Embody the concept of blockchain

  • Publish On 23 April 2017
  • Primavera de Filippi
  • 4 minutes

In this interview filmed at Harvard University, Primavera de Filippi takes us through the concept of “blockchain”, a decentralized online technology. As a researcher at the Berkman Klein Centre of Harvard, Primavera de Filippi built “plantoids”, which are mechanical representations of plants, to illustrate how blockchain works. The “plantoids” need bitcoins to reproduce themselves and send royalties to the artist and “parent plantoids” who created them. This revolutionary system is a contradiction to the model of copyright based on exclusivity and scarcity, as the artist has, in this case, the incentive to make the plantoid as visible as possible, as well as to support the maximum of derivative works.

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Podcast transcription: Raphaëlle Guidée

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Using AI to tell history — podcast transcription

Read our discussion on the subject of generative AI with Raphaël Doan, a specialist in the sciences of Antiquity and author of the uchronia Si Rome n’avait pas chuté (If Rome hadn’t fallen), an essay imagining, with the help of AI, what might have happened if the Industrial Revolution had taken place under the Roman Empire. Through this experiment, fascinating possibilities for historical and archaeological research are outlined, as AI facilitates the processing of archives, the translation of lost languages and the deciphering of burnt texts.

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Raphaëlle Guidée is a specialist in narrative representations of economic, environmental and societal collapse. For over 10 years, she has analyzed the narratives surrounding Detroit’s bankruptcy in order to understand how an apparent ruin of capitalism can inspire discourses of domination or resistance. In La ville d’après : Détroit, une enquête narrative [The Aftermath City: Detroit, a narrative investigation] (Flammarion), rather than focusing on fictions, she seeks out testimonies and concrete stories, believing that modern times don’t need new narratives. We simply need alternative narratives. Read the transcription of the podcast.

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