There are many hyperbolic essays on AI going viral this week. This essay gets into some of the emerging politics around AI in the United States and how they map onto electoral politics, and is irritated with the American left’s approach to AI.

I agree on one angle, that as a cohort, abstaining entirely from new tech is a bad approach.

Haraway (obvs) suggests we stick with the trouble, that sometimes our very presence in the room is what’s required to trouble existing narratives, and that it’s important that share what we learn back to our people at home, whatever that means in our context.

For me: I spend a lot of time at work translating technical ideas and projects in an institutional voice, but on nights and weekends, I’m explaining the ins and outs of the internet to my working class friends and family. Increasingly, I’m asked to explain LLMs and AI and how it relates to their needs around business, the news, entertainment, and as a legal aid.

The “cyborg’s mark” is a metaphor for writing, our duty to translate, and the inevitability of translation through experience. Perhaps staying with the trouble allows us to articulate our experiences in and around the science in ways that both advance our interests and that keep our communities safer. For those of us who straddle multiple worlds, translation is a responsibility.