Tero Karppi
Biographic Data
| ID | 82448 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Tero Karppi |
| GIVEN NAMES | Tero |
| FAMILY NAME | Karppi |
| SIGNATURE | KARPPI T |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Toronto |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3943-8184 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 79 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The Power of Inevitability: How OpenAI Configures the Future
This paper investigates the discursive strategies employed by OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, to position themselves as leading the development of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Through an examination of 44 texts, including OpenAI's corporate communications, media appearances, and journalistic coverage, this study reveals how OpenAI utilizes socio-political anxieties and Silicon Valley ideals to shape a discourse of inevitability about A…
Extraoperable networks: Delay and power in the rise of LunaNet
This article takes us to the Moon where LunaNet, a communication network designed to support NASA’s Artemis program, is emerging to enable sustained human presence in space. My specific focus is on the LunaNet’s interoperability discourse which situates it within the technical, historical, and political trajectories of the Internet and within socio‐technical structures that shape power here on Earth. By analyzing this discourse, I argue that, whe…
For the Moment, I Am Not Scrolling: Positions, Episode 1
Andrew Culp and Cultural Studies Association’s New Media and Digital Cultures Working Group Co-Chair Claudia Skinner take a look into Adi Kuntsman and Esperanza Miyake’s new book Paradoxes of Digital Disengagement: In Search of the Opt-Out Button, published by University of Westminster Press (2022). This podcast is accompanied by a scholarly commentary by Tero Karppi
If Not, Else: Standards, Protocols, Networks and How They Make a Difference
The contemporary Internet's "network of networks" has become infrastructural to our lives. The Internet is a stack of physical, data link, network, transport, and application layers which all have unique rules and roles. While many see Internet infrastructure as a foregone conclusion, Paris, Cath and Myers West (2023) write “Internet infrastructure is built slowly, over time, protocol by protocol, in response to many different technical, social, …
Introduction: Shifting Attention
In recent years, attention has become a matter of increasing public concern. New digital technologies have transformed human attention materially and discursively, reorganizing perceptual practices and inciting debates about them. The essays in this special issue emerged from a set of panels focused on attention at the 4S conference in New Orleans in 2019. They are all, in various ways, concerned with shifts among attention's many meanings: betwe…
In the mood for disconnection
The needs and desires to disconnect, detox, and log out have been turned into commodities and found their expressions in detox camps, self-help books, and “offline” branded apparel. Disconnection studies have challenged the power of commodified disconnective practices to create real social change. In this article, we build on the notion of affective attunement to explore how disconnection commodities provide differential ways for individuals to r…
Space Media
This article proposes the notion of space media as a way of defining media that connect humans with outer space. It is suggested that six areas related to contemporary media theory are particularly relevant to understanding space media: epistemology, anthropogenesis, planetary mediums, infrastructure, imaginaries, and remains. The article further suggests that the field of media studies needs to take account of outer space and, as a result, alter…
Disconnection: Designs and Desires
One of the paradoxes of disconnection is that social platforms like Facebook frame it as a threat to our prosperity while critics associated with “the techlash” maintain that quite on the contrary it is the only thing that brings back the possibility for good life. Disconnection means different things for different actors and these differences manifest in varying desires and designs. The five papers in this panel draw on empirical research and me…
Facebook confessions: Corporate abdication and Silicon Valley dystopianism
This article investigates the public confessions of a small group of ex-Facebook employees, investors, and founders who express regret helping to build the social media platform. Prompted by Facebook’s role in the 2016 United States elections and pointing to the platform’s unintended consequences, the confessions are more than formal admissions of sins. They speak of Facebook’s capacity to damage democratic decision-making and “exploit human psyc…
Socioeconomic status update: On Whitehead, Facebook, and targeting a high-end smartphone advertisement
‘Might want to unfriend some poor people before clicking on that credit score ad’, Violet Blue suggests in a news story for Engadget that discusses Facebook’s recent patent application.1 On the sam
Non-artificial non-intelligence: Amazon’s Alexa and the frictions of AI
Disconnect: Facebook's Affective Bonds
The Computer Said So: On the Ethics, Effectiveness, and Cultural Techniques of Predictive Policing
In this paper, I use The New York Times' debate titled, 'Can predictive policing be ethical and effective?' to examine what are seen as the key operations of predictive policing and what impacts they might have in our current culture and society. The debate is substantially focused on the ethics and effectiveness of the computational aspects of predictive policing including the use of data and algorithms to predict individual behaviour or to iden…
