Christoph Becker

Professor of Information studying just sustainability in IT: design, software, requirements, values, power, responsibility. Critical Systems Thinker, #TechOtherwise, just sustainability design, #degrowth.
 Book INSOLVENT: How to Reorient Computing for Just Sustainability @MIT Press 2023 https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/insolvent 
#T1D #PHPledge #MaskUp 🍉
 he/him
Dead bird @ChriBecker

Book: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/insolvent
Personal website: https://christoph-becker.info/
Just Sustainability Design lab: justsustainabilitydesign.org/
Keywords: just sustainability design, social responsibility, ethics, values, politics, decision making, data curation, social aspects of software engineering

Public Key

npub1lcem8d45l4jgakfxn6jvampwnwhf4eskhjr3ssfqrfljgf3ua54safad0s

NIP-05 Address

[email protected]

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs0uvank6606eywmynfafxwashfht56ucttepccgysp5leyyc7w62cprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0d4hhxarj9ecxjmnt68r0c9

Publishing to

relay.momostr.pink

Author Public Key

npub1lcem8d45l4jgakfxn6jvampwnwhf4eskhjr3ssfqrfljgf3ua54safad0s

Show more details

Published at

2026-10-28T04:02:09Z

Kind type

0 Metadata

Event JSON

{ "id": "43d6e3e97d88e2d0bb55a2bf203e3ad76b179d0a985074e760e67e7f7146bbf1", "pubkey": "fe33b3b6b4fd648ed9269ea4ceec2e9bae9ae616bc871841201a7f24263ced2b", "created_at": 1793160129, "kind": 0, "tags": [ [ "t", "degrowth" ], [ "t", "t1d" ], [ "t", "MaskUp" ], [ "t", "PHPledge" ], [ "t", "TechOtherwise" ], [ "proxy", "https://hci.social/users/cbecker", "activitypub" ], [ "L", "pink.momostr" ], [ "l", "pink.momostr.activitypub:https://hci.social/users/cbecker", "pink.momostr" ], [ "-" ] ], "content": "{\"name\":\"Christoph Becker\",\"about\":\"Professor of Information studying just sustainability in IT: design, software, requirements, values, power, responsibility. Critical Systems Thinker, #TechOtherwise, just sustainability design, #degrowth.\\n\u2028Book INSOLVENT: How to Reorient Computing for Just Sustainability @MIT Press 2023 https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/insolvent\u2028\\n#T1D #PHPledge #MaskUp 🍉\\n\u2028he/him\\nDead bird @ChriBecker\\n\\nBook: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/insolvent\\nPersonal website: https://christoph-becker.info/\\nJust Sustainability Design lab: justsustainabilitydesign.org/\\nKeywords: just sustainability design, social responsibility, ethics, values, politics, decision making, data curation, social aspects of software engineering\\n\",\"website\":\"https://hci.social/@cbecker\",\"picture\":\"https://storage.googleapis.com/hci-social-storage/accounts/avatars/109/271/576/699/101/851/original/c22ecaaa33bb7596.jpg\",\"banner\":\"https://storage.googleapis.com/hci-social-storage/accounts/headers/109/271/576/699/101/851/original/ba7ecd9ba6f22352.png\",\"nip05\":\"[email protected]\"}", "sig": "c525f6fd5ce81ec31012ad401a7d59ff5f67ff5c9612ed543ad6b6fd7be28dd0f1f31f64c32d0c9508c1f997d7f7da5dc2232e20a5adfcee14ff753f2287079b" }

Last Notes

2026-08-31 17:32:43 GMT

Dear Prospective PhD Applicant,
I very much appreciate you find my work inspiring, but I have absolutely no interest at all in supervising future theses on making toxic tech such as #genAI #LLMs Very Slightly Less Toxic (tm).
Personally for your future studies I’d encourage you to envision, seek out, study, and build technologies that have a role to play in just and sustainable futures. <3 🍀
#PhD #TormentNexus #TechOtherwise #AIslop

2026-07-05 02:48:58 GMT

A great checklist to send to certain folks:
"By using GenAI:
o I accept the models were trained on stolen data.
o I accept that the data was labeled by exploited workers.
o I accept the environmental costs of the data centers running these models.
o I accept that I am outsourcing some of my skills to a company.
o I accept these companies don’t have a viable business model.
o I accept that I am granting more power to big tech and their vision for the world.
... 1/2

2026-06-19 19:55:17 GMT

#movingPreparations
#fedicats #catsofmastodon
https://storage.googleapis.com/hci-social-storage/media_attachments/files/116/778/521/545/507/422/original/d685213cdc8f97a1.jpeg

2026-06-10 23:10:58 GMT

ACM will no longer require disclosure of the use of #generativeAI in writing papers.... an absolutely terrible change by the @npub19mh…v9e6 Publications Board to the Policy on Authorship.
Yes, this will give ACM more papers. No, the ideology of "number go up" productivism is not the path to responsible, ecological or ethical computing, but to irrelevance. #AIslop

