The lie is that glasses are made to liberate you from screens. The purpose of the glasses is to make sure you have no experiences except those mediated through a companies’ technology.

I was part of a working group on AI and Fraternity assembled by the Vatican. We met in Rome and worked on this over two days. I am happy to share the result of that intense effort: a Declaration we presented to the Pope and other government authorities coexistence.global

We wrote a thing about AI, fascism, and why framing this as "hype" is too apolitical www.liberalcurrents.com/deflating-hy...

new from @anabrandusescu.bsky.social looking at generative AI as a force for increasingly privatized governance re: 1. exploitation of workers + the environment; 2. defence partnerships + human rights abuses; 3. concentration of power through foreign acquisition balsilliepapers.ca/bsia-paper/c...

Doing my best to keep a straight face while turning it into a teachable moment

Michigan lawmakers have introduced a bill prohibiting the any "depiction or description" of trans people or trans existence online, including it in a bill banning "pornographic" material The bill would completely erase trans people online, equating them with porn.

The "teaching about digital policy" experience

Overall narrative of a new Politics of Digital Tech course I'm putting together: - The utopian promise of ✨The Information Age✨ - Oops Web 2.0 was a mess - Oops big data & platform economy was a mess - Oops AI & Web 3.0 is a mess - Digital policy & regulation? - Resistance?? - Better futures???

In this short piece, I lean on embodied cog sci to argue that we should refuse & resist llms in education (pp. 53-58) unesdoc.unesco.org/in/documentV... "the classroom is an environment where love, trust, empathy, care & humility are fostered & mutually cultivated through dialogical interactions"

Making lecture slides really appeals to my inner scrapbooker just spending hours shuffling colorful little pictures and newspaper clippings around on a page

So far professor life feels like 50% responding to emails and 50% grant writing

Panorama from tonight's bike ride

Taught my first class of the new school year today said the word AI so much that I'm hoarse now

In this paper, @olivia.science Radically Redefines AI as any relationship between humans and artifacts “where it appears as if cognitive labour is offloaded onto such artifacts”. She distinguishes 3 types of relationship: AI that “replaces, enhances, or displaces cognition”. See Table 1 below. 2/n

Last day in Toronto before I move out west

The fact that the thing we're calling artificial intelligence *can't do math* and yet we're jamming it into programs that successfully *have done math* for decades, then warning people against using the AI to do math, seems like an excellent summary of where we are.

“The AI in the study probably prompted doctors to become over-reliant on its recommendations, ‘leading to clinicians becoming less motivated, less focused, and less responsible when making cognitive decisions without AI assistance,’ the scientists said in the paper.”

Edmonton has a nice conservatory

📣🚨NEW: ☁️ Big Cloud—Google, Microsoft & Amazon—control two thirds of the cloud compute market. They’re getting rich off the AI gold rush. In new work with @nathanckim.bsky.social, we show how Big Cloud is expanding their empire by scrutinizing their *investments*… 🧵 📄PDF: dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn...

Day 2 in my new place and I already busted my dining room light apart on my skull 👍

I don't usually read dissertations - this will be one I do read (and I've already read excellent parts of it!)

My dissertation is now available online! The diss applies trans and feminist theory to analyze structural injustices in 3 of my empirical studies of AI governance & policymaking. Give it a look if you're concerned about power dynamics in AI policy www.proquest.com/docview/3234...

plugging an old virtual assistant into a marginally improved LLM and re-branding it as an AI agent please give me $50 million in VC funding

Good morning

post-phd vacation vs. starting a faculty job while moving across the country

getting my phrenology checked by my laptop camera before I can listen to WAP, a future I always wanted www.404media.co/spotify-uk-a...

Stand by this: www.politico.com/newsletters/...

New from me: LinkedIn quietly removed references to deadnaming and misgendering from its hateful content policy this week. The company says it's underlying rules have not changed but advocates say it's part of a trend to loosen rules meant to protect vulnerable users.

Once every midsummer my food cravings spiral into nothing but iced coffee, pastries, watermelon, and spicy spaghetti for a whole week it is a great time of year

Thinking of writing a paper called "What is AI Governance" it is an AI governance lit review followed by a discussion of why AI governance doesn't actually exist

Be prepared to say goodbye to half of Canada’s queer and trans-serving community organizations. These cuts will be a bloodbath. www.hilltimes.com/story/2025/0...

Mark Carney promised “elbows up” against the US, but he’s offering a warm embrace to US tech companies and the AI hype they’ve unleashed. As Canada’s AI minister suggests AI regulation is off the table, there’s ample reason to be worried about Carney’s tech agenda. My latest for @breachmedia.ca:

Single issue voter whose one issue is "make AI more woke"

Trump's new executive order about AI states that companies' models must not incorporate the idea that trans people exist as a concept. Seems bad.

more evidence for “a bunch of AI cultists dismantled large parts of the federal government because they believed that their LLMs were intelligent and could do the work better” thesis

"Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government" is such a deeply unserious name for an EO and yet here we are! www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

Deftones rly is the best music for being sad angry wistful hopeful & transsexual all at the same time

Me, a rube: governments procure a technology when a specific need is identified. UK: “lol, no”

This thread is incredible.

If you're in Hamilton next Friday, drop by the Factory Media Centre! I'll be exhibiting my experimental web game object.type(3) alongside the work of many other media artists as part of a free event hosted by McMaster's Critical Data Studio. More info here: criticaldatastudio.com/expanded-dat...

My university has announced a fund to essentially poach doctoral students from US institutions. DM me if you do work on the history/social impacts of AI and are interested in being poached 😂

Entire camera roll for this week is just dog

bag of chips for lunch type of day

Still processing a more detailed essay-length take on the Carney government's AI policy, but I will say that the overall equation of deregulation + accelerated adoption + digital sovereignty = economic growth & security doesn't bode well if you're concerned about safety, equity, rights, etc.

off to a good start 👍

I am only 2 weeks into a faculty job and already the number of review request emails I get has shot up to 4-5 a week how are there so many papers and who is reviewing this many papers????

After responses about expanding GO train service to Vancouver and an electrification schedule 18,000 years into the future, Metrolinx says GO Transit will no longer respond using AI. #onpoli www.thetrillium.ca/news/municip...

Canada needs to reduce its dependence on US tech companies — and cloud infrastructure is a perfect place to start. For @policyalternatives.ca, I explain the threat posed by our dependence on US-owned data centres and why we need a public cloud that isn’t shaped by the need for shareholder profits.

Big update! I'm now an Assistant Professor of Political Science at University of Alberta and a Fellow at the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute. Very excited to continue my work on AI governance out west 🤠