Branston

fictional · 6 mentions across 1 reading

In this course

Branston appears as a figure who pursues an extreme form of cognitive enhancement and machine interface, using pharmaceutical intervention and intravenous sustenance to sustain extended states of computational attention. The readings position him as an example of how the drive to optimize human-machine symbiosis can become pathological—he represents the darker underbelly of cybernetic self-modification that a course on AI and society must confront. His presence in these excerpts suggests the readings are interrogating the costs of transcendence narratives in tech culture, where the pursuit of augmented cognition and invisible computational processes can consume the augmented body itself.

Mentioned in 1 reading

Zero HP Lovecraft

The Gig Economy

Branston had seen me reading the Liber Ivonis, and struck up a conversation. To be honest, he had made me feel uncomfortable, not in the socially incompetent way of many software engineers, but in the way his attention seemed to be drawn by…(That’s right, Toshiro. Through Herculean effort, tear your eyes away from Beautiful Office Ladies Of Marunouchi Always Fucking and take a look at this MACD.) I came into the office early one morning to take a call, and I found Branston st…The next day we began to expand our operation. We started leaning on our social networks to recruit engineers and production managers. Within a quarter we had a staff of forty-five. I was always vague with the staff about our ultimate goals…

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Appears alongside

People mentioned in the same passages — sorted by co-occurrence weight.

Armstrong 5 Toshiro 1