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Kosplora

Routes Could local AI strengthen community without increasing surveillance?

Could local AI strengthen community without increasing surveillance?

understand + make · 3h alone, 90m together · 6 stations · 3 sources, every one dated

Beginner friendly. No programming required.

kosplora-route/0.1 · by Bentley Moon

What would change this route

A deployed community system whose own users cannot say what it collects would restructure stations 4 and 5: the design station treats that as the failure to avoid, and a live counterexample would become the study object instead.

The whole route, before you start

  1. 1 · orient · 40mRead two pieces that assume different answers about where software and its data should live.
  2. 2 · place · 30mName one real coordination problem in a space you already move through: a library, a co-op, a block, a recurring gathering.
  3. 3 · person · 45mSpeak with two people who hold different relationships to the problem: one who would use the thing you are imagining, and one who would carry its risks.
  4. 4 · counterpoint · 20mState the strongest case that the thing you are sketching would centralize influence or expose people, using the source below rather than your own devil's advocate.
  5. 5 · make · 60mDesign one tiny service that works without accounts, tracking, or autonomous messaging.
  6. 6 · reflect · 25mAsk one person to read the design and mark where the explanation fails.

Optional study preferences. These stay in this browser and do not change the route’s steps.

Station 1 · orient · 40m

Read two pieces that assume different answers about where software and its data should live.

Local-first software: you own your data, in spite of the cloud · Martin Kleppmann, Adam Wiggins, Peter van Hardenberg, and Mark McGranaghan, Ink and Switch · 2019

Privacy by Design: the seven foundational principles · Ann Cavoukian, Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario · 2011

Station 2 · place · 30m

Name one real coordination problem in a space you already move through: a library, a co-op, a block, a recurring gathering. Write down who it costs and what they do instead.

Alternative: If going out is not available today, use a space you know well from memory and say so in your notes.

Station 3 · person · 45m

Speak with two people who hold different relationships to the problem: one who would use the thing you are imagining, and one who would carry its risks. Ask each what they would refuse.

Station 4 · counterpoint · 20m

State the strongest case that the thing you are sketching would centralize influence or expose people, using the source below rather than your own devil's advocate.

Decentralization: an incomplete ambition, Journal of Cultural Economy · Nathan Schneider · 2019

Station 5 · make · 60m

Design one tiny service that works without accounts, tracking, or autonomous messaging. Two pages at most.

Station 6 · reflect · 25m

Ask one person to read the design and mark where the explanation fails. Record what changed in your own view and what stays open.

What you leave with

A two-page design: the need, the smallest useful function, what it knows, what it refuses to know, who is responsible for what, how it fails, and how a person leaves it.

The standard it is checked against

No published standard is named for this route yet. Its finished work is for you to keep and share.

When you are done