Evan Selinger

Evan Selinger is a professor of philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology.

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Articles

What Can Enlightened Coders Really Do?
Evan Selinger reads Darryl Campbell’s “Fatal Abstraction: Why the Managerial Class Loses Control of Software” with the realities his students face in mind.
Evan SelingerApr 10
- Science & Technology
Can “Tech Criticism” Tame Silicon Valley?
Evan Selinger lauds Gary Marcus’s new book for its clarity on how to stop the madness and greed around generative AI. He questions the power of “tech criticism” to translate into actual reform, however.
Evan SelingerNov 13, 2024
- Science & Technology
Keeping Humans in the Loop: On Hilke Schellmann’s “The Algorithm”
Evan Selinger reviews Hilke Schellmann’s “The Algorithm: How AI Decides Who Gets Hired, Monitored, Promoted, and Fired and Why We Need to Fight Back Now.”
Evan SelingerMay 31, 2024
- Nonfiction
- Science & Technology
It’s Not What You Think: On Orit Halpern and Robert Mitchell’s “The Smartness Mandate”
Evan Selinger reviews Orit Halpern and Robert Mitchell’s “The Smartness Mandate” and finds it “vertigo-inducing.”
Evan SelingerMay 30, 2023
- Nonfiction
- Science & Technology
Whose Body Is in the Analog World?: On David Sax’s “The Future Is Analog”
Philosopher Evan Selinger eviscerates David Sax’s unabashedly privileged views in “The Future Is Analog: How to Create a More Human World.”
Evan SelingerJan 31, 2023
- Science & Technology
Are You Living Your Best Multiverse Life?: An Interview with Jonathan Carroll
Evan Selinger talks with Jonathan Carroll about how to choose your best multiverse life in his new novel “Mr. Breakfast.”
Evan SelingerJan 14, 2023
Metaverse Myopia
Evan Selinger has reservations about the metaverse.
Evan SelingerJul 19, 2022
- Science & Technology
Surveillance Gone Viral
Evan Selinger lauds David Lyon’s “Pandemic Surveillance” while quibbling with its lack of grounded analysis.
Evan SelingerApr 30, 2022
- Science & Technology
A Tech Critic Embraces Dave Eggers’s “The Every”
A tech critic lauds Dave Eggers’s ability to viscerally ground the issues he talks about in dry academese, like slippery slopes and normalization processes.
Evan SelingerDec 19, 2021
- Fiction
Zero Blind Spots: A Conversation with Darren Byler on Chinese Surveillance Tactics
Evan Selinger talks with anthropologist Darren Byler about Chinese "re-education" camp surveillance technology and Byler's recent book "In the Camps."
Evan SelingerAug 23, 2021
Be Skeptical of Thought Leaders
Evan Selinger picks apart Susan Liautaud’s “cheerful boosterism.”
Evan SelingerJun 14, 2021
- Science & Technology
A Premature Eulogy for Privacy
Evan Selinger vehemently argues against the tenets of Firmin DeBrabander’s “Life After Privacy: Reclaiming Democracy in a Surveillance Society.”
Evan SelingerJan 22, 2021
Why Technologists Fail to Think of Moderation as a Virtue and Other Stories About AI
Evan Selinger argues that Ted Chiang’s fiction is more useful for understanding the dangers of AI than “Possible Minds: 25 Ways of Looking at AI.”
Evan SelingerOct 14, 2019
- SF
- Science & Technology
Ornamental Thinking: On “Irrationality: A History of the Dark Side of Reason”
Is Justin E. H. Smith's assemblage of material actually illuminating? Yes, but only sometimes.
Evan SelingerMay 4, 2019
Internet Privacy: Stepping Up Our Self-Defense Game
Despite all the coverage "privacy" gets in the post-Snowden world, many of us don’t see what all the fuss is about.
Evan SelingerNov 10, 2015
- Science & Technology
Bursting the Optimistic Technology Bubble
Machines themselves are turning into workers, and the line between the capability of labor and capital is blurring as never before.
Evan SelingerJul 31, 2015