Premium – 350. Most Data Work is Bullshit
Added 2024-06-29 22:48:20 +0000 UTCWe chat a bit about some upcoming international travel, then do a reading series by a data scientist who wrote a great blog post about how most of the work done by data scientists in large organizations feels totally worthless, pointless, unfulfilling, and unnecessary — in other words, the definition of bullshit. And yet data science is valorized and mythologized in ways that are disconnected from material reality.
I Will Fucking Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/i-will-fucking-piledrive-you-if-you-mention-ai-again/
Most Data Work Seems Fundamentally Worthless https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/most-data-work-seems-fundamentally-worthless/
Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)
Comments
A useful phrase l've heard for for "we'll just make an unprecedented breakthrough in nuclear fusion", or "all of these data scientists are necessary and useful" is Malicious Optimism¹. It pretty efficiently stacks together the underlying ideas that go into extracting a huge amount of resources out of a company, or society in general, towards an absolutely useless end. [1] Angela Collier, _ the malicious optimism of AI-first companies_ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKmAg4S2KeE&t=45m45s
Ijon Tichy
2024-06-30 23:30:11 +0000 UTCI want to see a picture of Jathen in his wedding finest.
Phillip Alden
2024-06-30 04:39:21 +0000 UTC