2026-04-02 01:55:17 GMT

The argument that you can use an #LLM to do something real, reliable and useful is about as convincing at this point as someone explaining that you can use a pickup truck to write letters with a pencil by building a giant robot holding the truck in the air with a pencil taped to the windshield via a broomstick. #claude

2026-03-28 20:41:20 GMT

Amazing how many headlines parrot the corporate framing that Meta's new Hyperion data center would "deliver gigawatts of power" -
"AI data center ... will deliver five gigawatts of computational power to fuel the company's new AI" ❌
"[data center will] supply its new AI lab with five gigawatts of computational power" ❌
No. NO. Don't do that. Hyperion will *consume* 5GW of power, including three NEW new gas-turbine power plants, in order to run giant toxic content sludge generators. 💩 ✔

2026-03-27 21:00:49 GMT

- reply

I requested my medical data from the platform that holds it by issuing a privacy request. They shared it... on Google Drive.
The platform's privacy office violated #PIPEDA to comply with a PIPEDA request.
¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

2026-03-23 21:46:05 GMT

Getting my #T1D data out of a data platform in 2026 using a privacy law request #PIPEDA
https://storage.googleapis.com/hci-social-storage/media_attachments/files/116/280/668/006/631/032/original/b2d53fae447c0082.png

2025-11-28 22:49:19 GMT

- reply

The "Resisting Generative AI" webinar recording is now published! Note, it's not on youtube.
https://tubedu.org/w/teHCy6pkiKpS64j6F4CBgC?start=1h24m59s
@npub129a…ggvy @npub1xwe…mrd8 @npub1w6g…wmcw @npub16wc…ehf0

2024-11-27 14:42:02 GMT

At the talks about a possible UN treaty to reduce plastic pollution (“the last chance to hammer out a treaty to cut plastic pollution around the world”), the largest single group is … plastic production lobbyists. They outnumber scientists 3:1.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/27/plastic-lobbyists-biggest-group-un-treaty-talks-busan-korea #fossilfuels

2024-11-26 23:19:55 GMT

"Just as composting makes nutrients from necrosis, in 2025, Big Tech’s end will be the beginning of a new and vibrant ecosystem. The smart, actually cool, genuinely interested people will once again have their moment, getting the resources and clearance to design and (re)build a tech ecosystem that is actually innovative and built for benefit, not just profit and control." here's some 🔥from [@Mer__edith](https://mastodon.world/@Mer__edith ) @npub192u…ccwj #TechOtherwise https://www.wired.com/story/the-beginning-of-the-end-of-big-tech/

2024-11-12 16:44:47 GMT

Why chatbots are terrible for search, and why retrieval augmented generation doesn't fix that: https://buttondown.com/maiht3k/archive/information-literacy-and-chatbots-as-search/ by @npub15xv…0jms
#generativeAI

2024-11-08 00:33:10 GMT

Just caught up on this excellent talk on Resisting #AI (and fascism) by @npub16wc…ehf0
https://kolektiva.social/@danmcquillan/112800339625389721

2024-10-21 18:45:04 GMT

Today I'm glad that my book is out with Penguin Random House. This is a good step👏
https://www.thebookseller.com/news/penguin-random-house-underscores-copyright-protection-in-ai-rebuff

2024-10-15 13:07:45 GMT

- reply

Let’s see,
“Improving services for consumers” 🤣 you must be kidding. #enshittification
“economic growth” That’s not a benefit. That #generativeAI growth is cancerous. #degrowth

2024-10-15 13:04:53 GMT

Google to buy nuclear power for AI datacentres in ‘world first’ deal
“the senior director for energy and climate at Google, said: “The grid needs new electricity sources to support AI technologies that are
powering major scientific advances, improving services for businesses and customers, and driving national competitiveness and economic growth.”
#AIHype #climateCrisis #generativeAI
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/oct/15/google-buy-nuclear-power-ai-datacentres-kairos-power

2024-09-16 17:57:04 GMT

- reply

Generative AI is a disaster for the climate - keep that in mind when you are tempted to use it.
https://www.techradar.com/pro/generative-ai-triples-the-carbon-dioxide-emissions-from-data-centers

2024-09-16 17:56:08 GMT

- reply

Emissions from in-house data centers of Google, Microsoft, Meta and Apple may be 7.62 times higher than official tally
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/sep/15/data-center-gas-emissions-tech
Surprised? Of course not. Good to see this reporting.

2024-09-16 17:55:02 GMT

I'm glad to see that the environmental impact of AI remains in the news this month... a few links here 🧵
https://huggingface.co/blog/sasha/ai-environment-primer is a neat recent introduction to the subject.
#AI #generativeAI #climate

2024-05-22 16:14:38 GMT

"Lavender applies the logic of the pattern recognition-driven signature strikes popularized by the US ... with the mass surveillance infrastructures and techniques of #AI ... Instead of serving ads, Lavender automatically puts people on a kill list based on the likeness of their surveillance data patterns to the data patterns of purported militants – a process that ... is hugely inaccurate. Here we have the AI-driven logic of ad targeting, but for killing." @npub1vt7…5vdp https://www.helmut-schmidt.de/aktuelles/detail/die-rede-der-zukunftspreistraegerin