Technique and geopolitics, what's the connection?
summary
The talk argues that software is politically decisive rather than neutral, showing how digital encodings (character sets, file formats) can erase people’s identities (examples like SERFA or names with accents) and how database operations let administrations or organisations inflict mass harm (e.g., deleting many benefit recipients by removing rows). It discusses technologies such as Big Data, machine learning, chatbots, databases and BGP/IP networks, contrasts the internet’s decentralised resilience with failing corporate digital transformations driven by power shifts, and advances the core claim that files and data equal persons and thus enable large-scale abuse.
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chapters (6)
- 0:00Introduction
- 2:47Personal data and geopolitics
- 18:59Digital transformation failure
- 33:51Power and social inequality
- 47:13IT roles in social structures
- 58:07Q&A
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