Killer Robots as cultural techniques
In October 2012 a group of non-governmental organizations formed a Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. The aim of this campaign was to preemptively ban fully autonomous weapons capable of selecting and engaging targets without human intervention. The campaign gained momentum swiftly, leading to different legal and political discussions and decision-makings. In this article, we use the framework of cultural techniques to analyze the different operatio…
Social Media, Financial Algorithms and the Hack Crash
AP: Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured'. So read a tweet sent from a hacked Associated Press Twitter account @AP, which affected financial markets, wiping out $136.5 billion of the Standard & Poor's 500 Index's value. While the speed of the Associated Press hack crash event and the proprietary nature of the algorithms involved make it difficult to make causal claims about the relationship between social media …
Our metrics, ourselves: A hundred years of self-tracking from the weight scale to the wrist wearable device
The recent proliferation of wearable self-tracking devices intended to regulate and measure the body has brought contingent questions of controlling, accessing and interpreting personal data. Given a socio-technical context in which individuals are no longer the most authoritative source on data about themselves, wearable self-tracking technologies reflect the simultaneous commodification and knowledge-making that occurs between data and bodies. …
Our metrics, ourselves: A hundred years of self-tracking from the weight scale to the wrist wearable device
The recent proliferation of wearable self-tracking devices intended to regulate and measure the body has brought contingent questions of controlling, accessing and interpreting personal data. Given a socio-technical context in which individuals are no longer the most authoritative source on data about themselves, wearable self-tracking technologies reflect the simultaneous commodification and knowledge-making that occurs between data and bodies. …
Social Media, Financial Algorithms and the Hack Crash
AP: Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured'. So read a tweet sent from a hacked Associated Press Twitter account @AP, which affected financial markets, wiping out $136.5 billion of the Standard & Poor's 500 Index's value. While the speed of the Associated Press hack crash event and the proprietary nature of the algorithms involved make it difficult to make causal claims about the relationship between social media …
Facebook confessions: Corporate abdication and Silicon Valley dystopianism
This article investigates the public confessions of a small group of ex-Facebook employees, investors, and founders who express regret helping to build the social media platform. Prompted by Facebook’s role in the 2016 United States elections and pointing to the platform’s unintended consequences, the confessions are more than formal admissions of sins. They speak of Facebook’s capacity to damage democratic decision-making and “exploit human psyc…
Introduction: Shifting Attention
In recent years, attention has become a matter of increasing public concern. New digital technologies have transformed human attention materially and discursively, reorganizing perceptual practices and inciting debates about them. The essays in this special issue emerged from a set of panels focused on attention at the 4S conference in New Orleans in 2019. They are all, in various ways, concerned with shifts among attention's many meanings: betwe…
Socioeconomic status update: On Whitehead, Facebook, and targeting a high-end smartphone advertisement
‘Might want to unfriend some poor people before clicking on that credit score ad’, Violet Blue suggests in a news story for Engadget that discusses Facebook’s recent patent application.1 On the sam
Killer Robots as cultural techniques
In October 2012 a group of non-governmental organizations formed a Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. The aim of this campaign was to preemptively ban fully autonomous weapons capable of selecting and engaging targets without human intervention. The campaign gained momentum swiftly, leading to different legal and political discussions and decision-makings. In this article, we use the framework of cultural techniques to analyze the different operatio…
Our metrics, ourselves: A hundred years of self-tracking from the weight scale to the wrist wearable device
The recent proliferation of wearable self-tracking devices intended to regulate and measure the body has brought contingent questions of controlling, accessing and interpreting personal data. Given a socio-technical context in which individuals are no longer the most authoritative source on data about themselves, wearable self-tracking technologies reflect the simultaneous commodification and knowledge-making that occurs between data and bodies. …
Killer Robots as cultural techniques
In October 2012 a group of non-governmental organizations formed a Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. The aim of this campaign was to preemptively ban fully autonomous weapons capable of selecting and engaging targets without human intervention. The campaign gained momentum swiftly, leading to different legal and political discussions and decision-makings. In this article, we use the framework of cultural techniques to analyze the different operatio…
Social Media, Financial Algorithms and the Hack Crash
AP: Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured'. So read a tweet sent from a hacked Associated Press Twitter account @AP, which affected financial markets, wiping out $136.5 billion of the Standard & Poor's 500 Index's value. While the speed of the Associated Press hack crash event and the proprietary nature of the algorithms involved make it difficult to make causal claims about the relationship between social media …
