Lisa Messeri

Confirming my hunch that next semester I’m going to bring a librarian into my grad seminar to teach us (me too!) how to do a non google-based (non google scholar esp) lit search.

Not mentioned, though what i personal think is the most fascinating part of this whole story, is that the founder of Supernatural is Chris Milk, he of Empathy Machine fame. Empathy didn't scale, didn't have a payday, but this fitness app sure did. The fantasy and facade of VR for Good...

"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.""

Seen through that lens, the backlash against Meta over Supernatural isn't just about losing a fitness app. It's the whiplash of thousands of people realizing that something they treated as a routine, a community, and even a mental health lifeline, was never anything more than a plaything of billionaires. "Part of the anger that you're seeing "is coming from this feeling of betrayal that comes with an enduring belief in that myth," Messeri says.

Really enjoyed this piece by @pranavdixit.bsky.social on the demise of the Supernatural VR app. Grateful that Pranav quoted the central lesson I teach to undergrads in my "Technology and Culture" class. Highlight, tho, is the Roomba named "Mark Suckerberg."

www.businessinsider.com/zuckerberg-m...

#5!

Using five courses i took in undergraduate to tell a specific story:

1. Unified Engineering
2. Autonomous Reasoning and Decision Making
3. Space Systems Engineering
4. Probabilistic Systems Analysis
5. The Rise of Modern Science

5, uh, set me on a completely different path

“Or do productivity increases from AI assistance undermine skill development?… We found that using AI assistance led to a statistically significant decrease in mastery”

Another study showing that AI creates a world where we are producing more, but understanding less.

AI Bad.

A new study from Anthropic finds that gains in coding efficiency when relying on AI assistance did did not meet statistical significance; AI use noticeably degraded programmers’ understanding of what they were doing. Incredible.

In 2021 I was telling people in my field of art history to stop legitimizing the use of image recognition, to stop applying for grants to use AI in identifying the subjects of portraiture bc this was what such work was being used to further. All this was obvious. theconversation.com/how-ai-is-hi...

Thanks for reading the thread. if you want a PDF and don't have access, shoot me a DM. 9/9

Scott Fisher introduced me to design fictions in 2018 when I was researching “In the Land of the Unreal.” That thinking didn’t make it into the book, but very happy it found a place in this article! 8/

This is part of a special issue, “After the Metaverse” edited by @jmalazita.bsky.social and @aleenachia.bsky.social. It’s for Games and Culture, and I thank them for letting me clumsily situate some of my ideas within Game Studies. 7/

Focusing on the fiction of keynotes connects them to related modes of storytelling. We can place them on a spectrum of technological fictions – including science fictions – any of which might or might not become actual futures. 6/

screen shot from metaverse keynote, with robots, floating avatars and facetime chat

screenshot from Apple's spatial computing keynote. woman standing in front of a vignette illustrating at home use of tech.

I watched, uh, a lot of these keynotes. For science. But these watchings and re-watchings made me realize the increasingly fictive qualities of what used to be straightforward demos 5/

I dissect the cinematic techniques used by corporate keynotes that purposely confuse fiction and fact in order to make a desired future appear real and inevitable. These techniques persist, even as branding (“metaverse”) falls out of favor, allowing us to trace continuities across hype cycles 4/

In calling Big Tech’s visions “technological fictions,” I seek to diminish their authority. This is not an inevitable future, and the fiction of the technologist is no less fanciful than that of the artist or filmmaker. 3/

Big Tech's vision is a scary one, in which “the corporate product, in whatever technical form, is the mediating screen through which we always and only experience the physical world.” This is a vision to refuse, and the article offers one strategy for doing so 2/

Visions of Computing Futures: Meta, Apple, and the Technological Fictions of Digitally Real Worlds - Lisa Messeri, 2026 The vision of seamlessly integrating virtual and physical environments—variously called spatial computing and the metaverse—has been around for decades. Recentl...

I have a new article out! It’s about the “technological fictions” that Big Tech leaders perform during corporate keynotes, particular Zuck and Cook as they tried to sell the metaverse and spatial computing. 1/

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

Just in time to be in conversation with Meta's backing off of Horizon Worlds--new from me in Games & Culture: "Metaverse Engineering: Epic v. Apple, Ontopolitical Play, and Gaming the Law."

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

I haven't had words to capture what i've been feeling, so i've just been reading others' words. The Boss reminds: just say the names and describe the acts of the people who are evil. that's enough for now. Get Noem and Miller and anyone who was even close to this out of power. ICE out now.

AI cannot automate science – a philosopher explains the uniquely human aspects of doing research While AI can streamline certain parts of the scientific process, a philosopher argues that it cannot replace human expertise and collaboration.

AI can crunch data. It can’t replace scientists.

Real discovery still depends on human judgment, creativity and collaboration. buff.ly/g48SKCW

we have Dora's and Lithuanian ancestry and suspected out of wedlock love children and red heads in my family too, so a lot to relate too ;)

this was an instant read for me. beautiful essay, @tamigraph.bsky.social!

threaten us with a good time, why don't you

AI has supercharged scientists—but may have shrunk science Analysis of 41 million papers finds that although AI expands individual impact, it narrows collective scientific exploration

“There needs to be some deep reckoning with what we do with a tool that benefits individuals but destroys science.” @lmesseri.bsky.social www.science.org/content/arti...

'reading encouragement program' lmao

onwards to the zine stage of informal anthro community building...

Let's start by not believing the claims being made corporations about these products when it comes to education. Do not let a whole generation be guinea pigs. Demand rigorous evidence of efficacy before incorporating into classrooms.

And final point, maybe you were just so dang good at social media, Adam, that no one can fill your shoes!!!

It’s telling you are having a hard time finding successors. It suggests of the many things our students today need, this might not be one of them? And what, then, might be filling the solidarity and community need that may of us found here. Or is that need something different now?

Despite different career stages, we’re similar social media ages, right? We joined Twitter when it was a specific thing and we stayed (and are here) bc we liked it! And certainly you’re right that there is a pre and post pandemic that further stratifies