Anthony McCosker

The AI revolution can seem powerful and unstoppable, extracting data from every aspect of our lives and subjecting us to unprecedented surveillance and control. But at ground level, even the most advanced ‘smart’ technologies are not as all-powerful as either the tech companies or their critics would have us believe.From gig worker activism to wellness tracking with sex toys and TikTokers' manipulation of the algorithm, this book shows how ordinary people are negotiating the datafication of society. The book establishes a new theoretical framework for understanding everyday experiences of data and automation, and offers guidance on the ethical responsibilities we share as we learn to live together with data-driven machines.Everyday Data Cultures is essential reading for students and researchers in digital media and communication, as well as for anyone interested in the role of data and AI in society.

This open access book provides practical guidance for non-profits and community sector organisations about how to get started with data analytics projects using their own organisations’ datasets and open public data. The book shares best practices on collaborative social data projects and methodology. For researchers, the work offers a playbook for partnering with community organisations in data projects for public good and gives worked examples of projects of various sizes and complexity.

This open access book provides practical guidance for non-profits and community sector organisations about how to get started with data analytics projects using their own organisations’ datasets and open public data. The book shares best practices on collaborative social data projects and methodology. For researchers, the work offers a playbook for partnering with community organisations in data projects for public good and gives worked examples of projects of various sizes and complexity.

The AI revolution can seem powerful and unstoppable, extracting data from every aspect of our lives and subjecting us to unprecedented surveillance and control. But at ground level, even the most advanced ‘smart’ technologies are not as all-powerful as either the tech companies or their critics would have us believe.From gig worker activism to wellness tracking with sex toys and TikTokers' manipulation of the algorithm, this book shows how ordinary people are negotiating the datafication of society. The book establishes a new theoretical framework for understanding everyday experiences of data and automation, and offers guidance on the ethical responsibilities we share as we learn to live together with data-driven machines.Everyday Data Cultures is essential reading for students and researchers in digital media and communication, as well as for anyone interested in the role of data and AI in society.

Automating Vision explores the rise of seeing machines through four case studies: facial recognition, drone vision, mobile and locative media and driverless cars. Proposing a conceptual lens of camera consciousness, which is drawn from the early visual anthropology of Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead, Automating Vision accounts for the growing power and value of camera technologies and digital image processing. Behind the smart camera devices examined throughout the book lies a set of increasingly integrated and automated technologies underpinned by artificial intelligence, machine learning and image processing. Seeing machines are now implicated in growing visual data markets and are supported by emerging layers of infrastructure that they coproduce. In this book, Anthony McCosker and Rowan Wilken address the social impacts, the disruptions and reconfigurations to existing digital media ecosystems, to urban environments and to mobility and social relations that result from the increasing automation of vision and explore how it might be possible to ensure a safe and equitable future as we learn to see with and negotiate the interventions of seeing machines.This book will appeal to students and scholars in media, communication, cultural studies, sociology of media and science and technology studies.More resources for the book can be found at https://www.anthonymccosker.com/automating-vision.

Automating Vision explores the rise of seeing machines through four case studies: facial recognition, drone vision, mobile and locative media and driverless cars. Proposing a conceptual lens of camera consciousness, which is drawn from the early visual anthropology of Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead, Automating Vision accounts for the growing power and value of camera technologies and digital image processing. Behind the smart camera devices examined throughout the book lies a set of increasingly integrated and automated technologies underpinned by artificial intelligence, machine learning and image processing. Seeing machines are now implicated in growing visual data markets and are supported by emerging layers of infrastructure that they coproduce. In this book, Anthony McCosker and Rowan Wilken address the social impacts, the disruptions and reconfigurations to existing digital media ecosystems, to urban environments and to mobility and social relations that result from the increasing automation of vision and explore how it might be possible to ensure a safe and equitable future as we learn to see with and negotiate the interventions of seeing machines.This book will appeal to students and scholars in media, communication, cultural studies, sociology of media and science and technology studies.More resources for the book can be found at https://www.anthonymccosker.com/automating-vision.