"USA is no longer a democracy."

This is amazing; I very much agree with the how the report calculated value to society here: www.gov.ie/en/departmen... But for people excited about a *literal* profit machine, note that the real net fiscal cost was almost €72M. It made €146M due to the estimated value of gains in mental wellbeing.

Dr. Jane Goodall filmed an interview with Netflix in March 2025 that she understood would only be released after her death.

“Terrible things are happening outside. Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart. Men, women, and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.” Diary of Anne Frank January 13, 1943

This is an interesting and useful distinction. I colloquially refer to "AI tools" when working with students, etc, but it does seem useful to think through the ways that the products we are currently confronted with are not meaningfully tool-like.

❤️

Hårresande. Läs hela texten ”Efter tio år som vårdbiträde i hemtjänsten valde Gjulfidan Saliji att utbilda sig till undersköterska. Då fick hon beskedet att hon ska utvisas – för att hon inte sökt en ny tjänst.” arbetet.se/2025/10/03/g...

Selling the idea that we need to build enormous, noisy, thirsty, fossil-fueled datacenters to reach information that is available in just so many already printed books. www.thedrum.com/opinion/2025...

Today's article is about a form of bad-faith speech somewhat akin to bullshit, which I'm calling (because why not) wank. I don't quite think I've focused the ideas down as much as I can, but I think it says some interesting things regardless:

”Vi har drillats i vikten av att inte ha något politiskt provocerande i våra mobiltelefoner (…) Vi har fått lära oss vilka forskningsfält och aktiviteter som oftare triggar misstankar och extra granskning, och vad vi kan göra om vi blir kvarhållna vid gränsen.” universitetslararen.se/2025/09/22/i...

You too can save the world by not trusting the computer.

Excellent thread about performing during an incident of compressed time and high stress. There are few times in history where the conditions were so intense and the decisions were so critical for all of us. Good job Lt. Col. Petrov.

"AI will take over the world." This can mean two things: 1. "AI" will become self-aware and decide to control humans. 2. Gen-slop and deepfakes will dominate available content, leading to deskilling, human abuse and eco-harm. The first idea has no basis, but it's fair to worry about the second.

Happy Petrov Day to those who celebrate. On September 26, 1983, Stanislav Petrov made the correct decision to not trust a computer. I've attached a short clip from a reenactment of the situation in the documentary The Man Who Saved the World. 1/11

1/ A longtime Wired editor just wrote a mush-brained essay about how he totally missed the political rot of Silicon Valley (& still doesn't get it). But in the late 1990s, a Wired journalist warned of a toxic ideology bubbling up from tech. Paulina Borsook has largely been erased. Let's change that

1/2 I was at an event yesterday evening with a group discussion. As I often do, I drew a mindmap on my iPad to summarise what we talked about. I've made mindmaps since I was a kid and truly love them as a thinking tool. I also pride myself in having a real skill in picking up important points and…

Några fler exempel. Detta är inte godtagbart.

Why not create a comic strip with episodes showing how a hammer, for example, tends to "miss the nail and push for a different design"? After all, Axbom encourages to "steal" the poster, "share it, print it and use it where you see fit." (Without using AI, I assume.) axbom.com/hammer-ai/

The public library would never do you like this.

Kimmel to return on Tuesday. arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

Protests, mass meetups, conferences—a youth-led movement is reclaiming the Luddite mantle, rejecting a future dominated by Silicon Valley companies, toxic apps, and generative AI. This fall, a "Luddite renaissance" is in full swing. www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-luddit...

I was told to put my trust in Proton's Lumo "AI". I couldn't resist...

Starting now: What Autonomous Vehicle Failures Can Tell Us About Engineering Safety-Critical AI with Prof.dr. M. Cummings @missycummings nmclive.tudelft.nl/Mediasite/Ch...

Tip: When you use DuckDuckGo's web browser you can generate a free email address that forwards to an email address of your choice but also removes trackers along the way. Handy for subscriptions and "giveaways". For each email you get a report on what trackers were removed. duckduckgo.com/email

We hear a lot about boys getting radicalized online, and not enough about how to stop it. This is good video with 5 specific things parents/adults can do:

"...librarians report being treated like robots over library reference chat, and patrons getting defensive over the veracity of recommendations they’ve received from an AI-powered chatbot. Essentially, like more people trust their preferred LLM over their human librarian."

