Calculating Empires

Calculating Empires is the large timeline and critical cartography project Kate Crawford discusses in Kate Crawford: Mapping Empires. In the source, Crawford describes it as a 24-meter-long map of communication, computation, classification, and control from around 1500 onward.

The project matters because it turns AI from a near-term product story into a long historical pattern. It places AI beside printing, perspective, colonization, capitalism, logistics, measurement, classification, automation, militarization, and enclosure, making AI Metabolic Infrastructure and Public Interest AI easier to see as historical and political questions.

Connections

• Kate Crawford - creator and speaker discussing the project in this source.
• Long Now - event context where the map is used to frame AI history.
• AI Metabolic Infrastructure - material AI frame supported by the map’s long historical view.
• Critical Minerals Geopolitics, Data Center Backlash, and AI Slop - contemporary AI branches that the map helps situate.