bastani suggests – only better. >> >> What these visions point to is a growing cleavage among the strange >> cohort of people who call themselves futurists. On the one hand, >> there are those who imagine a world of centralization, marked by >> super-blocs and mass redistribution of wealth. And on the other, >> there are those who claim that the world already mirrors the feudal >> systems of yore. In this sort of vision, like the one offered by >> Balaji Srinivasan, fragmentation is on the docket and rugged >> individualism is the outstanding moral code. And this book, or better >> yet, this playbook, is just the first attempt to make it official. > > > _______________________________________________ > nexa mailing list > nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it > https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa

July 7, 2022

Re: [nexa] Could new countries be founded – on the internet? | Sam Venis

by Giuseppe Attardi

Curioso. Nel mio TedTalk a ottobre scorso su "Distopia o Utopia: l’Intelligenza Artificiale nel 2050”, introdussi il concetto di Utopia Virtuale, ossia di gruppi di persone che si costituiscono in comunità rette dalle proprie regole, ispirate a principi condivisi dalla comunità. Le Utopie Virtuali dovrebbero superare gli stati nazionali e costituire un contraltare alle grandi aziende private multinazionali, che ingabbiano le persone all’interno dei loro walled garden, obbligandole a seguire le loro regole, orientate a massimizzare loro interessi privati. Ho elaborato l'idea in questo articolo: https://personal.onlyoffice.com/products/files/doceditor?fileid=drive-63308… ho Stavo aspettando qualcuno che mi aiutasse ad articolare questa visione e a farla circolare, e mi auguro che sia Srinivasan a riuscirci. In realtà avrei preferito che la visione nascesse dal b asso, da una elaborazione condivisa, comunque un libro può essere un buon punto di partenza. — Beppe > On 5 Jul 2022, at 15:46, nexa-request(a)server-nexa.polito.it wrote: > > From: Alberto Cammozzo <ac+nexa(a)zeromx.net <mailto:ac+nexa@zeromx.net>> > To: Nexa <nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it <mailto:nexa@server-nexa.polito.it>> > Subject: [nexa] Could new countries be founded – on the internet? | > Sam Venis > Message-ID: <CC0A1DBF-F2CC-4F21-BBE1-EAAC9CDCD571(a)zeromx.net <mailto:CC0A1DBF-F2CC-4F21-BBE1-EAAC9CDCD571@zeromx.net>> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > <https://es.sonicurlprotection-fra.com/click?PV=2&MSGID=20220705134620025998… <https://es.sonicurlprotection-fra.com/click?PV=2&MSGID=20220705134620025998…>> > > In The Network State, a buzzy new book by Balaji Srinivasan, the former chief technology officer of Coinbase, poses a devious question: how do you Larp a country into existence? > > Released provocatively this 4 July, the book presents Srinivasan’s case for a new model of digital statehood run and managed in the cloud. A network state, as he describes it, is basically a group of people who get together on the internet and decide that they’re going to start a country. With a social network to connect them, a leader to unite them, and a cryptocurrency to protect their assets, Srinivasan says a country can be born with laws, social services and all. A network state is a country that “anyone can start from your computer, beginning by building a following” – not unlike companies, cryptocurrencies, or decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). In a world where billionaires can run companies larger than countries, Srinivasan asks, could such a state achieve recognition from the United Nations? > > Like all utopian visions, this one, too, is diagnostic – an answer to a growing list of “wicked” social problems like surveillance capitalism, economic stagnation, political polarization, and conflict among great powers. Just when we need leaders to solve our problems, Balaji argues, they are failing, and the reason isn’t just corruption or incompetence – the reason is technological. Central government is simply no longer capable of addressing our needs because the world for which it was designed has changed. > > The internet, for example, has made place less important, so national borders seem increasingly arbitrary. And cryptocurrencies like bitcoin have proven that if enough people believe in the value of an idea you can create something worth trillions of dollars. Software has made it so that a few engineers can outcompete nations (think hacker groups and startups). And, in the age of social networks, millions of anonymous people can fit into groups that act and coordinate together; just look at r/wallstreetbets and Gamestop. > > “Very few institutions that predated the internet will survive the internet,” Srinivasan said recently, in a lecture describing the book. So the solution, he argues, is to build an institution based on it. Here’s how it would work: a person on Twitter decides to start a country so they float the idea to their pals and begin to gather recruits. They put together a vision statement and a list of values, and soon enough people begin to join and tell