For the Solidarity Infrastructures class at SFPC, I really struggled with thinking of what to create for my final project. Originally, I was hoping to share some progress from a side project for self-hosting data and applications. But with that project not quite in a demo-able state, I wanted to grapple more directly with the class content as I thought about our final output.
I already tried, but I can't stop thinking about the Internet. I can't stop thinking about social media, what does it do to my brain, and I can't stop thinking about The Algorithm(s). I can't stop thinking about computing, the worldviews it evokes and imposes. This is an exercise in documenting what I've found so far, in starting to tie together loose threads I've kept with me over the last few years.
Is it possible to build ethical software given that so much of this field's primary motivations were rooted in the military-industrial complex, to create tools for control and surveillance? And the tech industry's clear alignment to profit at all costs / a warped vision of the future. What would ethical software even look like?
I am concerned with these questions first as a student and lover of logic and math, and next as a software engineer trying to find her place in this industry and the world. These questions are also deeply personal: if it's not possible then, well, what am I doing? When I think about Solidarity Infrastructures, I guess I am asking, can a piece of software/network/internet infrastructure really be built in solidarity with humans?
There is an emphasis in this industry to solve existing problems (oftentimes caused by the deployment of software) with more software. What is the new AI that's going to regulate all the bad AIs? But with each new tool, each call to build the fix or create a future, I find myself with an overwhelming sense of dread.
I find myself feeling that there is too much software in the world, and Iām wary of adding to that pile. And yet, there is also a huge gap: there is no software to fill the decaying expanse of social media and lack of digital public spaces, there is not enough software that is easy to understand and easy to run on our own devices, and thereās not enough software that makes it easy to build software for non-commercial purposes. I was/am very much feeling the urgency of needing more non-corporate, secure tools to communicate over the internet, of needing new ways to create our own internet infrastructure, and doing this without adding to the junkyard of apps and installations.
This is not to say I donāt believe in single-purpose tools, or one-off pieces of software, because I very much do. But when it came time to be inspired by one of these, I honestly just felt like getting off of my computer. Out of an irrepressible instinct to be very careful about what I put out into the world, I decided that for my final project, I wanted to instead collect and state my intentions for creating software in the future. I have an Are.na channel called āguiding principleā - a collection of notes, writings, and sites that I find myself coming back to and continually finding food for thought. I hope this space becomes something similar, a growing archive of projects that have inspired me and continue to teach me how to create, as well as a set of guardrails to hold my motivations steady when I need to do so.
I am calling this "Software Intentions"; a framework in which to consider new technology I build, and to judge the new technologies presented to me. Behind each intention is all the reading, internet stalking, late night journaling I've done on this topic, and I try my best to link back to some of the most influential of these.