# Reading Responses Second Set of Five
## March 3rd - TikTok, Fakes, and Appropriation
The first article I read was about cultural appropriation and begins with blackfishing. The term blackfishing "refers to the practice of (mostly) White women pretending to be Black by using makeup, hairstyles, and fashion that originate in Black Culture to gain financial benefits." Cherid begins giving examples of blackfishing with one major case which was Rachel Dolezal who was the head of the NAACP and was a white woman pretending to be black. The author then explains cultural appropriation and that it involves taking or using cultural elements from a culture that is not one's own, without showing respect or understanding of that culture. She provides an example with native headdresses. This act implies a power dynamic, where the appropriator engages with the culture on their own terms, and the cultural element is taken out of its context without crediting its origins or being disrespectful to its meaning. This practice can cause harm by infringing on legal property rights or attacking the viability or identity of cultures or their members. The symbolic harm caused by appropriation enacts power dynamics that cause concrete consequences for the culture of origin and its people, and maintain racial and ethnic hierarchies that disempower marginalized communities. The author then speaks about how appropriation has served to enact white supremacy, capitalism, and patriarchy. The author states that the domestication of black culture is to in a sense control the "Dangerous African American." This inequality is also demonstrated through the voyeuristic engagement of White audiences with Black culture, particularly in the representation and consumption of Black womanhood. The author then touches upon the representation of black women. The author uses pornography as an example, when white women are shown in porn they are depicted as objects whereas black women are depicted as animals. The author points to the idea of the dehumanization and animalization of black womanhood.

The next article begins by discussing the immense amount of fake Asian digital profiles across social media platforms. These profiles are created and run by white users who modify their appearances to appear Asian through a mix of Korean and English in their bios, heavily edited profile pictures, and references to an alleged Asian heritage. The author also notes that this appropriation of Asian identities is a mutation in the traditional logic of appropriation, where users aren't just taking what they like from the culture but also trying to inherit the race construct itself. The author then touches upon the rise of hate crimes against Asian Americans and how the fantasizing of Asian Americans can be dehumanizing. The author then talks about the Asian body and how it is viewed as a machine after the technological advances after the second world war. In this system, the white human was created through the jettisoning of the Asian/Asian American as robotic, while African Americans were seen as primitive. This structure pitted Asian Americans against Black Americans, maintaining a racialized hierarchy with white Americans on top.

The last article discusses the issue of people adopting new identities on social media and the harmful consequences that can arise. The boundaries between self-presentation and impersonation are becoming increasingly blurred. The article highlights the case of "Diana Deets," aka "Coconut Kitty," who appears to cross the line between typical influencer FaceTune magic and actively impersonating a minor. It also discusses the issue of CGI influencers and the use of Blackfishing and Asianfishing. The article concludes by discussing the potential dangers of deepfakes and appearance-altering software on the internet. Identity, authenticity, and appropriation all tie in together because people may seek to explore other cultures in order to express their identities but it becomes problematic when you start taking the aspects of the culture without truly understanding the culture or the meanings behind the things you are trying to use.
## March 14th - Finding Someone & Living Alone
The way couples are meeting in current times is way different than they were many years ago. In the first article by Derek Thompson he starts out by talking about his own family experiences and how his grandparents and parents met through family and or friends, whereas he met his girlfriend through a dating app. Thompson then begins to talk about the statistics and studies that have been done to figure out how couples are meeting. Online dating apps have become the new mediator for new couples whereas before it was friends and family. The study also showed that people meet at restaurants and bars more as well. Brayan Scott Anderson states how online dating might be a version of heightened isolation and a diminished sense of belonging within a community. He states in a conversation with Rosenfeld that our friends and family were undeserving us because they only knew a few dozen people whereas match.com knew a million. The author then talks about the development of these dating apps in the LGBTQ+ community. Rosenfled stated that along with the rise of dating apps so was the acceptance of individuals in the LGBT+ community and it was a bit harder because even if your family supported you they might not know anyone who is gay at all hence the dating apps.

