🤙✨

Cheers Ben!!

This research was only made possible through the support of the @admscentre.org.au and Emerging Technologies Research Lab at @monashuniversity.bsky.social and the many good folks there 🙏

You can watch the documentary Jeni Lee and I made based on these interviews with shopkeepers and other everyday people who live in Logan about what it's like living in a drone delivery tested

vimeo.com/1013048120?f...

For those who know the city of Logan, you will know that it has a reputation as a low socioeconomic area. According to the ABS, it has the top 10% of disadvantaged suburbs in the country

www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Race also entered the frame. Australia (and more specifically the city of Logan) was said to be a perfect testbed because of its great racial diversity. In the words of one local council member "we know that diversity are better, to trial things in, because if it works here, it'll work elsewhere.

Attempts at community complaint were all transposed (in true cybernetic fashion) through the language of feedback

Of the many interesting things shared by my interlocutors, one worth highlighting is the way Wing actively sought out "friendly regulators" who were willing to collaborate with them to modernise the rules governing airspace

I also look sociologically, using the example of drone delivery to analyse how the legacy of colonial experimentation continues to shape the dynamics of technology testing today. I draw on fieldwork where I spent time in Australian cities where drone delivery systems were being tested "in the wild"

This article asks why. Why Australia? what is it about the people and place that make them ideal test sites and test subjects? To do this, I look historically, examining the nineteenth and early twentieth century framing of the Australian nation as a British experiment in colonial management

This is also true of drone delivery with Google subsidiary Wing Aviation turning Australia into the world's largest commercial drone delivery testbed

Australia, as it turns out, is a preferred location for Big Tech companies to trial new products and services. Spotify, Tinder, Facebook have all tested features in the Australian market first before releasing it elsewhere.

Big shout out to all the excellent humans who cast their eyes on this and whose invaluable feedback helped push it across the line ✨

@noortjem.bsky.social @jackstilgoe.bsky.social @alex-taylor.bsky.social @blueskychris.bsky.social @wombatscholar.bsky.social @pinkydigital.bsky.social

Well deserved!! 👏👏👏

Go off, Eryk!!

Thank you for your service and integrity, Francis!! Much respect to you 🌟