Technogonies

Hesiod’s Theogony (pronounced with a hard “g” as in polygon) describes the origins and genealogies of the Greek gods. [1] By analogy, I’ll use the term technogonies for stories that describe the origins of technology. In traditional myths, technologies come from the gods, who are usually benefactors. In modern stories, tech comes from inside society, although the stories are complicated and sometimes contested.

Tech ogregore LLM jokes

Jokes about organizations shed light on how we think of them as entities, so I asked some LLMs. Here are the best. (I occasionally crossed out some LLM verbiage and replaced it with my own.)

Animism & Ogregores

A recent conversation about whether there are AI gods prompted thoughts of animism, defined by Britannica as “belief in innumerable spiritual beings concerned with human affairs and capable of helping or harming human interests.” Perhaps, I thought, it’s better to think of ogregores as nature sprits than gods.

Facebook’s umwelt

Our CU Boulder tech & mythology group recently discussed Facebook’s umwelt, that is, the aspects of its environment that the company perceives. These are my post-meeting notes on the topic.

Big Tech Blindsight

The emotional invisibility of Big Tech mystifies me. Why don’t I get more worked up about it? I can only speak for myself since I don’t have any survey data, but I suspect it’s not just me.