Notes
Notes
Readings, hypotheses, findings and cross-disciplinary connections in anthropology, artificial intelligence and contemporary culture.
Economic anthropology and AIWho owns a relationship?
From fear of abandonment to the self as a mine. What happens when a company can change who is on the other side
NotesThe right not to appear
From the human safari to the algorithmic gaze: when Indigenous isolation becomes content and refusal of contact acquires value.
Economic anthropology and AIThe self as a mine: Appadurai in Bielefeld
Arjun Appadurai calls the ‘mineable self’ a new commodity made of relationships, stories, profiles and data. A reading of his 2026 work on personhood, affect and artificial intelligence.
NoteNokia · The sisu that would not fit in an American pocket
From rubber boots to SMS, from T9 to Asha, and from the collapse of the mobile-phone business to AI networks. A story about Nokia, Finland and the shifting geography of technological power.
Visual anthropology and AINiu Lai and the trace of the hand
A Chinese film made without artificial intelligence went from ridicule to a cultural phenomenon. Between internet 抽象, 手搓 and the desire for 活人感, what happens when imperfection begins to function as a trace of humanity.
Political anthropology and AIWhen the cockroaches answer back
In India in 2026, a judicial slur became a political identity. The journey of the “cockroach” opens questions about classification, aspiration, embodiment, satire, power and algorithmic visibility.
Visual anthropology and AICinema ParAIso
Artificial intelligence is reshaping audiovisual production, but the debate is not only about generated images. It affects labour, archives, languages, rights, representation and the power to decide which stories circulate.
Political anthropology and AIThe Platform and the Category
Palantir, Carissa Véliz and the struggle over who defines what is visible, urgent and disposable
Anthropology of work and AIThe gesture as data
From Meta to Gurugram, how clicks, skills and bodily techniques are turned into data to train automation.
Economic anthropology and AIThe company that acts alone does not exist
Palantir imagines an armed technological republic, the United States restricts Fable 5 and Mythos 5 as strategic capabilities and Milei proposes non-human corporations. Algorithmic autonomy appears as a political fiction that hides people, data, territory, labour and life.
Anthropology and developmentAyiti: Trouillot, AI and a single finite world
A note on Haiti, international aid and the political economy of artificial intelligence, read through Michel-Rolph Trouillot, colonial memory and human kinship.
AI governance and ethicsNot too late again: AI, data and public ethics
The opening in Valencia of the UN's AI Governance Lab, read through anthropology: data, consent, algorithmic harm and public ethics.
Social doctrine and AILeo XIV, artificial intelligence and the new human question
An anthropological reading of Magnifica Humanitas, the first encyclical of Leo XIV on artificial intelligence, human dignity and technological power.
Technology and current affairsA revolution (in this too): weather forecasting
A note on Aardvark Weather and the impact of artificial intelligence on weather forecasting.
Philosophy and AIImmortality and the present
A critical reflection on the technological promise of immortality set against the inequalities and forms of violence of the present.
Digital archaeologyAI and archaeology: revolutionary discoveries in Nazca
A note on the use of deep learning to identify new geoglyphs in the Nazca region.