HIS111: READING CONTENT

Generative AI

A type of technology capable of generating new content such as text, realistic images, or music in response to human prompts

Predictive AI

AI systems that analyze historical data to detect patterns and make predictions about future outcomes,

Machine Learning:

A method of building AI where systems learn patterns from data instead of being explicitly programmed with rules.

Cognitive Debt:

Loss of thinking skill from relying too much on AI/tools to perform tasks, writng, and or problem solving.

Automation Bias:

The pervasive human tendency to over-rely on automated decisions, leading people to follow incorrect AI advice even when their own judgment or lives are at stake

Deep Learning:

A Modern AI that learns complex patterns using many layers of neural networks from data

Ladder of Generality:

A model showing how computing systems evolve to become more flexible and easier to program, requiring less manual effort at each level.

Transformer

AI model that understands text by linking words across a sentence. ( ChatgpT)

Digital Colonialism:

The use of digital infrastructure, software by dominant nations to exercise imperial power over the data and lives of people in poorer countries

Network Effects

An economic term for a service that becomes more valuable as it attracts more users, making it harder for people to leave because their friends are already there

Switching Costs:

Everything a user stands to lose when moving from one platform to another, such as their social network, data, and access to specific community groups

Surveillance Capitalism:

A system where digital platforms monetize user behavior and data, Platforms make money from attention and control what content people see.

Social Infrastructure:

The physical spaces and facilities (like libraries, pizzerias, and parks) that allow people to meet, connect, and build community in a city

Social Surplus:

Trust and connection people build by interacting in society.

Productivity Bandwagon:

The economic assumption that higher productivity = higher wages for workers.

Personal Responsibility Script:

A public relations strategy used by the tobacco and food industries to frame health problems as individual failures rather than consequences of corporate marketing or product design

Junk Science:

A dismissive label used by industries to discredit scientific research that exposes product harm

Weaponization of the Internet

The use of social media and digital platforms by authoritarians to spread disinformation, smear opponents, and manipulate public debate.

Seven Sisters:

The group of seven massive oil corporations that dominated the international petroleum industry for much of the 20th century

Trans Memory Archive:

Communities saving and sharing their history while fighting against systematic violence and reclaim histories that have been hidden or silence.

Attention Activism:

A movemnt for protecting attention from addictive tech by creating “safe focus” spaces.

Henry Ford

Theodore Roosevelt & Trust Busting

U.S. president known for enforcing antitrust laws and breaking up major monopolies and regulating large corporations to restore competition.

Sherman Antitrust Act

A law designed to break up monopolies and prevent anti-competitive business practices.

Monroe Doctrine, 1823

A U.S. foreign policy that opposed European intervention while justifying American expansion and control in the Americas.

Royal Proclamation of 1763

A British law issued by King George III after the Seven Years' War that set rules for governing North America, recognizing Indigenous land rights

1711 South Sea Company

uses human trafficking ( slavery) to generate huge investments and profits for british

Henry Ford

Founder of Ford Motor Company who made cars mass-produced using the assembly line.

Thomas Edison

An inventor and industrial innovator who develoiped things like the phonograph, the motion picture camera.

Hollerith Machine

A punched-card data processing system used in the 1890 U.S. census, marking a shift toward modern data management.

Assembly Line

manufacturing process where products are built step-by-step in sequence, increasing speed and reducing costs.

Guglielmo Marconi

An inventor associated with early radio technology who built a monopoly using patents and control over communication systems.

Standardization

The creation of shared technical rules (e.g., SOS signals) to improve communication and safety across systems.

Sexpionage

The use of romantic or sexual relationships to obtain confidential information or influence individuals.

William Randolph Hearst

A newspaper owner who built a media empire and used it to influence politics and public opinion.

Aird Commission

A Canadian commission that recommended public ownership of radio to ensure it served the public interest.

Alan Turing

A pioneer of computer science and codebreaking who developed foundational ideas in artificial intelligence and computation.

Wrens / Women in Computing (WWII labour)

Women who worked in wartime codebreaking and computing roles but were often erased or excluded from postwar technological history.

Intersectionality

The idea that systems of identity and oppression (race, gender, class, etc.) overlap and shape experiences of privilege and inequality.

Sex vs Gender

Sex refers to biological traits, while gender refers to socially constructed identities and roles.

AI Bias

The tendency of AI systems to reproduce and amplify existing social, racial, and gender biases found in training data.

Cold War

US–Soveit Union rivalry (1947–1991) fought through proxy wars, ideology, and arms competition instead of direct war

ARPANET

Early U.S. military-funded network connecting computers → start of the internet.

Data Leakage:

An error where an AI model is evaluated on data it has already seen during training, producing misleadingly high or unrealistic accuracy.

Attensity

Idea of freeing attention from addictive algorithms and platforms.