Breaking Down While Building Up: Design and Decline in Emerging Infrastructures
summary
Ethnographic work around the Ocean Observatories Initiative shows a partly built, just-launched distributed ocean sensor network (gliders, buoys, floor sensors, satellites) that delivers far less than planned and faces long-lived social consequences. The project budgets a headline cost of 1.8 billion yet maintenance threatens 60% of the ocean sciences' budget. A critical driver code failure delays delivery by six to twelve months not from bugs alone but from staff burn‑out and a departing developer, so decline and repair shape design choices.
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chapters (9)
- 0:00Introduction and project overview
- 2:31Infrastructure development and dreams
- 5:05Financial struggles and decline
- 7:35Breaking down and human costs
- 10:03Failure and messy negotiations
- 12:33Preservation and legacy efforts
- 14:41Human sustainability in tech
- 15:45Reflection and lessons learned
- 16:32Q&A with audience