Lisa Messeri

@lmesseri.bsky.social

5983 Followers 1060 Following

anthropologist of sci & tech. Prof @Yale. author of "Placing Outer Space" and VR book "In the Land of the Unreal". tech criticism with good vibes.

"Throughout history, Americans have developed various ways to support scientific progress that depart from the university-based, principal investigator- driven grant. These include Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a leading institution of biological research, founded in 1890, and the Institute for Advanced Study, founded in 1930, which gave luminaries like Einstein, Noether, Oppenheimer, and Gödel an opportunity to explore revolutionary ideas. Each provided a home for new kinds of science."
A book shelf at the AGI house, with a hand on a shelf containing dianetics.
screenshot of 'point of contact' revealing that there are no points of contact.
Wait, hold on. You understand that you’re saying I have to do that because all of the work I’ve produced in my career to date has been taken without compensation by AI companies. I didn’t make that statement. What? You’re saying I need to invent some new business model as an expert and upload an agent of myself to your tool and then advertise it to get a 70 / 30 revenue split from however many people use Grammarly, because my actual body of work has been reduced to zero value. That’s a pretty hard sell.
Three frame comic. First frame, a woman heads into a house saying ‘I’m going to shut myself away and write a novel set in a horrific dystopia.’ Second woman says ‘good luck!’ Second frame: super title reads ‘five years later’ and author in her study exclaims ‘finished!’. Third frame, author emerges onto her doorstep clutching her manuscript only to see indications of a dystopia playing out in front of her. She exclaims ‘damn!’
screen shot of HJO dressed as a clueless tech bro.
headline reading "The Pentagon's Favorite Tech Guy is this Hawaiian shirt-wearing founder" and a picture of Palmer Luckey Chad-ified with missiles in the background
Picture of a snow blanketed backyard
"While most AI tries to fix humans @simile_ai is building AI that understands them. They build digital twins that capture someone’s worldview, then simulate how customers, employees or entire populations will actually respond to change. Born out of Stanford generative agent research. Now backed by $100M to turn that into a category. AI is getting smarter and Simile is making it more human. We're proud to be in their corner."
"When I spoke to Lisa Messeri, an associate professor of anthropology at Yale and author of a 2024 book about VR, "In the Land of the Unreal," I asked her a question many Supernatural users I interviewed kept asking themselves: Is it ethical when a corporation collects years of physical and emotional data from an app that functioned as a form of self-care for thousands of people, and then pulls the rug out for a pivot? "The question is, why did we ever think that corporations were ethical in the first place?" Messeri says. For decades, the tech industry has benefited from what she calls an "endurable myth": that better technology automatically equals social progress. Messeri points to Google's original motto ,  "Don't Be Evil,"   as "the kind of grace that we gave tech companies.""
screen shot from metaverse keynote, with robots, floating avatars and facetime chat
Visions of Computing Futures: Meta, Apple, and the Technological Fictions of Digitally Real Worlds Abstract: The vision of seamlessly integrating virtual and physical environments – variously called spatial computing and the metaverse – has been around for decades. Recently, Big Tech companies, including Apple and Meta, have prioritized ushering in this computing paradigm. Despite hardware and interface inadequacies, how do these companies make such visions feel not only inevitable but also readily achievable? This paper analyzes performances of corporate vision-making as technological fictions, drawing attention to the genre and aesthetics that make a future seem like the future. By interweaving narratives illustrating the sociality of metaverse futures with presentations of technical capabilities, corporate visions purposely blur fiction and fact such that the former is mistaken for the latter. As scholars consider how to refuse Big Tech visions, excavating how inevitabilities are mere possibilities offers one critical strategy.