Disconnect: Facebook's Affective Bonds
The Computer Said So: On the Ethics, Effectiveness, and Cultural Techniques of Predictive Policing
In this paper, I use The New York Times' debate titled, 'Can predictive policing be ethical and effective?' to examine what are seen as the key operations of predictive policing and what impacts they might have in our current culture and society. The debate is substantially focused on the ethics and effectiveness of the computational aspects of predictive policing including the use of data and algorithms to predict individual behaviour or to iden…
Non-artificial non-intelligence: Amazon’s Alexa and the frictions of AI
Disconnection: Designs and Desires
One of the paradoxes of disconnection is that social platforms like Facebook frame it as a threat to our prosperity while critics associated with “the techlash” maintain that quite on the contrary it is the only thing that brings back the possibility for good life. Disconnection means different things for different actors and these differences manifest in varying desires and designs. The five papers in this panel draw on empirical research and me…
Facebook confessions: Corporate abdication and Silicon Valley dystopianism
This article investigates the public confessions of a small group of ex-Facebook employees, investors, and founders who express regret helping to build the social media platform. Prompted by Facebook’s role in the 2016 United States elections and pointing to the platform’s unintended consequences, the confessions are more than formal admissions of sins. They speak of Facebook’s capacity to damage democratic decision-making and “exploit human psyc…
Socioeconomic status update: On Whitehead, Facebook, and targeting a high-end smartphone advertisement
‘Might want to unfriend some poor people before clicking on that credit score ad’, Violet Blue suggests in a news story for Engadget that discusses Facebook’s recent patent application.1 On the sam
In the mood for disconnection
The needs and desires to disconnect, detox, and log out have been turned into commodities and found their expressions in detox camps, self-help books, and “offline” branded apparel. Disconnection studies have challenged the power of commodified disconnective practices to create real social change. In this article, we build on the notion of affective attunement to explore how disconnection commodities provide differential ways for individuals to r…
Space Media
This article proposes the notion of space media as a way of defining media that connect humans with outer space. It is suggested that six areas related to contemporary media theory are particularly relevant to understanding space media: epistemology, anthropogenesis, planetary mediums, infrastructure, imaginaries, and remains. The article further suggests that the field of media studies needs to take account of outer space and, as a result, alter…
Introduction: Shifting Attention
In recent years, attention has become a matter of increasing public concern. New digital technologies have transformed human attention materially and discursively, reorganizing perceptual practices and inciting debates about them. The essays in this special issue emerged from a set of panels focused on attention at the 4S conference in New Orleans in 2019. They are all, in various ways, concerned with shifts among attention's many meanings: betwe…
For the Moment, I Am Not Scrolling: Positions, Episode 1
Andrew Culp and Cultural Studies Association’s New Media and Digital Cultures Working Group Co-Chair Claudia Skinner take a look into Adi Kuntsman and Esperanza Miyake’s new book Paradoxes of Digital Disengagement: In Search of the Opt-Out Button, published by University of Westminster Press (2022). This podcast is accompanied by a scholarly commentary by Tero Karppi
If Not, Else: Standards, Protocols, Networks and How They Make a Difference
The contemporary Internet's "network of networks" has become infrastructural to our lives. The Internet is a stack of physical, data link, network, transport, and application layers which all have unique rules and roles. While many see Internet infrastructure as a foregone conclusion, Paris, Cath and Myers West (2023) write “Internet infrastructure is built slowly, over time, protocol by protocol, in response to many different technical, social, …
The Power of Inevitability: How OpenAI Configures the Future
This paper investigates the discursive strategies employed by OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, to position themselves as leading the development of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Through an examination of 44 texts, including OpenAI's corporate communications, media appearances, and journalistic coverage, this study reveals how OpenAI utilizes socio-political anxieties and Silicon Valley ideals to shape a discourse of inevitability about A…
Extraoperable networks: Delay and power in the rise of LunaNet
This article takes us to the Moon where LunaNet, a communication network designed to support NASA’s Artemis program, is emerging to enable sustained human presence in space. My specific focus is on the LunaNet’s interoperability discourse which situates it within the technical, historical, and political trajectories of the Internet and within socio‐technical structures that shape power here on Earth. By analyzing this discourse, I argue that, whe…
Computer Science (12 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Psychology (7 works) · Political science (6 works) · Ethics and Social Impacts of AI (5 works) · Internet privacy (5 works) · Art (3 works) · Artificial Intelligence (3 works) · Computer security (3 works) · Economics (3 works)