Talks by Maciej Cegłowski

I have some things to say. One talk per event, no repeats.

	U.S. Senate Testimony Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Washington D.C., May 2019. In a Senate hearing focused primarily on the GDPR (the European privacy law) I tried to make a case for regulating behavioral data collection in the United States, creating a legal foundation for American companies to compete on privacy, and warned about the potential misuses of machine learning for regulatory evasion. You can watch a video of the hearing itself (my part starts at minute 42), or read the longer written testimony I submitted to the committee.
	Legends of the Ancient Web Front Trends, Warsaw, May 2017. How the early history of radio tracks the history of the web, and the implications for our own industry and for democracy if we fail to use our current moment of relative power to constrain the political uses of machine learning and AI. The Book of Ecclesiastes and how it applies to computer science.
	Notes From An Emergency re:publica, Berlin, May 2017. [video] (28 mins) On the modern feudal Internet, the bizarre situation in which European online life is entirely in the hands of American companies, and those companies run by people who have lost touch with reality in their quest for space travel and eternal life. With the tech industry and US government being run by chuckleheads, the EU is now the only hope for badly needed structural reform in the short term.
	Build A Better Monster Philly Emerging Tech, Philadelphia, April 2017. [video] (21 mins) Digital collections as an opportunity to make connections with people, rather than get lost in a computational rabbit hole. Machine learning as a deep-fat fryer: fun to play with, amazing if you've never tried it before, ultimately not very satisfying or good for you. The dangers of legitimizing mass surveillance by partnering with its worst perpetrators. A plea for an Internet that's more like a big city and less like a shopping mall.
	Who Will Command The Robot Armies? Directions, Sydney, November 2016. [video] (21 mins) On the problem of automation and accountability, and on writing a talk you have to deliver two days after a stunning election turns the world upside down.
	Superintelligence, the Idea that Eats Smart People WebCamp Zagreb, Croatia, October 2016. [video] (21 mins) Digital collectputational rabbit hole. Machine learning as a deep-fat fryer: fun to play with, amazing if you've never tried it before, ultimately not very satisfying or good for you. The dangers of legitimizing mass surveillance by partnering with its worst perpetrators. A plea for an Internet that's more like a big city and less like a shopping mall.
	Deep-Fried Data Library of Congress, Washington, DC, September 2016. [video] (21 mins) Digital collections as an opportunity to make connections with people, rather than get lost in a computational rabbit hole. Machine learning as a deep-fat fryer: fun to play with, amazing if you've never tried it before, ultimately not very satisfying or good for you. The dangers of legitimizing mass surveillance by partnering with its worst perpetrators. A plea for an Internet that's more like a big city and less like a shopping mall.
	Remarks on the Moral Economy of Tech SASE Conference Panel, Berkeley, June 2016. A ten-minute talk on surveillance capitalism, programmer's disease and the tendency of our industry to escape into fantasy after promising to change the world.
	The Website Obesity Crisis Web Directions, Sydney, November 2015. [video] (53 mins) The puzzling phenomenon of articles about web bloat, which keep getting bigger. Misguided efforts to create a faster web format. William Howard Taft and his importance in web design. The pernicious effect of the iPad on web design. The ad bubble, and why it's going to blow. The high cost of cloudy thinking, and how it nearly let me buy [REDACTED].
	Haunted By Data Strata+Hadoop World, New York City, October 2015. [video] (20 mins) Re-imagining data as radioactive waste we don't know how to safely store. Nixon in your data center. Eroom's Law as an example of how data-driven thinking can make things worse for an entire industry. A plea to stop gratuitously collecting data and start treating it as the trade-off it is.
	What Happens Next Will Amaze You FREMTIDENS INTERNET, Copenhagen, Denmark, September 2015. A talk about the corporate side of our culture of total surveillance. The odd story of how advertisers destoyed our online privacy and then found themselves swindled by robots. Six fixes that I think could restore Internet privacy. Capitalists who act like central planners, and an industry that insists on changing the world without even being able to change San Francisco.
	Web Design: The First 100 Years HOW Interactive, Washington DC (September) and San Francisco, November 2014. A parable about progress and accelerating growth from the aviation industry. The problem of irreality and fantastical thinking in tech culture. Three competing visions for the web. Why you should be happy your computer is not getting faster. How to cure our exponential hangover.
	The Internet With A Human Face Beyond Tellerrand, Düsseldorf, Germany, May 2014 ‧ [video] (45 mins) The problem of memory online, how there seems to be both too much and not enough of it. Why it doesn't matter whether mass surveillance is done by government or the private sector. Personal data as the Internet equivalent to radioactive waste. A critique of "investor storytime" (promises about future advertising) as the economic foundation of the web. Some ideas for regulating all this stuff. Many cute animal pictures.
	Our Comrade The Electron Webstock, Wellington, NZ, February 2014 ‧ [video] (30 mins) A biographical talk about Lev Sergeyevich Termen and his inventions. The designer's paradox: how can you design something—which implies conscious control and intent—when it is genuinely new? The limits of our ability to predict anything, especially the future. This talk includes a long digression about Internet centralization and the dangers of the upcoming "Internet of Things". Funny Lenin stories! A vision of New Zealand hegemony.
	Barely Succeed—It's Easier! (coming someday) Web Directions South, Sydney, Australia, October 2014. [video] (40 mins) Startup culture and its pathologies. The cost of starting a web service has dropped precipitously, so why do we still ask rich dudes for money? The puzzling lack of innovation around business models compared to the surfeit of innovation in everything else. Venture capital as central planning in disguise. The difficulties of changing your own culture.
	Thoreau 2.0 XOXO, Portland, Oregon, October 2013. [video] (20 mins) Strip-mining Walden for a bunch of Tim Ferriss-style life hacks. A call for independent sites to resist mass surveillance, since the large sites sure aren't going to. Exhortation to fail slowly, if at all.
	Fan Is A Tool-Using Animal dConstruct, Brighton, England, August 2013. [audio] (20 mins) My love letter to fandom, a loose agglomeration of communities that roams the Internet, Battlestar Galactica-style, constantly on the run from collapsing websites and evil Cylons that want to co-opt their culture. Fans are active on the frontiers of Internet privacy, creativity, inclusiveness, and have a long and interesting history. They are also exceedingly nice people.

Talks by Maciej Cegłowski

Barely Succeed—It's Easier! (coming someday)