Technologically advance a band: Taylor Rust

What could go wrong.

The White House may call it deregulation, but in reality, it's replacing written rules with unwritten rules. (Rule 1: "Don't upset the President.") It's swapping transparent, tested rules for secret, shifting ones. One set serves the public interest, the other reflects the President's whims.

Doesn’t apply to existing, apparently, but there’s that whole “if we like you you don’t have to get charged for this”

The official USCIS Twitter account has confirmed that the new policy will NOT affect existing visa holders x.com/uscis/status...

i don’t think people on bluesky understand the severity of this situation. i woke up to literally hundreds of texts from friends and family thinking about either moving back home to india or applying to other countries for jobs. this includes me.

In June, an ACIP member said that 250 pediatric flu deaths were no big deal. Maybe today we will find out that a handful of hepatitis B related cancers, transplants, and deaths are also not a big deal to them either. Welcome to the new public health. We are aligned to a manifesto, not science.

“It goes on & on, w/ChatGPT monologuing while the wife it's being wielded against occasionally tries to cut in over its robotic lecture. The spouse prompting it, meanwhile, mutters approving commentary: "that's right," "mm-hmm," "see?" haha holy poorly digitized christ futurism.com/chatgpt-marr...

Pope Leo XIV said a proposal to create an AI-version of him so people could have a virtual audience with the pope pretty much horrified him.

Authoritarianism is like measles: Ignore it and it will go away. I have this guidance straight from Secretary Kennedy. www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...

Fmr FCC Chair Tom Wheeler on NPR just now: Carr can’t do this under Comms Act or 1st Amendment. Trump’s comments are “autocratic control of the media.” FCC is intimidating and coercing licensees.

If you’re like me and feeling increasingly hopeless and powerless about rising fascism, here is something you can do about it ⬇️

This is why the First Amendment has been so obviously broken for so long. If there’s no concept that private companies who control the media channels can also suppress speech in important ways, and the First Amendment only operates negatively against the government, this is the inevitable result.

Here are FIVE surprising ways federal data make your life better, with our friends at @essentialdata.us: 1. We get up to $53B/yr free pest control because we don't accidentally build bridges through bat habitats 2. We know where to get those sweet, sweet space minerals 3. Labubu matcha

A sober takedown of Mr. "I consult taxi drivers for foreign policy takes".

I am having a hard time reconciling "Charlie Kirk was a fierce advocate of open dialogue and free expression" with "we must identify and persecute everyone who is insufficiently mournful"

More coverage of the points that @r-jy.bsky.social raised in our article for @techpolicypress.bsky.social on the myth of tech sovereignty (www.techpolicy.press/sovereignty-...)

Q. Who aligns the aligners? A. alignmentalignment.ai Today I’m humbled to announce an epoch-defining event: the launch of the 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗜 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀.

🧵 The summer of 2025 has been AI's "cruel summer"—wrongful deaths, dangerous therapy chatbots, medical misinformation, facial recognition failures. These aren't isolated glitches but predictable harms from systems deployed without adequate oversight. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

This is a fantastic and tricky post.

Thinking Machines wrote a superb blog post on determinism in LLMs and it is fascinating (if you like computer architecture otherwise you’re going to tear your hair out) spoiler: did you know GPUs have instructions that aren’t deterministic? thinkingmachines.ai/blog/defeati...

It’s not every day that UX researcher whistleblowers testify before the Senate. Yesterday, two former Meta researchers, Jason Sattizahn and Cayce Savage, shared their concerns with safety research for Meta VR products, and more broadly within Meta. So how does UX research move on from here? 🧵

I really feel for Con Law profs. How are you supposed to teach anything based on principle? What exactly can you say about the Court ignoring 90-year old precedent with an opposite ruling on the shadow docket with no explanation? How can you do or teach any common law reasoning about Con Law now?

After 25 years at EFF, Cindy Cohn is stepping down as executive director. In a WIRED interview, she reflects on encryption, AI, and why she’s not ready to quit the battle.

Big transition coming at @eff.org. Cindy Cohn has done *amazing* work there. Very very big shoes for someone to fill. (Cindy and I go back to her pre-EFF days when we worked on cryptography (aka 'crypto') and the Clipper Chip back then. www.eff.org/press/releas...

My students know me so well.

Paging @kawulf.bsky.social

Governor announces New Mexico will now provide free universal child care

Missed this when it came it. Worth a read. By @geomblog.bsky.social thebulletin.org/2025/08/how-...

To keep pace with the latest trends in constitutional jurisprudence, we need a new genre of legal scholarship called "emergency law review articles" where we just state conclusions without reasons or arguments.

Common theme of people I've interviewed recently. At universities, in research centers, in diplomacy, in the legal system, dealing with refugees or immigrants: The reality inside is much worse than you would think from the outside.

Me, at a NYC public event on AI with @datasociety.bsky.social, in response to a question: "No, AI systems are not moral agents in their own right. They can communicate responses that we can pretend to ascribe moral status to, but they don't possess any moral grounding" 1/2

This is a very good post to send to your friends and colleagues who use AI, teaching them how to learn how to get more correct answers out of LLMs. AI haters should read this too, as it’s research-based and you can see how these systems work when you encounter them.

Together with the ruling in the USA by Judge Amit Mehta’s on Google - basically letting its monopoly to continue - what citizens understand is that democratic societies have given up on challenging Big-Tech power. The regulatory system is broken & needs fixing by ppl who are not afraid of tech bros.

📌📌📌 I'm excited to be on the faculty job market this fall. I just updated my website with my CV. stephencasper.com

this is hilarious

AAUP-HARVARD, AAUP, & UAW WON THE HARVARD CASE!!!! storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

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...

I’m thrilled to announce that @fieldsmeyer.com and I are writing a book about how to challenge authoritarianism. “On Courage: To be a Dissident in America’s Age of Fear,” is scheduled to be published by Harper Collins next summer.

I think my favorite point so far was "what if God only sends people to Hell if they believe in Him based on Pascal's Wager? There's a non-zero probability of that, so..."

IYKYK

JUSTICE FOR THE EM DASH (from @ellecordova.bsky.social) youtube.com/shorts/XKsPa...

An excellent essay on the rejection of experts, ignorance, RFK Jr., and "not-knowing, as a way of claiming the authority of ignorance." www.the-reframe.com/your-ignoran... Reminds me of this adage: "Everything looks like a conspiracy when you don't know how anything works."

Executive Orders are not laws and do not rule Here’s what would rule: an affordable small plates bar near Lafayette Park in downtown DC serving a taste of the French countryside called: Executive Hors d'Oeuvres

Dennis Goris (‪@dennisgoris.bsky.social‬) with a cartoon that's profound, sad, and tragically spot on.

Tired: death panels. Wired: death algorithms.

Amen to this. I wrote about this problem in "Artificial Unintelligence" in 2018; it's only gotten worse in the AI era.

One of the most depressing parts of the history of industry regulation in the US is that people had to die for the public, and politicians, to take notice. I don't know if there's any more appetite now for AI regulation than say 3 months ago, but I wish it didn't need the blood of children. 1/2

Call for Papers! "Technology and Inequality in Culture, Media, and the Arts"-a special issue of Poetics, coedited with @jticona.bsky.social + Angèle Christin www.ias.edu/stsv-lab/pla...