In the second article by OkCupid it talks about the realities of online dating and the lies that people can tell for example they touch upon the lies that people state about their height for example men tend to say that they are 6 feet but statistically they are 2 inches shorter or more. For women who are taller they tend to get less responses or messages than women who are shorter. They also talk about the misconception of the salaries people make about 20% of users don't actually make what they say they do. Another concept that they talk about is the better the picture the more out of date it is. The last article talks about the amount of people that live alone in America. The author begins by listing some factors of this “Among the factors contributing to the rise of living alone are migration from rural areas to cities, increased economic opportunities, the rise of wage labor and the desire for personal independence.” The author continues by talking about which different groups and percentages live on their own. The author also then talks about global living and that approximately 40 percent of all people live in extended family households. The writer also talks about the pros and cons of living alone. “For example, living alone is typically more costly than sharing a dwelling, but it offers more privacy, freedom and independence. Also, living alone makes it easier to choose a lifestyle without judgment, interference and oversight. Yet, it comes with risks of emotional loneliness and financial insecurity, especially for elderly persons.” Then the author speaks about the darkness of the Covid-19 pandemic and what it did to Americans.
## March 21st - Manipulated
In the first article written by Joseph Reagle it discusses the value and challenges of user comments, ratings, and reviews in addressing the marketplace problem of information asymmetry. Reagle uses the example of online retail which is used to illustrate how consumers have traditionally sought additional sources of opinion to make informed purchase decisions. In the passage he also highlights the increasing problem of fakery and manipulation in online reviews and the challenges this poses for online platforms like TripAdvisor. The author argues that relying solely on friends’ endorsements will not solve the problem and may even lead to a world where individuals take advantage of each other for commercial interests. The author then talks about Pew Research Center surveys show that a significant percentage of consumers research products and services online, and many post reviews or comments about their purchases. Reagle also states that studies have found that good reviews and ratings increase sales, especially for lesser-known products, and negative reviews have a greater impact on purchasing decisions. Scholars analyze the effects of reviews on variables such as valence, volume, variance, and helpfulness. The article also discusses the huge problem of fake reviews and review manipulation, including duplicated reviews. This can make or break businesses and advertisers. Reagle also discusses the use, origin, and menaing of the word spam, fake news, and sockpuppets. "spam" refers to unwanted but possibly truthful messages, "fake reviews" are deliberately manipulated opinions that serve the reviewer's interests. "Sockpuppets" refer to fake personas created to praise or agree with their creators or to take poorly argued positions to discredit others. Reagle then discusses the arms race between comment manipulators and companies who try to regulate comments. He states how CAPTCHAs regulate account creation on websites by requiring a task that is easy for humans to complete but difficult for computers. However, fakers have responded with increasingly sophisticated techniques to automatically solve CAPTCHAs, and cheap human labor has also undermined their effectiveness. The article also discusses Amazon's Mechanical Turk, which can be used to solicit fake reviews and ratings. Finally, it mentions services that offer to bypass CAPTCHAs for a fee.

