About this episode
Kate Crawford discusses the historical relationship between representational power and technology, culminating in a conversation about responsible AI.
Kate Crawford’s Long Now Talk traces an historical arc from Renaissance perspective to AI image models, illustrating how shifts in representational power shape empires, economies—even our shared sense of reality. During the talk, Crawford gives a tour through her detailed artwork Calculating Empires. Through examples ranging from Liebig’s critique of agriculture “robbing” soil nutrients, to Faraday’s latex insulation that devastated rubber forests, Crawford shows how technologies have long created “metabolic rifts”: systems that extract more than they regenerate. Don't miss the closing Q&A, where host Kevin Kelly asks Crawford what responsible, non-extractive AI might look like.
People in this episode
Host: Kevin Kelly
Guest: Kate Crawford
Topics covered
- AI
- historical perspective
- representational power
- technology
- metabolic rifts
- economies
- shared reality
Keywords
- AI image models
- Renaissance perspective
- metabolic rifts
- Liebig
- Faraday
- technology
- empire
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: The Long Now Foundation
Books & works: Calculating Empires
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