- Due
- Sunday, October 18
- Submit
- The project and a form/medium document (approximately 250 words)
- Weight
- 10% of the course grade
Take a claim from a Unit II reading. Or, a disagreement or point of connection between two Unit II readings. Test the claim/disagreement/connection with a technology that you use. Then make a project from the results. Though the project could also itself be the test.
Submit two items:
- The project.
- A document of approximately 250 words about the medium you used.
The two items are due on Sunday, October 18. On Wednesday, October 14, be prepared to give a progress report in class. This project is small. Plan to do it in ~two weeks, together with readings, new blogs…
The project
The project must have these three properties.
- Refer to a specific statement or disagreement. Do not refer to “addiction” in general. Refer to specific claims that have a page number. Remember you can find all our readings linked both in the docket and in the archive. Just a couple of examples:
- Seymour’s chapter is called “We are all addicts.” What’s that mean? Is it supposed to describe our situation? Do we take it as a metaphor?
- Marcuse distinguishes true from false needs? How does this work? Does it hold up?
Or using two authors:
- Analyzing Weathergirl and the example in Hill, evaluate Frankfurt’s conception of freedom of volition in light of AI companions.
- Is the world we live in a world of discipline or control (in Deleuze’s sense), include some discussion of Vonnegut’s story.
- Think about the way in which Nguyen discusses value capture, is this a way to understand how Adorno’s culture industry does what it does?
- Use a technology. Be specific. Do not write “AI” unless you’re really referring to the world of LLMs in toto (though you should probably spell that out if so). Write the name of the model. Tell the task, the prompt, and your role. Tell the version, the device, the platform, and the date.
- Show a result. Tell one thing that you did not know before. The result can be small. The result can disagree with the reading. The result can be failure.
Form/Medium for the project
Here are some possible projects/mediums. You can also combine two forms. You can also propose a different form.
- Short essay. Write 800–1,200 words. Use one statement or disagreement and one technology. Argue for one conclusion.
- Self-experiment. Stop the use of one thing for a set period. Or, use one thing in a different way. For example, turn off notifications, autoplay, or infinite scroll. Or, remove the app from your phone. Before you start, write these items: (a) what you will do, (b) for how long, and (c) what you will record. Record each day on that day. Do not write the log from memory at the end. Three days to one week is sufficient. Submit the log and your account of it.
- Work with an AI system and record it. You can use a companion app. Submit the full transcript. Tell what you tried to do and what the system did. Tell where the reading applies. The transcript is evidence. Do not remove parts of it.
- Two encounters with the same thing. Use the same app with attention and without attention. Or, compare two apps that do the same job. One app is designed to keep you. The other app is not. Tell the differences. Tell if the reading gives a name to the differences.
- Your data. Ask a platform for a copy of your data. Examples: Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube or Google, Spotify, Netflix, Amazon, Discord, Duolingo, ChatGPT or a different chatbot, or a fitness tracker. You can also use a different app or platform that gives you the data that it keeps about you. Compare the person in the data with the person that you would describe. Some platforms send the data after some days. Ask for your data immediately after you select this form.
- Value-capture inventory. Make a list of the numbers that you monitor. Examples are streaks, steps, screen time, Spotify Wrapped, likes, and GPA. For each number, tell what was important to you before the number. Tell if the number replaced it. Optional: stop one streak deliberately. Record the result.
- The company’s words. Read the marketing, the help pages, or the terms of service for a product. Or, read an earnings call that uses the word “engagement.” Compare how the company describes the product with how the readings describe it.
- A dialogue. Write a dialogue between two readings about one case. Examples: Marcuse and Weathergirl, or Frankfurt and Seymour.
- An interview. Speak with a person who uses a companion app, who gambles, who plays games a lot, or who stopped one of these. Get the permission of the person before the interview. Do not include details that identify the person. Compare the answers with a reading.
- A game. Design a short card game or board game. The game must show the machine zone or value capture.
- A story or a poem. Make a statement from a reading literal. For example, Vonnegut makes distraction into a government radio. Or, write a reply to Bukowski.
- Then and now. Find a concern about TV or advertising from the 1960s. Find the same concern today. Tell if the criticism is still correct, or more correct.
- The counter-design. Design a feed or a companion that does not use the dark patterns. Tell if people would use it.
- Audio or video. Make a recording of 5–8 minutes. Examples: a walk-through, an interview, or a screen recording that shows the technology.
- Photo essay. Use 8–12 images. Captions are optional. The images must do most of the work.
If you want to use a form that is not on this list, tell me on or before Sunday, October 11. Usually, I approve.
The form document (approximately 250 words)
Write this document as a separate file. Answer these four questions:
- Why did you select this form/medium? What can the form do that an essay cannot do? (If you wrote the essay, answer for your choices: why this author, this technology, this example/case.)
- What did the form make difficult? What did the form not include? Tell what you could not show in your medium.
- Where is the reading in the project? Give the location: the minute in the video, the third photo, the record for day four, or the part of the transcript. Do not give the location where you describe the reading. Give the location where you test the statement, connection, or disagreement.
- What surprised you? Tell one thing that the technology did that you did not expect.
How to submit the project
Put your project on your website on or before Sunday, October 18. Then submit the URL on Canvas.
AI and this project
The course policy applies. Tell which AI tools you used. Tell what you used them for. Put this information in a citation at the bottom of the project. If you used AI tools a lot, write a longer methods report. You must be able to explain each statement in your project.