their friends. It starts off like a social network. > > By pooling their money and lending their skills, the community begins to develop social services and spawn its own mini-culture, providing things like healthcare and insurance and passports and dope parties. With something like a hybrid of Twitter and Discord, they could connect, share ideas, and vote (think up- and down-voting on your favorite legislation). And with a currency like bitcoin, they could control their own money supply and protect their funds from encroaching governments. First they would buy small plots of land, like a national Soho house, and eventually, they would begin to migrate into chosen cities – probably to sympathetic jurisdictions like Miami, which, Srinivasan says, will compete to acquire these brave new digital citizens. > > To make it happen, no wars need to be fought and no laws need to be violated. With rockstar leaders to blaze their path and negotiate on the international stage, these new states would slowly but surely obtain rights and recognition, eventually breaking off from their home countries once and for all. When it works, Srinivasan writes, “it will eventually become a template … the modern version of Jefferson’s natural aristocracy.” First, there was Brexit; then other movements like Wexit; now, a few years later, there’s a new romantic vision of escape for techies – “Texit”? > > When The Network State drops this week it is likely to solicit a number of heated reactions. Some, grumbling about rightwing Silicon Valley figures like Peter Thiel and Curtis Yarvin, will call the ideas of The Network State fascist and tyrannical, and others, likely those on the libertarian right, will call it visionary and scholarly. Srinivasan, you might hear from them, is a soothsayer – a truth-teller. But beneath the posturing there will be a lingering question: is any of this actually possible? > > While the concept might bend our idea of nationality, the fact remains that a lot of precursors already exist. Consider Dudeism, a religion based on a character from the Coen Brothers’ 1998 film, with a reported population of 450,000 Dudeist priests. Or even, as Srinivasan points out, the state of Israel, which brought together a people scattered around the world and organized them around a common ideal. Many countries, Srinivasan says, that are recognized by the UN have populations around five to 10 million people with economies much smaller than what an equal size of tech workers might produce. That a bunch of crypto bros might test their fate on an eccentric leader doesn’t seem too far-fetched. Plus, the tech already exists. > > And with over 650,000 Twitter followers – an army of young, tech-savvy and politically credulous acolytes – Srinivasan might just be the man to do it. There’s an expression that circulates on Twitter about him every so often: that “Balaji was right” is the most terrifying phrase in the English language. Among the crypto-rich and the billionaire class this book will be positioned as a north star, levied to support the long-running claim that technologists can run society better than the bureaucrats. And now, with this book, Srinivasan has given them the framework to prove it. > > What doesn’t fit so neatly into Srinivasan’s vision are little things like death and ageing and sickness. How will poverty be dealt with in a network state? “The future,” he wrote in 2015, “is nationalists vs technologists. A full-throated, jealous defender of borders, language, and culture. Or a rootless cosmopolitan with a laptop, bent on callow disruption.” It’s romantic, sure, but one could ask: what about people that just want a stable job? > > Of course, Srinivasan isn’t the first technologist to offer a tarot reading of our tech-mediated future. In 2019, the theorist Aaron Bastani wrote another popular formulation, this one from the left, explaining how robots will make us all rich. His book Fully Automated Luxury Communism starts with the same general diagnoses: that we’re going into the third industrial revolution, that we’re at an epochal moment of human history, that technology has rendered our systems obsolete. But his conclusion, as the title suggests, is that we need more centralization, not less. Let the robots do our work, the book argues, and let us enjoy the spoils. Hunger, disease, energy crises, jobs – these will all be relics of a scarce and squalid past that came before the age of abundance. The future is the nanny state, Bastani suggests – only better. > > What these visions point to is a growing cleavage among the strange cohort of people who call themselves futurists. On the one hand, there are those who imagine a world of centralization, marked by super-blocs and mass redistribution of wealth. And on the other, there are those who claim that the world already mirrors the feudal systems of yore. In this sort of vision, like the one offered by Balaji Srinivasan, fragmentation is on the docket and rugged individualism is the outstanding moral code. And this book, or better yet, this playbook, is just the first attempt to make it official.

