Thao Phan

📯 Nominations for the AusSTS Best Paper Prize are now open!!

🏆 A prize to celebrate the best scholarship in the region by a junior scholar. Published and unpublished manuscripts accepted

💌 Self-nominations strongly encouraged

Annnnnd we're live! Get your proposals in for #AusSTS2026 in Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington ⛰️🌫️

This year's theme is 'Antipodean Interruptions'. Think antipodean methodologies, ontologies, epistemologies, legacies. Interruptions across scales, sites, subjects.

Some inspo ✨👇

A holiday treat from us to you - save the date for AusSTS 2026 in Aotearoa!

My short piece 'The Geological' has been published in the 10 Anniv Issue of Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience, a dream journal. This piece emerged from the project 'Pursuits of Population', led by @sonjavw.bsky.social @thaophan.bsky.social & Jaya Keaney. Available here: tinyurl.com/39hey2zw

Hello Naarm friends! I'm back in town next week and will be talking about genAI and the politics of representing violence. Will be joined in conversation after w Dr André Dao

📆 Tuesday 10 Feb, 4 - 5:30pm
📍 Arts West Research Lounge, University of Melbourne

arts.unimelb.edu.au/school-of-cu...

Woo! Breaking news from @aussts.bsky.social! See you in November in Te Whanganui-a-Tara! 🥝🥝🥝

Let this be the first thing to go in those pristine 2026 diaries

Save-the-date for AusSTS 2026 in Aotearoa New Zealand!!

do not sleep on this absolute belter of an article

🤙✨

Cheers Ben!!

This research was only made possible through the support of the @admscentre.org.au and Emerging Technologies Research Lab at @monashuniversity.bsky.social and the many good folks there 🙏

AI in the street: Drone Observatory This is "AI in the street: Drone Observatory" by ETLab, Monash University on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

You can watch the documentary Jeni Lee and I made based on these interviews with shopkeepers and other everyday people who live in Logan about what it's like living in a drone delivery tested

vimeo.com/1013048120?f...

Behind the headlines: the truth about life in Logan Logan is famously greatly disadvantaged. But it’s also vibrant and diverse – and many people are glad to call it home

For those who know the city of Logan, you will know that it has a reputation as a low socioeconomic area. According to the ABS, it has the top 10% of disadvantaged suburbs in the country

www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Race also entered the frame. Australia (and more specifically the city of Logan) was said to be a perfect testbed because of its great racial diversity. In the words of one local council member "we know that diversity are better, to trial things in, because if it works here, it'll work elsewhere.

Attempts at community complaint were all transposed (in true cybernetic fashion) through the language of feedback

Of the many interesting things shared by my interlocutors, one worth highlighting is the way Wing actively sought out "friendly regulators" who were willing to collaborate with them to modernise the rules governing airspace

I also look sociologically, using the example of drone delivery to analyse how the legacy of colonial experimentation continues to shape the dynamics of technology testing today. I draw on fieldwork where I spent time in Australian cities where drone delivery systems were being tested "in the wild"

This article asks why. Why Australia? what is it about the people and place that make them ideal test sites and test subjects? To do this, I look historically, examining the nineteenth and early twentieth century framing of the Australian nation as a British experiment in colonial management

This is also true of drone delivery with Google subsidiary Wing Aviation turning Australia into the world's largest commercial drone delivery testbed

Australia, as it turns out, is a preferred location for Big Tech companies to trial new products and services. Spotify, Tinder, Facebook have all tested features in the Australian market first before releasing it elsewhere.

Big shout out to all the excellent humans who cast their eyes on this and whose invaluable feedback helped push it across the line ✨

@noortjem.bsky.social @jackstilgoe.bsky.social @alex-taylor.bsky.social @blueskychris.bsky.social @wombatscholar.bsky.social @pinkydigital.bsky.social

Good to see this bad boy out in the world!! New article from me on drone delivery, AI testbeds, and the long history science and technology testing in the colony.

Online first and gloriously open access ✨

doi.org/10.1177/2976...

