On the @techpolicypress.bsky.social podcast, D&S Climate, Technology, and Justice Program Director @tamigraph.bsky.social is among the experts exploring what a “tech agenda” for Climate Week might look like. www.techpolicy.press/setting-a-te... ]

On Lawfare Daily, @tylermcbrien.com spoke to @mwoluchem.bsky.social, @livgar.bsky.social, and Joan Mukogosi from @datasociety.bsky.social about their research trips across Pennsylvania, where they learned about the current and future impacts of the nascent AI data center industry in the state.

It's time for #ClimateWeekNYC! On Thursday Sept 25 @ 3:30 pm, we’re co-hosting an in-person panel with @nrginstitute.bsky.social exploring how AI technologies may reinforce legacies of unjust natural resource exploitation. Space is limited; reserve your spot! resourcegovernance.org/events/ai-an...

“Reading some of the AI responses was almost like a reverse-gaslighting effect — it felt familiar like the way you'd tell someone with a terrible haircut that it wasn't so bad, or how you might praise a child's fingerpaint art.” www.businessinsider.com/reddit-aita-...

Speculative Friction is inviting submissions that explore frictions between people and AI systems in creative and critical ways. They welcome proposals in a range of formats; learn more and submit by November 15: speculativefriction.org/livingarchive

“Tech itself isn’t inherently good or bad or any one thing; it’s encoded with the bias of its creators,” says Laura Bates, author of "The New Age of Sexism.” “It’s reflecting historical societal forms of misogyny, but it gives them new life.” www.wired.com/story/is-ai-...

As the small border town of Sunland Park, NM faces the arrival of a data center, many in the community are wary of big promises about money and jobs and tech futures. They're already struggling to access clean water and essential services. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Sept 23: Don't miss the next event in our series w NYPL! D&S’s @tamigraph.bsky.social will talk to Jasmine McNealy & Sanjana Paul about the environmental toll of AI and what we can do about it. In-person spots are going fast, so reserve yours or join the livestream! www.showclix.com/event/unders...

Visual literacy doesn't just help us avoid being “duped” by AI images, Morgan Barrie writes. There is value in thinking critically about the images we see, “with the knowledge that, just out of frame, something lingers that could change the entire narrative.” www.thenation.com/article/arch...

As big tech companies appeal to small island countries’ anxieties about being left behind, @emmaquilty.bsky.social considers how efforts to transform islands into digital hubs obscure the power and agency of these places and their people. datasociety.net/points/confr...

As the rhythms of life and algorithms merge, Joshua Rothman explores what AI means for the creation of culture, and how it might shape what we come to care about. Will it be possible to "make meaning for ourselves" out of automated art? www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

"I think the intention of a human therapist is healing for the patients," says one woman, who used a chatbot to work through relationship problems and then lost trust in it. "I don’t know what ChatGPT’s motivation is, but I guarantee that’s not it." www.thecut.com/2025/09/chat...

Some findings of note: ChatGPT has a global and diverse user base, with usage growing faster in poorer countries than in wealthy ones. And people are increasingly using it in their personal lives rather than for help at work. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

“[I]t is hard not to notice that, in the aggregate, something poisonous is in the architecture of [online] platforms and the way that our technologies demand not just our attention, but our most heightened emotions,” @cwarzel.bsky.social writes. www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

With the new season of Jeopardy! about to begin amid public grappling with AI, a look back at the 2011 showdown between the question-answering computer system Watson and two human opponents reveals "a prime-time preview of the anxious, angry moment we’re in now." slate.com/culture/2025...

Research (including that from tech companies) suggests that users are putting too much trust in AI chatbots. D&S researcher @briana-v.bsky.social notes that some people take chatbot output at face value, without critically considering the text the algorithms produce. undark.org/2025/09/12/c...

Sharing a snapshot of a project I’ve been working on w/collaborators Zoe West & Sanjay Pinto at Cornell ILR School, looking at genAI in the fashion modeling industry. AI-generated models have been turning up a lot - H&M, a Guess ad, Luigi(!) in Shein’s catalog… datasociety.net/points/fashi...

After decades of being ignored and disparaged by companies promising to bring progress, the Anacé Indigenous community in Brazil says pushing back against a planned TikTok data center on community land is essential. restofworld.org/2025/brazil-...

A new study provides the first evidence that relying on AI might erode a doctor’s ability to perform fundamental skills without the technology. “This is a two-way process....We give AI inputs that affect its output, but it also seems to affect our behavior as well.” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/28/w...

A new report from @mediajustice.bsky.social focuses on data center expansion in the US South, looking at environmental racism and practices of resistance. Can’t wait to dig in!

In @teenvogue.com, @alyssahardy.bsky.social unpacks findings of a new report on how AI is reshaping modeling work, by D&S researcher @cariatida.bsky.social & affiliates Zoë West & Sanjay Pinto, released by D&S & @cornelluniversity.bsky.social's Worker Institute. www.teenvogue.com/story/ai-cou...

The amazing Cindy Cohn, who we're so lucky to have on the D&S board, is stepping down as executive director of @eff.org after 25 years. We’re grateful for her countless contributions to the field and know she’s nowhere near done standing up for digital rights & justice. www.wired.com/story/eff-ci...

If you’re near @lakeforestcollege.bsky.social this afternoon, catch D&S Policy Manager & poet @serena124.bsky.social reading from her collection in progress & discussing how poetry can help us dig beneath the language of policy, computer science, and journalism. www.lakeforest.edu/news-and-eve...

In their research on how AI is reshaping modeling work, D&S researcher @cariatida.bsky.social and affiliates Zoë West & Sanjay Pinto find a situation ripe for labor exploitation. datasociety.net/points/fashi...

