Tamara Kneese

Aug 26, 2024 | logicmag.io | Tamara Kneese |Santiago Sánchez

Recent advances in biotechnology have motivated a16z, one of the flagship venture capital firms of Silicon Valley, to declare this the Century of Biology. Like the tech boom before it, the current biotech boom promises to change the world in ways we could have never imagined––and as with the tech boom, many such changes may not be for the better.

Feb 12, 2024 | techpolicy.press | Tamara Kneese

On February 1, Senator Edward Markey’s (D-MA) office— along with Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Representative Anna Eshoo (D-CA), and Representative Don Beyer (D-VA)—introduced the Artificial Intelligence Environmental Impacts Act of 2024.

Jan 10, 2024 | medium.com | Tamara Kneese

Algorithmic impact assessments (AIAs) are at an inflection point: amid increasing recognition of AIAs as an important tool for accountability, recent or pending legislation (including the Algorithmic Accountability Act of 2022, California’s AB 331, and the EU AI Act) could make AIAs mandatory in the EU, Brazil, Canada, and the United States. AIAs build on other kinds of impact assessments such as human rights, privacy, and environmental impact assessments.

Jan 8, 2024 | thebaffler.com | Tamara Kneese |Esmat Elhalaby

In June 2022, Amazon advertised a new feature of the virtual assistant Alexa with a demo designed to prove that the device could resurrect the voices of dead relatives. At the re:Mars conference in Las Vegas, Rohit Prasad, head scientist for Alexa, showcased a video of a dead grandmother’s disembodied voice reading The Wizard of Oz to her grandchild.

Nov 9, 2023 | crookedtimber.org | Tamara Kneese

It is undeniably powerful to hear workers’ stories in their own words. Movements can emerge from the unlikeliest sources. The oral histories of ordinary workers are often seen as distinct from the memoirs of outsiders in tech, many of them women, who have written about their experiences. The latter range from Ellen Ullman’s 1990s memoir from the perspective of a woman software engineer to Anna Wiener’s viral essay and then monograph-length account, Uncanny Valley.