A talk for the Low Carbon and Sustainable Computing (LOCOS) seminar series at the University of Glasgow.

Zoom link for the seminar on Thursday 16th Oct at 15:00 UK time.

This talk will attempt to extend the idea of low carbon computing by calling for collective decision-making around the development and deployment of computational technologies. While progress can be made on both energy demands and embodied carbon, these are currently swamped by the accelerationist effects of technologies such as AI. Not only is our current political-economy unsustainable, as the IPCC points out, but the attempt to fix it through a fusion of AI and increased authoritarianism are only making things worse.

The talk will propose the concept of ‘decomputing’ as a response to the underlying dynamics of the blackpilled Anthropocene. Decomputing positions computing as first and foremost a matter of care; that is, as a practice that should pay attention to impact of technology on human and non-human relations. It draws on degrowth and deautomisation as ways to repair our environmental and democratic deficits, and proposes tools such as the Matrix of Convivial Technology (MCT) as means by which to transform the role of computation in society. While warning of the dangers latent in concepts like abstraction and efficiency, this talk will highlight the links between low carbon computing and the construction of alternative and more hopeful futures.