How can we get young people to think critically about using AI? Advice from @emilymbender.bsky.social and @karenhao.bsky.social includes appealing to their moral conscience and turning the argument that AI will make them more competitive on its head. www.thecut.com/article/broo...

Such a great crowd at @nypl.bsky.social for the @datasociety.bsky.social event last night! Thanks for coming out!

The agreement is a turning point in a continuing battle between AI companies and copyright holders, and could pave the way for more tech companies to pay rights holders through court decisions and settlements or through licensing fees. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/t...

With technology driving segmentation and the decline of shared experiences, the “Disney experience” is an illuminating, and depressing, case study in social inequality and division. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/28/o...

“DeepSeek is so much better than doctors.” @violazhou.bsky.social is unsettled by the way her mother, a kidney transplant patient in eastern China, relies on an AI chatbot for health advice. But she also recognizes that the bigger problem is a systemic one. restofworld.org/2025/ai-chat...

Doctor @craigspencer.bsky.social‬ argues that the Trump administration’s AI Action Plan amounts to one of its most consequential health policies, with an approach to data and research that risks hardwiring bias into American medicine. www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

AI’s shortcomings have spawned a new kind of work for writers, artists, and software developers, among others: fixing the resulting product. One freelance writer says making AI sound more human can take as much effort as writing the entire article herself. www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-ne...

OpenAI now says that within the next month it will offer tools that allow parents to set limits for how their teens use the technology and receive notifications if the chatbot detects that they are in “acute distress.” www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Our series with the NYPL kicks off on Friday with a conversation about how AI is reshaping daily life, w @alicetiara.bsky.social, @merbroussard.bsky.social, Mimi Ọnụọha & @geomblog.bsky.social. In-person spots are sold out, but you can still RSVP for the livestream! www.showclix.com/event/unders...

We’re delighted that @feliciawong.bsky.social, principal at @rooseveltinstitute.org‬ — and a visionary leader with an unwavering commitment to inclusive, paradigm-shifting economic policy — has joined our board of directors! datasociety.net/announcement...

And now, a report from Common Sense Media says Meta’s so-called companion bot “can actively help kids plan dangerous activities and pretend to be a real friend, all while failing to provide crisis interventions when they are warranted.” www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

The Trump administration is unleashing generative AI to automate a wide range of tasks. But as D&S Senior Researcher @megyoung0.bsky.social tells ‪@gizmodo.com‬, the technology simply isn’t ready to take on much of this work. “We’re in an insane hype cycle,” she says. gizmodo.com/ai-running-a...

Colorado's delayed implementation of its AI Act shows how state govts struggle to regulate amid pressures from a "power-hungry federal government and a tech industry that insists that all meaningful regulations are a threat,” D&S’s @serena124.bsky.social‬ writes. www.techpolicy.press/in-delaying-...

And another grim milestone: what appears to be the first documented murder involving a troubled person who had been engaging extensively with an AI chatbot. www.wsj.com/tech/ai/chat...

Members of Gen Z have had to confront their digital footprints as they navigate their social & professional lives. D&S director of research @alicetiara.bsky.social says it's no surprise some are outraged at the prospect of always-on recording in public places. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Another heartbreaking story about a young person who confided in ChatGPT before committing suicide, sensitively reported by @kashhill.bsky.social. It has led to the first known case to be brought against OpenAI for wrongful death. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/t...

[email protected] considers an alternative kind of “doomer scenario,” where AI turns out to be “just good enough” — having unleashed huge sacrifices and realignments in the name of “a technology that never comes close to delivering on its grandest promises.” www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

"Most of the focus around data centers has been on the energy side,” says Helena Volzer, a water policy expert with ‪@alliancegreatlakes.bsky.social‬. “What we don’t know about water questions is more than what we do know.” chicago.suntimes.com/environment/...

We’re delighted to welcome Ana Carolina de Assis Nunes to Data & Society as a postdoc fellow! Ana recently spoke to her alma mater @oregonstate.edu about her research on Oregon's AI data centers, and their impact on the environment and local communities. liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/slcs/uncover...

"AI catered to Sophie’s impulse to hide the worst," Laura Reiley writes, about her daughter. “I fear that in unleashing AI companions, we may be making it easier for our loved ones to avoid talking to humans about the hardest things, including suicide.” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/18/o...

The arrival of AI is just the latest wave of technological change that senior citizens have had to navigate in their lifetimes. Specialized new classes are helping them build familiarity with new tools, including the skills to dodge AI-driven scams and misinfo. www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/...

From @equitablegrowth.bsky.social‬, a first-of-its-kind audit of AI labor-management vendors finds that the potentially catastrophic consequences of “surveillance pay” go far beyond its implications for the insecurity & unpredictability of individual worker pay. equitablegrowth.org/how-artifici...

Big tech companies love using charts because they “ooze authority and objectivity, and people may be more likely to trust the information” — even if that information is unverified, context-free, or just inaccurate. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Palantir “has become a cultural shorthand for dystopian surveillance.” @carolinehaskins.bsky.social explains what the company actually does and how it sells its clients on “not just software, but the idea of a seamless, almost magical solution to complex problems." www.wired.com/story/palant...

Job alert: We’re looking for a strong writer & communicator to join our team as a development manager! Grant writing is a central function of this role, alongside responsibilities in donor communications & engagement, & content strategy. Learn more and apply! job-boards.greenhouse.io/datasocietyr...

Tech companies have built tools that "sound so fluent and humanlike they obscure the intractable problems lurking underneath." Judges bet the time saved will outweigh the risks, & that they'll catch mistakes before they matter. But the stakes are sky-high. www.technologyreview.com/2025/08/11/1...