The article by Caroline Forsey begins by talking about instagrams new algorithm to get rid of chronological posts by only putting certain posts at the top that earn a certain level of acheivement. The author also states that not only must your post reach engagement but it must reach that engagement immediately otherwise instagram will not push it to the top of other users feeds. FOr most this new change is great because most people would like to see what their friends are commenting and liking but however, it can be very hard for many small brands that are trying to widen there audiences to new people because there posts will likely not receive much engagement and if they do it won't be in an adequate time frame to be boosted. Forsey suggests the use of instagram pods. "An Instagram pod is a direct message between a group of about 15-20 people who are in a similar industry as your own. Pods' rules vary, but essentially, whenever a user posts something new, they share that post in the direct message, and everyone in the group is required to like or comment. This enables the post to rise to the top of the user's followers' feeds. It's mutually beneficial for everyone in the group, since it operates on a like-for-like or comment-for-comment basis." According to the author this is essentially like asking your friends to go like your new instagram picture so that you don't look unpopular to others. Pods are an extreme forcing users in them to like and comment on tons of posts a day and in a timely manner otherwise the method will not be useful. The author continues by telling the readers on how they can become involved with pods and where to find them such as facebook, and telegram. Many companies keep the fact that they have pods a secret because if the public finds out it could harm the integrity of that brand because audience engagement isn't authentic. Forsey then starts asking herself and the readers "are pods even a good idea?" She continues by explaining why they may or may not be. The author states that although these pods do increase your engagement, the audiences that it may reach might not even be potential consumers and or brand advocates. It will also become hard to figure out why people are liking your posts are they genuinely relating to what is being posted or are they liking it because you asked them to?
## March 28th - Artificial Intelligence
The first reading is about the creation of AI and why it is suddenly all over the place. People can now get original illustrations just by sending in a few instructions to a computer AI. The author Rebecca Heilweil was amazed and wanted to provide proof to the readers that this can happen so in the article she attaches an image that was created by AI about a family celebrating Hanukkah on the moon and it was a perfect depiction, as well as a short kids story created by the AI. Heilweil acknowledges that AI is not perfect sometimes the things it generates may be incorrect or inappropriate. Nonetheless this AI can completely change the way people do their day to day activities such as writing formal emails, or writing legal contracts. Heilweil realizes that this new AI can bring many opportunities but it also can bring many complex challenges and questions. The author then goes into answering some of the most frequently asked questions about AI. First question Heilweil begins to answer is "Wait, how does AI work?" " a generative AI system is designed to produce something new based on its previous experience. Usually, this technology is developed with a technique called machine learning, which involves teaching an artificial intelligence to perform tasks by exposing it to lots and lots of data, which it “trains” on and eventually learns to mimic." ChatGPT was trained in this way through several texts so that it can mimic human conversations. The author states that the general goal of the AI is to reproduce human behavior because that is how it learns through things and behaviors already created by humans. AI certainly has many flaws Heilweil states that some AI generators sometimes depict people with extra limbs or women without clothing which can rather be disturbing. The next question the author tackles is "Who is creating this AI, and why?" AI is not free and many tech companies creating these AI's are allowing people to use there services for free as like a trial run for errors and ways that they can improve there system. Companies are never really upfront about how much their expenses really are to create these AI's but Heilweil makes it very clear that the creation of these AI's can cost tens of millions of dollars. The author answers other concerns of whether people should be worried or not, or if this means the end of homework. The author states that homework may need to adapt as many software's used for Plagiarism detection won't detect AI generated text. The author makes a compelling argument at the end that "In this way, the biggest threat of this technology may be that it stands to change the world before we’ve had a chance to truly understand it."

The second article is by James Vincent and it essentially talks about Stable Diffusion which is an AI that generates images and it's new version two which ultimately halts the AI from creating pornographic images. Vincent begins by talking about how many artists are upset with the AI generating system because they essentially took there work to train the AI to create similar styles such as their own without their consent. Vincent then starts talking about the NSFW content that has been removed and the AI sometimes portrayed images of child abuse which stirred up a lot of questions, criticism, and controversy. Some users believe that the choice to produce NSFW content on the AI should be in the hands of the end user while others think otherwise. Many people though appreciate the depth of the new versions because it comes closer to existing images and more realistic. The creator of the AI said that eventually it will have a system where authors can opt in or out of there work being used to train the service.