July 7, 2022

Families sue TikTok after girls died while trying ‘blackout challenge’ | TikTok | The Guardian

by Alberto Cammozzo

<https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jul/05/tiktok-girls-dead-blacko…> Parents of two girls who died in a 2021 “blackout challenge” on TikTok, which encouraged users to choke themselves until they passed out, filed a suit on Tuesday in the Los Angeles county superior court. Represented by the Social Media Victims Law Center (SMVLC), a legal resource for parents of children harmed by social media addiction and abuse, they allege the platform’s “dangerous algorithm intentionally and repeatedly” pushed videos of the challenge into the children’s feeds, incentivizing them to participate in the challenge that ultimately took their lives. “TikTok needs to be held accountable for pushing deadly content to these two young girls,” said Matthew P Bergman, founding attorney of SMVLC. “TikTok has invested billions of dollars to intentionally design products that push dangerous content that it knows is dangerous and can result in the deaths of its users.” One victim, eight-year-old Lalani Erika Renee Walton of Temple, Texas, is described as “an extremely sweet and outgoing young girl” who “loved dressing up as a princess and playing with makeup”. She died on 15 July 2021 in what police determined was “a direct result of attempting TikTok’s ‘Blackout Challenge’”, according to the complaint. Lalani had received a phone for her eighth birthday in April 2021 and “quickly became addicted to watching TikTok videos”, the complaint said. She often posted videos of herself singing and dancing, in hopes of becoming “TikTok famous”. In July 2021, her family began noticing bruising on Lalani’s neck, which she explained away as an accident. Unbeknown to them, she had begun participating in the blackout challenge, which had first showed up on her feed weeks before. On the day of her death, Lalani had spent hours on a family road trip watching videos, including posts of the challenge. “She was also under the belief that if she posted a video of herself doing the Blackout Challenge, then she would become famous and so she decided to give it a try,” the complaint said. “Lalani was eight years old at the time and did not appreciate or understand the dangerous nature of what TikTok was encouraging her to do.” The other victim named in the suit, nine-year-old Arriani Jaileen Arroyo of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, received a phone when she was seven years old and used TikTok multiple times a day, according to the complaint. She “gradually became obsessive” about posting dance videos on TikTok and became “addicted” to the app. In January 2021, Arriani’s family discussed with her an incident of a young TikTok user dying as the result of a challenge, but the Arriani assured them she would never participate in dangerous videos. Close up of face of Arriani Jaileen Arroyo Arriani Jaileen Arroyo. Photograph: Courtesy of the family However, on 26 February 2021 she was found not breathing by her five-year-old brother. She was rushed to a local hospital but ultimately taken off life support. “TikTok unquestionably knew that the deadly Blackout Challenge was spreading through their app and that their algorithm was specifically feeding the Blackout Challenge to children, including those who have died,” the complaint reads. The lawsuit lists a number of complaints against TikTok, including that its algorithm promotes harmful content, allows underage users on the app, and it fails to warn users or their legal guardians of the app’s addictive nature. TikTok did not immediately respond to request for comment. The company has been criticized in the past for allowing dangerous challenges to spread. Doctors reported that the 2021 “milk crate challenge”, which encouraged users to stack and climb milk crates, led to dislocated shoulders, ACL tears and even spinal cord injuries. In 2020, a 15-year-old girl died after participating in the “Benadryl challenge”, in which users took a large amount of anti-histamines in an attempt to produce hallucinogenic effects. In 2020, two minors were charged with assault after participating in the “skull breaker” challenge, which caused one victim to have a seizure. Attorneys for the SMVLC claimed the company knowingly allowed such content to proliferate on the platform because it increased engagement, user numbers and ultimately profit. “TikTok prioritized greater corporate profits over the health and safety of its users and, specifically, over the health and safety of vulnerable children TikTok knew or should have known were actively using its social media product,” they said. The Walton and Arroyo families are seeking an unspecified amount in damages and have requested a jury trial to take place in California.

July 6, 2022