Singapore you delicious bastard, I'm coming for you! 🦀 🍜 ✨

Join me for a public lecture on:

Artificial Figures: gender-in-the-making in algorithmic culture

🗓️ Wed 19 November, 2 - 4pm
📍 Chinese Heritage Centre Auditorium, Nanyang Technical University

Register: blogs.ntu.edu.sg/aimeetshuman...

AFTERMATH: AUSSTS MELBOURNE SUMMER SYMPOSIUM 2026 The Melbourne Node of AusSTS is holding a 1-day summer symposium for scholars to present and discuss works in progress. We welcome applications that broadly engage with Science and Technology Studies ...

Melbourne-ite STS-ers, the local AusSTS node are doing a wee Summer Symposium on AFTERMATH - Mon 23 February 2026. If you are interested in coming along then please submit an abstract by 25 Nov 2025 ⏰https://forms.gle/9kwgnpDiE2HP61sF7?_imcp=1

Image shows a screenshot of the conclusion of the linked Senate inquiry submission. This text can be found on page 10. The text is too long for alt text, but here is the first three quarters of the text: Conclusion Over the past decade, Nous Group’s UniForum data has quietly taken on the status of authoritative benchmark for the quality of a range of professional and academic services performed by public universities in Australia and across the world. This authoritative status is performed through scientific-looking graphs and scientific-sounding jargon designed to imply UniForum data is generated through rigorous methods and backed by expert consensus. This performance of authority is significant: it lends UniForum data an air of credibility and facticity that makes acting upon its results irresistible. When one begins to open the black box and examine how UniForum data is actually produced, however, it becomes difficult to justify the degree to which Australian university executives are relying upon it in their decision-making. My analysis is based on a review of publicly available documents, and it is therefore possible that Nous or its clients would point to things not in the public domain that address some of the conceptual and methodological flaws that I have highlighted in UniForum. But the fact that the underlying UniForum data and methodology is not in the public domain is itself one of the key causes for concerns. When the stakes are so high, it cannot be acceptable for Nous Group and its clients to simply tell university staff and governing councils, ‘trust us, these numbers are based on rigorous methods and analysis.’ The lack of rigor, external scrutiny, and transparency in UniForum’s underlying data and methodology would be a cause for concern in any public institution, but it is especially concerning in the context of universities where rigorous, transparent, and accountable knowledge production is a core part of what we do. ...

Private consultants are taking control of how public universities are evaluated and run.

My submission to the Senate university governance inquiry raises concerns about the impact of Nous Group and their dodgy UniForum data on our universities.

www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStor...

A thread

Well deserved!! 👏👏👏

Go off, Eryk!!

Is European AI A Lost Cause? Not Necessarily. | NOEMA If Europe wants to build a new AI Stack it should stop listening to critics who claim to lead the way but only offer resistance.

Billionaire-owned “philosopher” Benjamin Bratton finally coming out as full technofash in this declaration of alliance with JD Vance & a16z — here’s his scathing rejection of those who “stand in the way” of corporate AI agendas nobody wants. www.noemamag.com/is-european-...

Critical AI seminar series Register via https://bit.ly/uvacriticalai2526 Program and Invited Speakers: Upcoming seminars November 12, 5-6:30 PM (CEST): Invited talk by Louise Amoore and Alexander Campolo, ‘On reading machine learning‘ January 13, 5:30-7 PM (CEST): Invited talk by Fabian Offert on ‘Vector Media‘ March 18, 3-4:30 (CEST): Invited talk by Helene Ratner and Nanna Thylstrup on ‘Ecologies of evaluation’ May 20, 12-1:30 PM (CEST): Invited talk by Thao Phan on ‘Testing-in-the-wild’

🚨The Critical AI Seminar Series returns in 2025/2026 ✨

This year we will have four talks and are beyond excited to welcome @amoorelouise.bsky.social & @alexcampolo.bsky.social, Fabian Offert, Helene Ratner & @nannathylstrup.bsky.social and @thaophan.bsky.social ✨

Sign up: bit.ly/uvacriticala...