Your regular reminder that all Substack newsletters have an RSS feed. That means you don't have to give them an email address for tracking or marketing. Which is especially nice when you want to avoid the platform as much as possible but some good writers still publish there.

Looking for something you can do? Create an Internet Archive acct. You know the wayback machine? If you see a page you think might get taken down or altered, crawl it. The more local the better. Don’t assume someone else has. Donate if you can & follow their legal battles. Advocate for them. 1/

If you're on #LinkedIn, this is the link for declining their use of your data for training their AI models: www.linkedin.com/mypreference...

If you're on #LinkedIn, this is the link for declining their use of your data for training their AI models: www.linkedin.com/mypreference...

Oh how I love this response.

My mom was working as a nurse in London in NINETEEN SIXTY-THREE and was cautioned aggressively by nurses a generation older than her about misgendering trans patients.

NEJ, det finns inga bevis för att skytten var en groyper. Jag önskar att välmenande aktörer slutade sprida det, när vi med rätta dömer ut högertyper när de gör samma sak. Låt mig sammanfatta på ett ställe vad vi faktiskt vet om: 1: Groypers vs. Kirk 2: Memesen på patronhylsorna

🇪🇺YES: Germany is not supporting the EU's #chatcontrol bill as proposed! The blocking minority needed to stop this illegal mass surveillance plan seems secured (for now). ✅ Opposition now also from LU🇱🇺 & SK🇸🇰! #keepupthefight https://fightchatcontrol.eu

Schrödinger's chat: A communication that is both encrypted and unencrypted at the same time. Example: #ChatControl monitors to expose crimes, but “does not break end-to-end encryption”.

OpenAI really gunning to test out a bold new world of limitation of liability clauses at scale

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity. 1/n

Well nobody saw this coming. 🤪 futurism.com/companies-hi...

I watched this and loved it but still don't understand anything.

These days we scoff and shake our heads at the irresponsibility of putting radioactive materials in consumer products as a gimmick, and the naivety of those who rushed to purchase. I can only hope that future generations will have the same reaction to our current Data Fairy hypefest

"AI is just a tool!" Not really. Swedish communication theorist Per Axbom @axbom.com made a poster explaining what a hammer would be like IF A HAMMER WAS LIKE AI axbom.com/hammer-ai/ @ideenfreiheit.bsky.social

The killer robots are not big metal monsters. The killer robots materialise as human-made web forms that deny access to care and wellbeing. ”The A.I. companies selected to oversee the program would have a strong financial incentive to deny claims.” [profiting from rejections]

Some will argue that ChatGPT was not at fault in a teen suicide, "there were obviously many factors at play". But consider this: if you know you can design for better understanding, and add positive friction that helps people recognize when they are being misled by synthetic text, why wouldn't you?

Over the past decade I’ve truly been struggling with the idea of human-centric design. Putting people first is a major contributor to the climate crisis. These days, instead, I make an effort to use the term ’universal wellbeing’. axbom.com/design-for-u...

A hammer will not simulate sycophancy when unwell people express desires of self-harm. Claiming that ”AI” is just another neutral tool that can be used for good or bad is not only wrong and inhumane, it sanctions life-threatening risks.

If the product encourages a teen to hide self-inflicted strangulation marks, don't tell me "it's just a tool" and "they're using it wrong". If you need emotional support. Find a helpline here: findahelpline.com

It's a complete mystery and mind-boggling to me that getting hold of Weizenbaum's book Computer Power and Human Reason is so hard. Given the hyped state of the world it should be all over. I could become a conspiracy theorist for less. Yes, I've read it. And dream of everyone in tech reading it.

I wrote about her and some of her company’s work in this chapter called “The Baby and the Black Box”: marhicks.com/writing/Hick...

this iconic advertising copywriter named Kathy Hepinstall Parks died over the weekend and I wanted to share something from her website I thought Bluesky would like