Sign announcing ‘ln the land of the unreal’ as Bateson prize winner
domain of multidisciplinary academic inquiry that dates back to the mid-20th century. It has more recently become a successful marketing term deployed by large tech companies to describe a host of automated and semiautomated processes. Given that the purposely underdefined and hype-fueled meaning of AI has taken over more academic definitions, we limit our use of the term to capturing social trends and impulses rather than for referring to a scientific body of work.
cover of the book "Otherwhere ethnography: an introduction to outer space studies." edited by Istvan Praet and Perig Pitrou
Artificial Intelligence (AI) domain of multidisciplinary academic inquiry that dates back to the mid-20th century. It has more recently become a successful marketing term deployed by large tech companies to describe a host of automated and semiautomated processes. Given that the purposely underdefined and hype-fueled meaning of AI has taken over more academic definitions, we limit our use of the term to capturing social trends and impulses rather than for referring to a scientific body of work.
a funnel showing As investigations of cognition transition from the world to laboratory studies (blue), to computerized studies (red), to online studies (orange), to AI Surrogate studies (yellow), the varieties of cognition that are possible to measure become narrowed to Decontextualized, Engineered, Anonymized, Disembodied (DEAD) cognition.
a figure from the paper, illustrating illusions of generalizability. in the top, well-recognized illusion of generalizability arises when researchers mistake Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic (WEIRD) convenience samples as more representative of all humans than they actually are. The illusion is obscured when we describe convenience samples as ‘people’ or ‘humans’ in the papers we write. in the bottom, nother illusion of generalizability arises when researchers mistake DEAD cognitive processes as being more representative of all cognition than they actually are. This illusion is obscured when we write papers about abstracted cognitive processes rather than about the more specific forms of cognition that DEAD tasks measure.
The abstract reads "Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have generated enthusiasm for using AI simulations of human research participants to generate new knowledge about human cognition and behavior. This vision of ‘AI Surrogates’ promises to enhance research in cognitive science by addressing longstanding challenges to the generalizability of human subjects research. AI Surrogates are envisioned as expanding the diversity of populations and contexts that we can feasibly study with the tools of cognitive science. Here, we caution that investing in AI Surrogates risks entrenching research practices that narrow the scope of cognitive science research, perpetuating ‘illusions of generalizability’ where we believe our findings are more generalizable than they actually are. Taking the vision of AI Surrogates seriously helps illuminate a path toward a more inclusive cognitive science."
No kings
Dear Madam Secretary, I write in response to your letter of October 1, inviting MIT to review a “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.” I acknowledge the vital importance of these matters. I appreciated the chance to meet with you earlier this year to discuss the priorities we share for American higher education. As we discussed, the Institute’s mission of service to the nation directs us to advance knowledge, educate students and bring knowledge to bear on the world’s great challenges. We do that in line with a clear set of values, with excellence above all. Some practical examples: • MIT prides itself on rewarding merit. Students, faculty and staff succeed here based on the strength of their talent, ideas and hard work. For instance, the Institute was the first to reinstate the SAT/ACT requirement after the pandemic. And MIT has never had legacy preferences in admissions. • MIT opens its doors to the most talented students regardless of their family’s finances. Admissions are need-blind. Incoming undergraduates whose families earn less than $200,000 a year pay no tuition. Nearly 88% of our last graduating class left MIT with no debt for their education. We make a wealth of free courses and low-cost certificates available to any American with an internet connection. Of the undergraduate degrees we award, 94% are in STEM fields. And in service to the nation, we cap enrollment of international undergraduates at roughly 10%.
And yet, both of these corporate futures have far more in common than in distinction. Especially as spatial computing has, like the metaverse, failed to garner the enthusiasm corporate overloads had anticipated, it is important to understand these terms in the context of the larger computing visions they seek to proffer. This vision wants users to be permanently and inescapably immersed in a world of digital overlays, such that the corporate product, in whatever technical form (headset, glasses), is the mediating screen through which we always and only experience the physical world. This is a vision we ought to refuse, and this article offers an admittedly modest strategy for refusal. I do so by offering a reading of the technological fictions that convey the spatialities and socialities of spatial computing
screen shot of a map, showing that the "gulf of Mexico" has not been relabled.
a screenshot of a chatGPT interface where it admits to making up a source.
