My name is Kin Lane. I am a writer, storyteller, and forever recovering technologist. If you’ve heard of my name before, you probably know me as the API Evangelist, covering the technology, business, people, and policies of APIs. I live in New York City with my wife Audrey, and my Rottweiler Poppy, while leading API governance at Bloomberg.
My passion is studying the impact of technology on the world around us, then writing and sharing stories about what I’m seeing. I’ve grown increasingly skeptical regarding the impact that Internet technology, and specifically the web has on our lives, and it is something I feel compelled to write about and explore. It’s no secret that I’m very critical of how technology gets used, and the damage it leaves in it’s wake it when fueled blindly by venture capital. However, I have also spent many years drinking the Kool-Aid, and I have been very complicit in this game, which is something I work to reconcile through my storytelling.
While I thoroughly enjoy writing, I’m having to work hard to find a new voice after being the API Evangelist for so long. To help stimulate my storytelling I spend time taking photos with my different cameras, then applying algorithmic filters to them using machine learning models–algorotoscope–using them in my storytelling across all of my blogs. While videos and photos tell a lot about the world around us, I feel that algorithmically distorted images speak volumes about the world we are experiencing today.
APIs are behind everything today. That is no exaggeration. They are behind the web and the the mobile devices that have become ubiquitous in our lives. They are behind everyday devices and appliances in our homes as well as our automobiles. APIs are impacting politics, and influencing our personal and professional lives on a daily basis. It is critical that we stay aware of how APIs are wielded by companies, organizations, institutions, and government agencies, otherwise we will never fully be able to keep up with the pace of technology. A lack of awareness will leave us helpless when it comes to making the change we want to see in the world, making it much more difficult to maintain the upper hand when it comes to ensuring technology serves us, rather than the other way around.
