"Given the major payouts at stake, the tides could be turning in favor of artists who had their lifework sucked up by AI models without permission, who could be looking at another consolation prize in the form of a settlement fee."

Analysis of the inherent security flaws of the LLMs and 'gen AI' systems sold by the tech majors: youtu.be/O7BI4jfEFwA?...

@doughenwood.bsky.social - Lo and behold. If smarmy capitalists signaling a need for bailout (by another name) isn't a sign of a bubble on the verge, I don't know what is.

'Boomers don't understand tech' people say. 'Boomers' usually means my parents or grands. 'Tech' usually means, anything farted out by Silicon Valley. Unknown to app worshippers, there's a history of tech that staggers the imagination: youtu.be/V-8q8INxQEY?...

for all the lil gremlins (affectionate) — but not the gremlins (derogatory) — you might like to hear it read out by a wonderful person who randomly just did this (if you read this: thank you!) www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJNO...

Gloria Richardson

This also should apply to film and literary reviews.

An excellent conversation that speaks to the hardware geek and data center veteran in me. In summary: massive data center buildouts for so-called 'AI' are stupid and unethical for all the reasons we routinely state and *also* idiotic from a purely technical perspective.

OpenAI is facing seven lawsuits claiming ChatGPT drove people to suicide and harmful delusions even when they had no prior mental health issues.

Which brings to mind this essay I wrote several years ago. The argument: Star Trek, a pop sci-fi series, presented, decades ago, a more sensible view of advanced computation than the nonsense we contend with today: monroelab.com/2021/09/20/s...

“Flying pigs are also possible in principle; possible in principle bakes no bread.” — Jerry Fodor (2005, p. 27) Screenshot from: van Rooij, Guest, et al. (2024). 'Reclaiming AI as a Theoretical Tool for Cognitive Science’: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Science washing

I'll be giving a talk next Tuesday for the EUt+ webinar series on digital transformation: "Not the digital transformation you planned for: AI accelerationism versus decomputing" Free registration: forms.office.com/pages/respon...

University finances are precarious, but leading institutions are swallowing the pedagogic promises of Anthropic & OpenAI just at the moment when the AI bubble looks ready to burst. Beyond fees and the attrition of skilled staff, will AI trigger the collapse of the entire sector?

This makes me think of a very interesting essay on cognitive dissonance by the philosopher John Gray called ‘Humanism and flying saucers’ which discusses cognitive dissonance in a very interesting manner. I referenced that essay in a piece I wrote awhile back: vdgasjournal.com/2025/06/21/w...

The goal of vdgasjournal.com an evolving mag started with @harrysimmons3578.bsky.social and @ddclaxton.bsky.social is to combat the corp assault on culture via LLM by nurturing the essay form: youtu.be/Js0o6Lvx6S8?...

What Esther said. Two things: loads of women in computational fields call out AI exactly because we know all about this stuff. And the second, those who mock and snicker are playing with words here. When it suits them AI means everything and other times it means AI products they sell for money.

Finally one thing they are, due to being statistical models of text, these neural networks and other large language models are indeed designed to do: milquetoastify boringify language. LLMs steal and drain off human creativity originality verve by merely copying. english.elpais.com/technology/2...

i’ve said this before but lemme say it again. it makes absolutely 0 sense to talk about “misuse” of llms because there is no clear use or purpose for llms to begin with. genAI is a purposeless tech floating around looking for uptake 1/

If your organisation still feels the need to start any questioning of AI with "We recognise that AI has huge potential to help with XYZ, but.." then they're still not free of the hype. It's past the time for fake even-handedness, and the AI emperor has no clothes.

Wednesday at 11 AM ET we'll be live with Benji Schoendorff of the Resistance Is Fertile podcast to talk about getting banned by YouTube and fighting back against psychological warfare (and winning!) www.youtube.com/live/AeLLCK0...

Yglesias' ilk, ever burdening us, was described in Gore Vidal's essay, 'Literary Gangsters', published in Commentary mag in 1970: www.commentary.org/articles/gor...

📣 I am hiring a postdoc! aial.ie/hiring/postd... applications from suitable candidates that are passionate about investigating the use of genAI in public service operations with the aim of keeping governments transparent and accountable are welcome pls share with your networks

we're still live - join in!