"Because “the good” is not a universally agreed upon concept but rather articulated through “regimes of knowledge,” “tech for good” projects that emerge from Big Tech companies shape definitions of what it means to do “good” work in ways that align with their mission, namely capital accumulation"
screen shot of a zoom interface with a link icon
screen shot with the following text "You may also cancel this contract if: You relocate your residence further than twenty-five (25) miles from any health club operated by the seller or from any other substantially similar health club which would accept the obligation of the seller; You die; or"
Trump threatens to cut musk’s government contracts as ties unravel
My third concern, however, makes me fear that there might be little we can do to curtail students’ instincts to incorporate AI into their workflow. Just as I was able to take a mediocre lesson plan and make it something fun and exciting, there are no doubt students who have performed similar alchemy and bragged to their classmates about receiving a top mark and doing less work. Given how accessible (and free) these apps are, students might come to feel that it is necessary to use AI both to keep up with the pack and, should faculty get used to AI-inflected products, adapt to the new normative style of the pack. Educators have been vocal in their criticism of GPT, and we can see how easily it will be used to replace, rather than assist, the work we desire our students to complete. Further, given its penchant for returning wrong information, I fear that our students will be conducting research in a digital environment where truths and realities are not a prerequisite for authoritative responses. While using AI in college might make our students better prepared to enter an AI-infused workforce, the trade-off will be that they might lose the ability to critically interrogate whether this is a workforce they even desire to enter.
Sign for ‘Mars unearthed’ exhibit
Use ChatGPT Plus to help you through finals: Upload dozens of docs, PDFs, and images and ask ChatGPT to summarize or quiz you Ask ChatGPT to do detailed online research, saving you hours of time Brainstorm writing ideas and get edits and writing tips, too Practice speaking foreign languages – or prep for interviews – with longer real-time conversations Create custom images for presentations and projects
book cover of "in the land of the unreal" featuring a pink palm tree background and a person in a VR headset with head tilted up. the subtitle "virtual and other realities in los angeles" appears on the headset.
Doctors Told Him He Was Going to Die. Then A.I. Saved His Life.
screen shot with the text: "The case study and this methodological reflection, taken together, amount to the project of putting Big Tech in its place. To do so recognizes the importance of networked, multisited work in studying tech elites while also arguing that the seeming immutability of what flows through the network masks local flexibilities that are necessary for mounting successful critiques of Big Tech's platforms, ideas, and organizations. In the case of VR, studying the technology's development from LA expands the narratives with which it travels and redraws the contours of the industry and its participants."
a screenshot of a cartoon drawing of a desk with post-it notes scattered around. this is a prezi template that i'm using for the lecture
screen shot of AI Overview, with the following text Douglas Adams was a British author who contributed to an independent journal that supported anti-apartheid movements in Southern Africa. Explanation Adams was a writer, environmentalist, and atheist. He was best known for his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, which includes books, a radio series, a TV series, a computer game, and a movie. Adams wrote for Southern Africa, an independent journal that supported liberation movements in Southern Africa. Adams was part of a global solidarity movement that contributed to the success of the anti-apartheid struggle. Adams was also a humanist. A quote from his work was displayed on London tube trains as part of Humanists UK's 2009 atheist bus campaign.
Screen shot of phone notification indicating a test of the Yale alert system
Last week, Big Tech’s oligarchs including Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, sat on the dais behind Donald Trump, in seats of honor as he was inaugurated for his second term. So perhaps today in 2025 the collusion between right-wing politics and Silicon Valley seems stunningly obvious, but I assure you that not even a decade ago there was still wide spread belief in tech’s pro-social possibilities and Zuckerberg himself cowered in front of the senate, apologizing for his democracy bulldozing social media site.
