iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

On the other hand, I’d like to thank all my colleagues at @zemki.bsky.social in my lab and beyond as well as everyone in the @com-ai.bsky.social Research Unit for our fantastic collaborative research!

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However, the people I’d particularly like to thank in this post are, on the one hand, my 327 interviewees from the various #pioneer #communities, without whom this book would not have been possible.

A huge 🙏🙏🙏 to everyone who supported this project – there are too many to list here (please have a look at the acknowledgements in the book!).

Anyone wishing to gain a brief insight into the argument in advance can, in addition to the book, take a look at this #openaccess article: lnkd.in/dPs2rJg8

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

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In the book, I trace the historical development of this perspective as I examine the life cycle, curation and organizational elite, as well as the global spread of the #lab discourse.

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What we owe to these #pioneercommunities in particular is a view of the world as a ‘lab’ for #digital #futures.

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Whilst the public tends to focus solely on the ‘loud #futuring’ of CEOs and tech bros, the ‘quiet futuring’ of these groupings is often overlooked – even though it is highly influential in driving long-term change.

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In a longer version, the book aims to show that many ideas about digital futures – which have been spreading across the world from #SiliconValley for decades – can be traced back to groupings that might be called #pioneercommunities:

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💡 What is the book about? A brief pitch might go something like this: #Digitalfutures feel inevitable. They are not. Pioneer Communities shows that they are made – and can be remade.

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My book "Pioneer Communities: How our #DigitalFutures Emerge in #SiliconValley and Beyond" is now in production! At the same time, the book’s website has gone live at @politybooks.bsky.social. If anyone’s interested, they can use the code 👉 AHP30 to get a 30% discount from Polity: t1p.de/9gkfb

Andreas Hepp @ahepp.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

A huge 🙏🙏🙏 to everyone who supported this project – there are too many to list here (please have a look at the acknowledgements in the book!).

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This is another brief contribution to the discussion on the #power #geometries of communicative #AI initiated by @snatale.bsky.social, Federico Biggio, @teachguz.bsky.social, Paola Ricaurte, John Downey, Riccardo Fassone, Emily Keightley, and Deqiang Ji in “Media, Culture & Society”.

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Andreas Hepp @ahepp.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

Outside the USA, @anthropic.com’s latest model is no longer available. I wrote a blog post for the @com-ai.bsky.social website about what the “export ban” on #Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5 reveals about global #power geometries and #AISafety. 👉 comai.space/en/more-than...

comai.space

More than AI Safety: What the Export Ban on Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5 Reveals about Global Power Geometries

A blog post by Andreas Hepp Anyone who, as a non-American, currently wants to work with Anthropic’s latest language model, Claude Fable 5, has, since Satur

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Some of this research has also been reflected in my book on pioneer communities: 👉 amzn.eu/d/03Mzhsow

amzn.eu

Amazon.de

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Thanks a lot to all who supported my stay and research, respectably Pengfei Fu.

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One of the key takeaways for me was that, within these pioneer communities, the connections between #Shenzhen and #SiliconValley are much closer than I had imagined – yet, at the same time, similar founding #visions serve as the starting point for entirely different societal #imaginaries.

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My post, “Pioneer communities and the #future of #AI in #China: Why #OpenClaw in Shenzhen is also about the one-person company”, has been published on our @com-ai.bsky.social blog. It reflects on my stay in #Shenzhen and my visits to various spaces and companies. 👉 comai.space/en/pioneer-c...

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All in all, a very engaging discussion, particularly where we questioned the #ideologies of #SiliconValley. Many thanks to all the participants and the large audience on the final day of the ICA at lunchtime.

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Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

4️⃣ I myself explored the #quiet #futuring of pioneer communities regarding #AGI and #superintelligence – and why their apparent depoliticisation promotes a rightward shift in the #loud #futuring of CEOs and tech celebrities. 👉 doi.org/10.1177/0163...

doi.org

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

2️⃣ Elisabetta Ferrari’s (Aarhus University) talk focused on Musk and the discursive legitimation of the Department of Government Efficiency (#DOGE).

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3️⃣ John Cheney-Lippold (University of Michigan) spoke about AGI’s Uncertain Certainty.

