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Louis Ravn

@louravn

PhD Candidate in AI, Digital Culture, and Deep Learning. @University of Amsterdam. deep-culture.org. He/him. STS | critical AI studies | critical data studies | social theory

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26.11.2024
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Latest posts by Louis Ravn @louravn

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Verhaltensscanner und Palantir: Was das Wahlergebnis in Baden-Württemberg sicherheitspolitisch bedeutet Das baden-württembergische Landtagswahlergebnis gibt der grün-schwarzen Koalition freie Hand für ihre Überwachungspläne. Geht es nach den Spitzenpolitikern, kann bald jedes Dorf videoüberwacht werden,...

«Beide Spitzenkandidaten, Cem Özdemir von den Grünen und Manuel Hagel von der CDU, wollen Palantir-artige Datenanalysen. Nur will Özdemir aufgrund ethischer Bedenken nicht die Original-Software aus den USA nutzen, sondern lieber mit Partnern aus Europa eine Alternative entwickeln.»

09.03.2026 17:02 👍 18 🔁 3 💬 2 📌 1
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Just Published: 'The Infrastructural Unconscious: Do Computers Dream of Carbo-Silico Pipelines?' in "Reckoning with Everything: The Becoming-Environmental of Computing" edited by Bernhard Siegert and Benedikt Merkle, and published by @mesonpress.bsky.social .

11.02.2026 17:43 👍 23 🔁 4 💬 1 📌 0
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Dylan Riley (@rileysociology) I may be a bit late to the game on this, but I saw something today that alarmed me. Two professors on line were essentially boasting about how they use AI to make decisions about what constitutes a “s...

Agreed.
substack.com/@rileysociol...

04.02.2026 09:45 👍 2 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 1
AI & Archives AI & Archives

✨ We’re excited to share the first articles from AI & ARCHIVES — a special issue of the new journal Cambridge Forum on AI: Culture and Society (Cambridge University Press). www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

29.01.2026 13:28 👍 32 🔁 15 💬 1 📌 1

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22.01.2026 10:20 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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#2 Critical AI Seminar Series: Vector Media January 13, 17:30-19:00 (CEST): Vector Media This talk presents a new history and theory of the vector space in contemporary artificial intelligence systems. I will argue that the inevitable bias of s...

✨Welcoming Fabian Offer for the next #CriticalAI Seminar (online) on his upcoming book "Vector Media" on January 13, 2026 5:30-7 PM (Amsterdam)✨

The talk presents a new history and theory of the vector space in contemporary #AI systems

🗓️ Register here: www.create.humanities.uva.nl/events/2-cri...

12.01.2026 08:37 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

CfP ✨Consider submitting to this fantastic panel on Deep Learning and Culture at the STS NL Conference ✨

Organised by @louravn.bsky.social @annaschjoett.bsky.social Dasha Simons, Paula Helm and Tobias Blanke (@d-eepculture.bsky.social)

15.12.2025 13:19 👍 2 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
Vacancy — Lecturer in Cultural Data & AI (D4) <p>Would you like to teach cutting-edge theories, computational methods, and questions in Critical Data & AI? Then we have the perfect challenge for you!</p>

❗ We are urgently looking for a new Lecturer in Cultural Data & AI at the University of Amsterdam: werkenbij.uva.nl/en/vacancies...

The deadline for applying is very soon: Jan 4th.

You’ll work with @tpoell.bsky.social, @riederb.bsky.social, @dluitse.bsky.social, @louravn.bsky.social, me, & more

11.12.2025 08:36 👍 7 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 0
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I have a new paper out in @jhokjournal.bsky.social - "Loss: A notion of error in machine learning." It attempts to draw some wider historical comparisons than are perhaps usual. I would love to know what you think. journalhistoryknowledge.org/article/view...

11.12.2025 10:08 👍 10 🔁 4 💬 2 📌 0
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🚨 Call for presentations: “Deep Learning and Culture” panel

🔍 We're organizing a panel on “Deep Learning and Culture” at the STS NL Conference (Uni of Twente, 17-19 April 2026).

📮 Please submit your abstract here: www.utwente.nl/en/bms/sts-n.... Deadline: 07 Jan. 2026.

See you there :)

10.12.2025 14:10 👍 6 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 1
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We are excited to report that we have started developing our first *Little Tools of Difference*.

While deep learning has been driven by a culture of uniformity, we asked: What if we used these same state-of-the-art architectures to do the opposite?

More prototypes are coming soon, so stay tuned!

10.12.2025 09:53 👍 4 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0

What happens when synthetic data are used in development contexts? My new article examines this question, arguing that critical research on synthetic data should consider data justice issues. Accordingly, the paper outlines avenues for #syntheticdatajustice.

🔗: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

20.10.2025 07:49 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Want to know more about #syntheticdata #assetization, #blockchain and #cloudinfrastructures in #finance? In this paper for @financeandspace.bsky.social , I talk about those topics, plus how synthetic data might be reworking financial #subjectivities! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

17.10.2025 15:29 👍 20 🔁 7 💬 1 📌 1
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🚨 CfP: Boundaries & boundary concepts in/as datafication 🚨

🔍 Together with the amazing @dropsmops.bsky.social and Sarah Davies, I'm organizing a workshop on boundaries & boundary concepts in datafication. Please see our flyer below for more details.

📅 19-20 Feb. 2026, University of Amsterdam.

16.10.2025 12:09 👍 4 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
DHQ: Digital Humanities Quarterly: Keywords in Digital Humanities – A critical assessment of computational techniques for mapping security and freedom in histor...

Keywords are not neutral.

