Dear Friends and Colleagues, I have started a project with my graduate students that is becoming an edited volume. With an ethnographic sensibility, we are conducting research and collecting case studies on generative AI usage in different fields. I would love to get scholarly contributions from those who read this message. Please feel free to … Read more
Last weekend, I attended the Wikipedians’ gathering in Arhavi, a lovely Black Sea town in Artvin. A group of Georgian Wikipedians also participated in the meeting hosted by Artvin’s only private high school, Artvin Koleji. Wikipedians are very agreeable and hard-working people. There were many young users, and I hope we conveyed the message to … Read more
This piece was originally published in Turkish here. Translated via DeepL How AI will transform education We are in the early years of the productive AI revolution. It is hard to predict what kind of transformation will take place in which sector, but it will undoubtedly affect every industry. Education is one of the most … Read more
I just heard my edited volume on the generative AI book proposal has been accepted. I will talk about it later. In the meantime, I am on a tour! I am attending an HR summit next month; below, I have participated in a talk with high school kids on internship issues and a group of … Read more
This piece was originally published in Turkish. It was translated with DeepL to English. Possible US ban on TikTok could deal a major blow to the fight for internet freedom. The possibility of TikTok being banned in the US has been on the agenda for a while. Prof. Erkan Saka from Bilgi University Faculty of … Read more
This week has been overwhelmingly busy. A few days ago, we met in Istanbul for the Istanbul session for our GRADE COST project. My colleague Ivo Furman did a fantastic job of organizing the event in a lovely place in Istanbul (check out the place, Postane). I also participated in organizing a Wikipedia session … Read more
Instead of questioning her in Istanbul, she was taken from her home and sent to Mersin. The alleged crime is that she made an interview with a person under investigation (!). Prof. Sirman is a rare kind of anthropologist with a permanent emphasis on the field. I was stunned when I heard that she learned … Read more
We have been keeping a tab on Turkiye’s elections for years. The whole project is here. It needs a design overhaul, but the content is still valuable. It depends on students’ willingness to contribute, so the data we can collect differs in every election. Still I try to supervise and hopefully it will be more … Read more
Academic Informatics conferences were led by “the father of Turkish Internet,” Mustafa Akgül. After his death in 2017, the annual conferences stopped after 2019. I was happy to hear that the meetings would start again. A few days ago, I participated in one of the AI and Social Life panels at Istanbul University. Here is … Read more
Reflektif is an open-access journal published by Istanbul Bilgi University Press. You can access the special issue here. Our launching event is on YouTube now. Two reports from our AI literacy projects are added to this volume. I had my “AI for Social Good” report translated into English so you can have a look! You … Read more
I just came back from Ankara. Sinem and I love Ankara, so whenever we have time, we stop by Ankara. This time, we mostly settled in Çankaya, in our favorite hotel, Hotel Jinnah- but unfortunately, this will be the last time we will stay there as the hotel has been poorly maintained. Anyway, my excuse … Read more
It was the third documentary I appeared at BluTV. The first one was a short series on TikTok. The second one was a piece on sleep. Last week, a short video on OnlyFans content producers in Turkey appeared: Müstehcen [Obscene] I was quoted briefly, and I argue that OnlyFans and related platforms may be good … Read more
I believe that the moment they changed their name from “Savage Minds” to “anthro{dendum}”, the decline started. Over-reliance on (political) correctness is a kind of (political) purism that never ends well. (I do not claim all contributors are like that; I actually like some of them very much). Life is rich, and anthropology is the … Read more
We have organized a full-day event about “Artificial Intelligence for Social Good” at Istanbul Bilgi University. It was part of the AI Literacy Project, supported by Google Turkiye. The meeting was held in the Energy Museum. If you wonder about the setting in the photo above, The first part was for a group of students, … Read more
Last week I was in Eskişehir attending the 5th New Media Studies Conference. The conference is organized by an association, Alternatif Bilişim Derneği. I have been a member from the outset. The association, which is not too active nowadays, was a pioneer in internet freedom causes and now organizes biannual conferences and publishes ebooks with … Read more