Lo scorso novembre (mail allegata) avevo preconizzato uno scenario distopico in cui tutti saremmo diventati animali da batteria, che vivono confinati in casa, controllati da dispositivi che controllano la nostra salute, ci portano il cibo da mangiare, ci obbligano a fare ginnastica se ingrassiamo troppo, e di tanto in tanto ci ingaggiano per attività da mechanical turk o crowdsourcing per raccogliere dati di apprendimento, o per recommender system, da cui guadagnarci un tanto per sopravvivere. Pensavo di farci un video, per illustrare il pericolo, ma mi hanno detto che ci volevano troppi soldi per fare un buon lavoro. Comunque la realtà sta anticipando la mia peggiore fantasia. — Beppe

On 18 Nov 2019, at 22:49, Giuseppe Attardi <attardi@di.unipi.it> wrote:

Dopo aver visto questo video:

https://youtu.be/pbqJgHUwI4w

ne ho visto un altro in cui una telecamera segue una persona per tutta la casa, guarda ciò che mangia, lo avvisa che dopo pranzo deve prendere una medicina, guarda cosa c’è in frigo e gli dice di buttare i cibi avariati.

Questo mi ha fatto immaginare un futuro tecnologico un po’ distopico in cui le persone finiscono per essere assoggettate alle macchine quasi come polli in batteria.

Ogni persona sta nella sua stanzetta e vive interagendo col resto del mondo tramite la rete e vari dispositivi. Il nostro personaggio, che chiamerò Igor, con un braccialetto ai polsi che rileva lo stato di salute, seduta in poltrona davanti a uno schermo, dove gli appare un assistente a suggerirgli cosa guardare, poi lo invia a indossare un vestito e lo riprende mentre lo prova danzando, provando 2-3 diverse canzoni e infine lo pubblica in rete, dove viene visto dai suoi amici che commentano, poi viene chiamato da un robot marketer che gli chiede cosa pensa della proposta di mettere un deposito merci al posto del giardino del vicinato. Nel frattempo i like al suo vestito arrivano pochi like e quindi il suo score di influencer diminuisce. L’assistente segnala che costi il suo conto bancario si sta esaurendo e quindi lo invita ad andare a fare qualche lavoretto di Mechanical Turk, annotando dati. Igor protesta perché vorrebbe vedere la partita, ma l’assistente lo rimprovera e gli blocca il televisore. Siccome ci mette troppo tempo, lo pungola fare più in fretta altrimenti non ce la farà a guadagnare abbastanza. All'ora di pranzo, Igor vorrebbe ordinare un piatto di lasagne, ma l’assistente gi dice che sta ingrassando e che deve accontentarsi di una pastina in brodo e del puré, che gli consegnato da un drone all’assistente che lo mette a riscaldare in microonde. Dopo pranzo, l’assistente lo obbliga a prendere una medicina per il diabete. Più tardi gli porta una tuta e scarpe da ginnastica e gliele fa indossare e poi lo mette a fare ginnastica, impersonando un personal trainer. Mentre fa gli esercizi, controlla polso e pressione e manda i dati a un’azienda sanitaria privata.

Si potrebbe fare un video di animazione su uno script del genere?

On 13 May 2020, at 10:09, nexa-request@server-nexa.polito.it wrote:

From: Alberto Cammozzo <ac+nexa@zeromx.net <mailto:ac+nexa@zeromx.net>> To: Nexa <nexa@server-nexa.polito.it <mailto:nexa@server-nexa.polito.it>> Subject: [nexa] Naomi Klein: How big tech plans to profit from the pandemic | News | The Guardian Message-ID: <699E1290-ADF1-41E9-8B96-836263FAE0C3@zeromx.net <mailto:699E1290-ADF1-41E9-8B96-836263FAE0C3@zeromx.net>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

<https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/may/13/naomi-klein-how-big-tech-plans-... <https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/may/13/naomi-klein-how-big-tech-plans-to-profit-from-coronavirus-pandemic>>

or a few fleeting moments during the New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s daily coronavirus briefing on Wednesday 6 May, the sombre grimace that has filled our screens for weeks was briefly replaced by something resembling a smile.

“We are ready, we’re all-in,” the governor gushed. “We are New Yorkers, so we’re aggressive about it, we’re ambitious about it … We realise that change is not only imminent, but it can actually be a friend if done the right way.”

The inspiration for these uncharacteristically good vibes was a video visit from the former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who joined the governor’s briefing to announce that he will be heading up a panel to reimagine New York state’s post-Covid reality, with an emphasis on permanently integrating technology into every aspect of civic life.

“The first priorities of what we’re trying to do,” Schmidt said, “are focused on telehealth, remote learning, and broadband … We need to look for solutions that can be presented now, and accelerated, and use technology to make things better.” Lest there be any doubt that the former Google chair’s goals were purely benevolent, his video background featured a framed pair of golden angel wings.

Just one day earlier, Cuomo had announced a similar partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop “a smarter education system”. Calling Gates a “visionary”, Cuomo said the pandemic has created “a moment in history when we can actually incorporate and advance [Gates’s] ideas … all these buildings, all these physical classrooms – why, with all the technology you have?” he asked, apparently rhetorically.

It has taken some time to gel, but something resembling a coherent pandemic shock doctrine is beginning to emerge. Call it the Screen New Deal. Far more hi-tech than anything we have seen during previous disasters, the future that is being rushed into being as the bodies still pile up treats our past weeks of physical isolation not as a painful necessity to save lives, but as a living laboratory for a permanent – and highly profitable – no-touch future.

Anuja Sonalker, the CEO of Steer Tech, a Maryland-based company selling self-parking technology, recently summed up the new virus-personalised pitch. “There has been a distinct warming up to humanless, contactless technology,” she said. “Humans are biohazards, machines are not.”

It’s a future in which our homes are never again exclusively personal spaces, but are also, via high-speed digital connectivity, our schools, our doctor’s offices, our gyms, and, if determined by the state, our jails. Of course, for many of us, those same homes were already turning into our never-off workplaces and our primary entertainment venues before the pandemic, and surveillance incarceration “in the community” was already booming. But in the future that is hastily being constructed, all of these trends are poised for a warp-speed acceleration.

This is a future in which, for the privileged, almost everything is home delivered, either virtually via streaming and cloud technology, or physically via driverless vehicle or drone, then screen “shared” on a mediated platform. It’s a future that employs far fewer teachers, doctors and drivers. It accepts no cash or credit cards (under guise of virus control), and has skeletal mass transit and far less live art. It’s a future that claims to be run on “artificial intelligence”, but is actually held together by tens of millions of anonymous workers tucked away in warehouses, data centres, content-moderation mills, electronic sweatshops, lithium mines, industrial farms, meat-processing plants and prisons, where they are left unprotected from disease and hyper-exploitation. It’s a future in which our every move, our every word, our every relationship is trackable, traceable and data-mineable by unprecedented collaborations between government and tech giants. [...]