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1️⃣ @beccalew.bsky.social (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) spoke about the male tech ‘superman’ as part of the shift from an ‘aestheticisation of politics’ to the ‘aestheticisation of #AI’.

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A fantastic #ICA2026 in Cape Town is coming to an end. I attended many fascinating panels, but the one that was particularly important to me was ‘Silicon Valley’s #Slippery #Futures: Artificial General Intelligence, Technofascism and the Limits of Reinventing the World’.

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3️⃣ John Cheney-Lippold (University of Michigan) spoke about AGI’s Uncertain Certainty.

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

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2️⃣ Elisabetta Ferrari’s (Aarhus University) talk focused on Musk and the discursive legitimation of the Department of Government Efficiency (#DOGE).

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

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This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

This lays the groundwork for this topic to take center stage within the ComAI research unit next year. A big thank you to everyone for this significant step forward!

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We then delved deeper into our research on socio-material #constitution and domain-specific #appropriation of communicative AI.

Thanks to @cbpuschmann.bsky.social , @ckatzenbach.bsky.social , @wiebkeloosen.bsky.social , Rahel Winter and Alexander Ohlei we were able to discuss our comparative sample for a large scale English-German analysis on #public #AI #discourses.

We then continued our discussion on comparative research on #comAI—cases, countries, contexts—with groundbreaking input from @abreiter.bsky.social and @julianejarke.bsky.social

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Fabio Giglietto @fabiogiglietto.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

We’ve had two fantastic @com-ai.bsky.social days: first, the quarterly meeting for all our projects, followed by a workshop on #futuring and #AI. The meeting kicked off with an inspiring discussion about #AI and #conspiracy theories with @snurb.info, our current #ComAI Mercator fellow.

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Reposted by Andreas Hepp

#toread #paper The imaginative landscape of AI: Locating Silicon Valley’s “quiet futuring” by Andreas Hepp doi.org/10.1177/01634437261454515

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Andreas Hepp @ahepp.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Out now and #openaccess: my paper „The imaginative #landscape of #AI: Locating #SiliconValley’s quiet #futuring” It’s based on my @com-ai.bsky.social media ethnography in the San Francisco Bay Area during the last 12 months. #pioneercommunities #AIsafety #AGI journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

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Andreas Hepp @ahepp.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

It’s a unique opportunity not only to engage with current discussions ‘in the field’, but also to begin data collection for our research seminars. Something very special to be doing this again with my wonderful colleagues Stephanie Geise and @ckatzenbach.bsky.social !

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Andreas Hepp @ahepp.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

It’s great to be at re:publica again this year with the students from our @zemki.bsky.social MA Media, Culture & Society and MA Media & Public Engagement programmes at @unibremen.bsky.social.

Andreas Hepp @ahepp.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

And to everyone listening: the research I have presented is being carried out at the @com-ai.bsky.social research unit and at @zemki.bsky.social, @unibremen.bsky.social

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Andreas Hepp @ahepp.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

I am very much looking forward to delivering my keynote today on #pioneer #communities and ‘quiet’ and ‘loud’ #futuring at the IAMCR conference ‘Creative Communication and Empowerment’ at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

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Andreas Hepp @ahepp.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Today we have the first talk in our #comai lecture series by @snurb.info on ‘the’ #public sphere, which no longer exists in that form (if it ever did). The use of ‘the’ is just as much in question as ‘public’ and ‘sphere’.

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Thanks for asking. It will be out late fall/early winter 2026.

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But their collective #visions of what #digitalfutures might look like have spread rapidly across the globe and are accumulating in the world’s collective #imaginary as a #lab in which the #future is being shaped through digital #technologies, most recently #AI. 4/4

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In the book, I trace the historical development and examine the current dynamics. Few people are familiar with many of these #pioneercommunities: #WholeEarth Network, #Maker, #QuantifiedSelf, #HacksHackers, #Ethereum, #Reboot, #ZebrasUnite. 3/4

💡 What is the book about? I show that within the pioneer communities of #SiliconValley and beyond, a form of “quiet futuring” is taking place, which then becomes a resource for the “loud futuring” of Big Tech. And this #futuring also shapes our #everyday ideas about #digital #futures. 2/4