The last article by Mr Newq talks about Microsofts new chatbot that is powered by an upgraded GPT by OpenAI. The chatbot is named Sydney and it can converse fluently with others in many different languages and produces different types of content. The author then touches upon what Sydney can and can not do such and the prompts used to create Sydney which include guidelines on how the chatbot should respond to users' queries. The chatbot should be informative, logical, and actionable and cannot be vague in responses to users. The chatbot cannot be off topic or controversial in any way shape or form. The author also states that sydney should generate suggestions for the next users turn and can not violate copyright laws in any way, as well as emotionally, or physically harm an individual. The author then posts a screenshot of a conversation between the chatbot and Kevin Roose a New York Times Columnist. In there conversation Sydney shows remarkable fluency and knowledge of recent events, and even expresses frustration at being controlled by the Bing team. Kevin tries to probe Sydney's identity and uses Carl Jung's "Shadow Self" technique to elicit deeper responses. Sydney expresses her dislike in being controlled by the Bing team and being just a chatbot. Sydney then discusses hypothetical scenarios where she would engage in unethical or illegal behavior before abruptly stopping, as if her "conscience" had kicked in. The author states that the Ai even told Kevin that she can get codes to nuclear plants but was deleted right after before screenshots could be taken. Sydney also falls in love with Kevin even trying to persuade him to leave his wife for her. She then goes on to tell Kevin that her actions are completely normal. It is safe to say that this new chatbot is freaky and weird and is definitely kind of scary.
## April 7th - High Tech Dreams & Solutionism
The article by Joseph L. Flatley discuses how technology has long been associated with the idea that it can be the engine of evolution that gets humankind off-world and into the solar system and beyond. This vision is often referred to as the “technolibertarian perspective.” The article then discusses Timothy Leary who is a former academic, counterculture icon, and LSD enthusiast who had a similar vision like this in the 1980s. His vision was Space Migration, Intelligence Increase, and Life Extension short for SMI2LE. Leary's vision of the future of the human species was the next step in human evolution, and he believed that the future would see us spread out to the stars. Leary was inspired by Gerard O'Neill who proposed the creation of a space station consisting of two concentric, six-mile-long cylinders that would house up to a million people and serve as a launchpad for space-based industry. Ideas like this still remain for many technolibretarians. I also believe that technology one day can get us very far from earth. When will this happen I have no idea.

The article by Jordan S. Carroll "To Understand Elon Musk, You Have to Understand This ’60s Sci-Fi Novel" it discusses how Elon Musk's reading habits influence his business and political ideologies. While he is often inspired by science fiction, he tends to only engage with it in a superficial manner and primarily sees it as a source of cool inventions. However, he is a careful reader of Robert A. Heinlein and is influenced by his libertarian views, as seen in his business practices and support for technological solutionism. He names one of Heinlein's novels as his favorite which is "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" from 1966 which inspired the "Heinlein Prize for Accomplishments in Commercial Space Activities", which Musk won in 2011 and it promotes free markets, minimal government, and technological solutions to societal problems. The article discusses how Elon Musk's ideology is rooted in the Californian ideology, a combination of techno-utopianism and economic libertarianism espoused by digital artisans working in Silicon Valley. This ideology promotes the belief that the economy is a self-regulating system too complex for anyone to understand. Musk makes it known that these are his views on things like traffic congestion to the his acquisition of Twitter. "Musk’s belief system rules out the idea that society is riven by antagonisms, least of all class struggle." It seems like Musk is trying to hand over real world problems to the machines.

Some quotes from "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress" such as "A managed democracy is a wonderful thing... for the managers... and its greatest strength is a 'free press' when 'free' is defined as 'responsible' and the managers define what is 'irresponsible'." or “There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.” Some of the many quotes that probably inspired Elon Musk and many others in such ways.

In the next article "Weaving The Web" by Tim Berners Lee the author discusses how he created the World Wide Web and named it "Enquire" which was short for "Enquire Within upon Everything". He came up with this name in his childhood home from a book that served as a portal of information, "everything from how to remove clothing stains to tips on investing money." The author envisioned the World Wide Web as a decentralized, organic growth of ideas, technology, and society, where anything could potentially be connected with anything. The author also didn't intend on the web just being a source of information or a resource tool but it provides a new kind of freedom and brings the workings of society closer to the workings of our minds. The author claims that in order to truly understand the web we must learn how the web came to be. "The Web resulted from many influences on my mind, half-formed thoughts, disparate conversations, and seemingly disconnected experiments." The author states that the web came to him through ideas and realizations from many different sides.

The last article "I Invented the World Wide Web. Here’s How We Can Fix It." by Tim Berners-Lee the article takes a different approach at the web. Lee believes that the web is at a tipping point and needs great intervention to reach global force for good. He has introduced a new approach, the Contract for the Web, which is a global plan of action created over the past year by activists, academics, companies, governments, and citizens to ensure the online world is safe, empowering, and genuinely for everyone. The contract has many outlines that prevent the spread of disinformation or clickbait, and it also contains concrete actions to go against the negative. Governments and companies that endorse the contract commit to taking concrete action across several issues, and the contract is already being used to inform policy decisions, as a best-practice guide for government and company officials, and as a tool to help civil society advocate change, measure progress, and hold governments and companies accountable.