Re: <nettime> Algorithmic Sovereignty

On Wed, Mar 21, 2018 at 11:58 AM, Jaromil <[email protected]> wrote:

dear nettimers,

here my sign of life from Academistan: my doctoral thesis, finally
awarded after years of hard and joyous work, definitely unusual and as
practice based as it can be, is out.

Please note this work is dedicated to the memory of my professor
Antonio Caronia who guided me through all the phd updates. His book
CYBORG was also recently translated in English and published at
Leuphana with a preface by infatiguable TBazz's and is certainly a
better read than my toiletpaper PDF.

If you insist in reading my ramblings spanning from digital labour to
code and comparisons between software patents and Via Campesina's
protests against GMOs: you are welcome. The PDF is online and Creative
Commons as Aaron Swartz rightly argued this stuff should all be.

I'll appreciate any feedback, but will be slow in replying, so please
take it easy.... http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/11101

Abstract:

This thesis describes a practice based research journey across various
projects dealing with the design of algorithms, to highlight the
governance implications in design choices made on them. The research
provides answers and documents methodologies to address the urgent
need for more awareness of decisions made by algorithms about the
social and economical context in which we live. Algorithms consitute a
foundational basis across different fields of studies: policy making,
governance, art and technology. The ability to understand what is
inscribed in such algorithms, what are the consequences of their
execution and what is the agency left for the living world is
crucial. Yet there is a lack of interdisciplinary and practice based
literature, while specialised treatises are too narrow to relate to
the broader context in which algorithms are enacted.

This thesis advances the awareness of algorithms and related aspects
of sovereignty through a series of projects documented as
participatory action research. One of the projects described, Devuan,
leads to the realisation of a new, worldwide renown operating
system. Another project, "sup", consists of a minimalist approach to
mission critical software and literate programming to enhance security
and reliability of applications. Another project, D-CENT, consisted in
a 3 year long path of cutting edge research funded by the EU
commission on the emerging dynamics of participatory democracy
connected to the technologies adopted by citizen organizations.

My original contribution to knowledge lies within the function that
the research underpinning these projects has on the ability to gain a
better understanding of sociopolitical aspects connected to the design
and management of algorithms. It suggests that we can improve the
design and regulation of future public, private and common spaces
which are increasingly governed by algorithms by understanding not
only economical and legal implications, but also the connections
between design choices and the sociopolitical context for their
development and execution.

p.s.: to the question I get often asked after this "what now"? I'll
give a preemptive answer: nothing fancy, we'll just continue
rocking in Dyne.org where we'd love to be for software what
Motown has been for music. Que Viva The Funk.

Our current projects linked below, welcome to get involved
(we are sustainable!)

https://devuan.org

https://decodeproject.eu

https://pieproject.eu

https://commonfare.eu

and ciao... from EUuuhhwww

--
Denis Roio a.k.a. Jaromil http://Dyne.org think &do tank
Ph.D, CTO & co-founder software to empower communities
Book keynotes, lectures, workshops: https://jaromil.dyne.org
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