With Tobias Blanke, we investigate the power of keywords as interpretive tools in our work "Keywords in Digital Humanities: A critical assessment of computational techniques for mapping security and freedom in historical debates".

You can read the article now on DHQ!

15.10.2025 16:37 👍 4 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0
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Interview with Louis Ravn Louis Ravn is a PhD Candidate on Deep Culture at the University of Amsterdam, working in the fields of science and technology studies and critical data/AI studies. Moreover, he is assistant editor for...

Super fun to contribute to this brief interview with Terminally Online, a student-led organization on New Media at the University of Amsterdam.

We spoke about my wonderful team‘s research (@d-eepculture.bsky.social), who inspires me, and some of my own work.

🔗: www.linkedin.com/pulse/interv...

09.10.2025 07:20 👍 6 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
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New project to investigate societal consequences of using synthetic data to train algorithms Researchers in the University of York’s Department of Sociology will lead one of the first large-scale, systematic social science studies of synthetic data.

I am very excited and honoured to be the recipient of an ERC Starting Grant, starting January 2026 🔆 @erc.europa.eu. The five-year project will explore the broader social, political, and ethical implications of training algorithmic models on synthetic data. www.york.ac.uk/news-and-eve...

04.09.2025 15:22 👍 29 🔁 6 💬 7 📌 1
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Meta suppressed research on child safety, employees say The company’s lawyers intervened to shape research that might have shed light on risks in virtual reality, four current and former staffers have told Congress. Meta denies the allegations.

this is the industry governments want to hand over education and other societal infrastructure

www.washingtonpost.com/investigatio...

10.09.2025 13:19 👍 32 🔁 20 💬 1 📌 2

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07.09.2025 11:42 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

no way, is this in NL?

07.09.2025 09:35 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

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05.09.2025 12:35 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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We are starving My body is breaking down. My mother is collapsing from exhaustion. My cousin cheats death every day for a morsel of aid.

“My body is breaking down. My mother is collapsing from exhaustion. My cousin cheats death every day for a morsel of aid. Gaza's children are dying in front of our eyes, and we are powerless to help them.”

www.972mag.com/hunger-gaza-...

22.07.2025 13:58 👍 34 🔁 29 💬 0 📌 1

Weil gerade wieder davon die Rede ist, dass «Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion» ja gar keine «echte» Diversität schaffe: So schaut der faschistische Kampf gegen DEI in den USA aus. Es beginnt mit Zensur und endet in der Verfolgung von Marginalisierten bsky.app/profile/bild...

22.07.2025 10:28 👍 46 🔁 16 💬 3 📌 0

Das Fahrlässige an Kaubes Text ist, wie er der eigenen Frage ausweicht: «Hat Thiel einen Masterplan?», fragt er zu Beginn – um mit der These zu schliessen, die «politischen Thesen und theologischen Spekulationen» Thiels seien «nur private Marotten». Doch diese «Marotten» haben politische Effekte
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05.07.2025 06:13 👍 182 🔁 56 💬 6 📌 2
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Artificial Intelligence and the ethics of navigating ambiguity - SJ Bennett, 2025 This paper examines ambiguity within AI practice, arguing for an ethics of AI which stays with fundamental ambiguities and accounts for their complex socio-mate...

🎉 A lovely wedding present from Big Data & Society! I bring together an ethnographic study of AI practitioners with Simone de Beauvoir’s ethics of ambiguity, exploring how ambiguity shapes AI practice and ethics
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

30.06.2025 11:40 👍 10 🔁 4 💬 1 📌 1

Very excited to share this. It was an absolute joy to work with @louravn.bsky.social @velocitygravity.bsky.social and my good buddy @matthewarcher.bsky.social

12.06.2025 06:22 👍 6 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0

🌞 We are hugely grateful that our commentary is part of the exciting thematic collection on “Politics of Machine Learning Evalustion“, awesomely edited by @dluitse.bsky.social, @annaschjoett.bsky.social, and Tobias Blanke. Also, we warmly thank the two anonymous reviewers!

11.06.2025 09:13 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Unraveling the Regimes of Synthetic Data Metrics: Expectations, Ethics, and Politics - Digital Society Synthetic data - artificially produced data used for various data science tasks - have become the subject of intense scholarly interest, engendering both hope and hype in fields like machine learning ...

🌟 New commentary “Unraveling the Regimes of Synthetic Data Metrics“ in Digital Society: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

📚 In it, @velocitygravity.bsky.social , @matthewarcher.bsky.social, @danishanley.bsky.social, and I argue that synth data metrics are linked to the politics of synth data.

🧵…

11.06.2025 09:11 👍 9 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 3
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Cansın Köktürk: »Palestine«-Shirt – Linkenabgeordnete muss Plenarsaal verlassen Bundestagspräsidentin Julia Klöckner achtet penibel auf die Einhaltung der Parlamentsetikette, auch in puncto Kleidung. Nun verwies sie die Linkenabgeordnete Cansın Köktürk des Saals. Die fällt nicht ...

Das ist das neue Normal. 20 Prozent Rechtsextreme im Saal, und die Person of Colour mit dem Palästina-Pulli aus dem Parlament verbannen.

04.06.2025 14:14 👍 806 🔁 189 💬 60 📌 20
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headed to #RESAW25 this week ✈️
Super excited abt the program and all the cool research ! catch me in a double feature on Thurs, 7C: Data Loss panel (on GITHUB ARCTIC VAULT) also w @louravn.bsky.social @nannathylstrup.bsky.social and @esmeec.bsky.social and 8C on ROBOTS.TXT with @emae.bsky.social 🤖

03.06.2025 10:39 👍 14 🔁 1 💬 2 📌 1