"The RSF of today is the Janjaweed of yesteryear, except this time armed to the teeth by the United Arab Emirates. In return, the UAE secures a foothold in a large, strategic, resource-rich country, and already receives the majority of gold mined in RSF-controlled areas." Dubai, y'all! #BlackSky

Page One: @miamiherald.com

AI "is a thieving, hallucinating, biased, data-scraping, ecо-destroying, surveillance bot that will never be able to reconcile the receipts of its unethical origins." —A Psalm for the Analog @melaniedusseau.bsky.social LOOMING: drive.proton.me/urls/JE8JPJR... www.law.georgetown.edu/privacy-tech...

This is the company at the forefront of claiming education can be done via 'AI'

I use the term, 'political economy' to describe how to *materially* analyze the tech industry and its 'AI' push. Here, applied dialectics, from Ollman's 'Dance of the Dialectic' and my notebook visualization.

“.. The military buildup in the region is the largest unrelated to disaster relief since 1994, when the United States sent two aircraft carriers and more than 20,000 troops to Haiti ..” @reuters.com www.reuters.com/graphics/USA...

If you have $20k + $500/month to burn and would like your house to be cleaner maybe just pay someone a fair wage to come clean your house occasionally?

Verily, thou art a curmudgeon but one with good taste and solid commitments. CAIL is fantastic work that I'm broadcasting as widely as possible. olivia.science/ai

The grift must be getting difficult for Geoffrey now that he’s turning to spouting off with little actual insight on something he once dismissed as unimportant because it wasn’t existential like the threat of AGI ruling over us or whatever.

In short, money talks. Microsoft and its cash sapping parasite, OpenAI, plus Amazon, Google and others are waging a full scale propaganda war to recruit advocates. @jaybeware.bsky.social and I discuss this: www.youtube.com/live/sey7TS4...

This is spot on. The open racism, the retreat from an international empire, the tariff quasi-strategy, the 'AI' grift, the attacks on Latin nations, the terrorising of the populace, the dismantling of state competence... all signal a retrenchment from the technocratic order created by FDR.

People make fun of Dickens for how ridiculously over the top his villains are.

I have always said that, while Frankenstein is a masterpiece, I wish more people knew about Shelley’s book ‘The Last Man’ (1826). I urge everyone to give it a read: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Las...

'Resisting AI' foreshadowed much of our technofascist moment, but a lot has happened since publication. Why does a broken tech attract such huge commitments? How can it burn so much energy yet claim to save the planet? And can decomputing offer an escape from AI-drive nihilism?

if you ever question your intellect, if you ever think "I'm stupid", remember: Hinton thinks a neural network is smarter than him! "He says that what changed his mind was the realization that we had, in fact, not replicated our intelligence, but created a superior one." harpers.org/archive/2024...

How do we maintain our Psychic Militancy amid the "ceasefire" in Gaza? How do we maintain it when we face repression for organizing or taking a stand? We'll talk to Dr. Lara Sheehi on @makcapitalism.bsky.social about that and more Wednesday at 10 AM ET - www.youtube.com/live/8LVrHOQ...

Just finished Ousmane Sembène's slim novel "Xala". Such a great story, so many cultural insights about post-colonial Senegal, and funny in parts too! I mean whole book is a wealthy man desperately seeking cure for impotence after marrying much younger 3rd wife. Now, the film. vimeo.com/510759173

Honored to be hosting this conversation tomorrow on MAKC with Black Alliance for Peace as part of The 2025 International Month of Action Against AFRICOM

We shouldn't be surprised by such stories; US elites no longer possess technocratic competence and have adopted the chaotic thinking style of corpo managers. In related news, an essay I wrote on atomics and 'AI' - monroelab.com/2024/10/08/w...

A great and timeless talk to start the week with by Helena Sheehan. This woman does not mince words. > Marxism as philosophy of science: What is its distinctiveness? How has it fared through the debates and dramas of the decades? www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh-F...

Roomba should have been a warning.

Maria Pinto was on Boston Book Festival panel discussing her cool book about fungi, Black survival, and zombies called "Fearless, Sleepless, Deathless". Had 2 sec chat about maroons, Sylvia Wynter, and Glissant while getting book signed. Author of "The Last of Us" at same table. 📚🍄‍🟫 #Blackademics

By the gods, yes! Many of us were never fooled and dismantled lies from various perspectives. WE were right and damn the Valley

Everyone should take a moment to sign this letter, shared with my by @olivia.science regarding the uncritical, ignorant and rather inept adoption of AI, a technology pretending to intelligence but acting only to steal the works of creatives and hurt labor: openletter.earth/open-letter-...