The failure of the polls in the Presidential election of 1048 had many consequences, not all of them grave. Whether the events of November 1948 cut down the expansion of opinion research into new areas or seriously damaged the prestige of social psychology is something that cannot yet be judged
My own scholarly commitment to critiquing technology is not to refuse the possibility that our lives can be enhanced by tech, but to instead expand how we write and think about innovation in the hopes of eventually eclipsing, or at the very least challenging, what Big Tech believes we ought to desire
Cover of "In the land of the unreal: Virtual and other realities in Los Angeles"
We use technology to help us with academic learning – from calculators to word processors to power point. Sometimes, it can be a great help as it takes more routine tasks and automates them. However, the assignments in this class are brief and designed to help you cultivate creative and critical thinking skills. Using ChatGPT for this class is the equivalent of getting someone else to write the essay for you, even if still need to edit or clean it up. We are interested in reading YOUR ideas and YOUR words, and also believe that the assignments are necessary to getting the most out of this class. Please keep that in mind even when you might be under a time crunch. We’d rather you ask for an extension then try to find a shortcut.
A screen shot explaining a new feature that will "Keep your tabs tidy with AI." Under things to consider, it reads "This feature uses AI and won't always get it right"
In confronting a fractured reality, the instinct is to make it whole once more-to rebuild the commons, to repair reality. But is that actually how a better world will come to be? Throughout this book, I've used the unreal to capture the feeling that reality is multiplying and becoming something else. In reaction to this ineffable shift, fantasy and other marginalized modes of reasoning about the world come into prevalence and facilitate the imagining of technology otherwise, futures otherwise, and worlds otherwise. In writing from a US context, the unreal seems "new." But anthropologist Arturo Escobar, in concert with others writing about Latin and South American Indigenous ontologies, argues that singular reality is an illusion masking what he calls the pluriverse: an unreality that preexists the Western "real." The pluriverse captures the Indigenous idea of life as something always becoming and inherently relational, but also expresses a world of many worlds. Earth as a single world with a single reality is a fiction of the West. Thus, a pluriversal politics presumes that'"another world is possible because another real and another possible are possible." Rejecting the "belief in a single reality means developing another, entirely different understanding of what change and transformation are, and thus of what politics can be."
a screenshot of a note that reads "Herb, Reviewing our correspondence, I noticed that I have heard nothing from you concerning the paper you sent me from the last Computers and Philosophy Conference. I am still eager to publish it. Please know that the notes I sent from a referee were suggestions, not requiremenst for revision"
Selfie of a happy looking Lisa
Picture of a moon pie
"pay range: $49,700-$122,000 actual salary offers in the college of arts and sciences will be based on education, experience, discipline, and relevant skills."
a powerpoint slide. title reads "spatial computing's diegetic prototypes" and there are three screenshots, one of facebook's metaverse, a second of apple's vision pro, and a third of Matsuda's hyper-reality. all of the screenshots show a mix of digital and actual elements.
The cover of "In the land of the unreal" showing a person wearing a VR headset with palm trees in the background. the colors are pinks and blues and purples.
Table from the paper featuring the four visions, the research stage at which they are found, the limits they promise to overcome, and the vision of their implementation
Figure 1c from the paper. In a monoculture of knowers, scientists are vulnerable to an illusion of objectivity, in which they falsely believe that AI tools do not have a standpoint (as desired for Oracles and Arbiters) or are able to represent all possible standpoints (as desired for Surrogates in research using human participants), whereas AI tools actually embed the standpoints of their training data and their developers.
Figure 1b from the paper. In amonoculture of knowing, scientists are vulnerable to an illusion of exploratorybreadth, in which they falsely believe they are exploring a space of all testablehypotheses, whereas they are actually exploring a narrower space of hypothesesthat are testable with AI tools.
photo of the cover page, showing bold black letters on a white background with the title 'In the land of the unreal: virtual and other realities in los angeles"
zoom in on the letters so you can see the white bleeding into the pink