Lee Vinsel

This is a beautiful example of cultural pessimist technology criticism. It pins some form of perceived social decline on an abstract essence called "technology," which seems to act on its own.

I didn't find the analysis in this piece very interesting or cogent, but the thought - if true - that OpenAI is exploring advertising as a way to prop up its non-existent business model has me LMAOOOOOOOOOOO. nytimes.com/2025/06/11/opi…

Seems quite plausible to me. It has boggled my mind the way so many "critics" have gone along with data center projections as if there's a decent chance they will come to fruition. It's criticism that doesn't include critical thinking.

Even though I’m worried about coming electricity rate hikes, I also tried to put together a story under which demand growth won’t be that bad. What would that world look like? I think if you say data center froth subsides + AI capex falls + EVs collapse + a mild recession,…

What are the risks of a discourse that exaggerates the role and risk of GenAI around elections? We look at this question in more detail in another excerpt from @Sacha_Altay & my paper on GenAI and elections, this time kindly published by the @oiioxford.

very good

Headed to a departmental writing retreat in an old farmhouse here in Blacksburg. Really looking forward to it.

🎉 We're excited to announce the release of The Maintainers Study Guide, a resource to help ground yourself in the principles of maintenance, repair, and care. This reflects nearly a decade of work across The Maintainers! Read & share today: themaintainers.org/study-guide/

Very interesting discussion on the history of innovation-- @STS_News and Matthew Wisnioski open.spotify.com/episode/4O6zBU…

Title/angle of this piece is absurd. Most examples come from medical imaging and sensing that people have been doing for *YEARS* before "AI." All kinds of ways we use technologies to look at humans in ways that we cannot look at ourselves. Peter Winch would have a field day.

The 100th episode of People's and Things?!? It was a blast talking to @STS_News about my book Spy Plane on this very special episode of the 'ol P-n-T. athenaeum.vt.domains/peoplesandthin… @ucpress

Who possibly could have foreseen it?

>@jonathanstray, did you see this? I feel zero need to cherrypick and argue this is part of a larger trend because I honestly don't know, but I thought it was interesting. livemint.com/companies/news…

Yes, this was a fun article to get interviewed for.