Seems like random"data centers don't consume water" dude who went viral because of the effective altruists money has a new victim. Glad the victim wrote about it though. www.bennjordan.com/blog/the-alt...

The investment is the latest example of circular financing during the AI boom—the practice of tech companies investing in AI startups to help the latter buy products or services from the original investors.

New from me: Tech bros have launched a campaign to convince Christians that AI is godly: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

@rakeshsengupta.bsky.social, on slop as counterpropaganda.

My article on the geopolitics of ‘slop’ as computational pastiche, cannibalization of Western IP, and (hopefully) the erosion of Hollywood’s visual monopoly over the spectacle of war.

Deeply embarrassing stuff

Three years into the AI era, educators say they face a major crisis. Bosses and clients replacing tutoring jobs with AI. Replacing *athletic coaching* with AI. Many students now cannot grasp why they would *not* use AI for schoolwork. And worse. The 5th installment of AI Killed My Job—educators:

“AI can never be AI without humans. It is not artificial intelligence. It’s African intelligence...We are training our own death. We train ChatGPT and it’s killing us slowly.” Kenyan workers are still the underpaid labor behind AI training, moderation, and sex chatbots. Now, they're fighting back.

Great to be back at my old workplace for the GenAI & Creative Practices conference. Thanks so much to @tpoell.bsky.social and the wonderful organizing team for two terrific days of timely conversations.

It is really just an unspeakably beautiful thing that a socialist was able to defeat the nexus of the world's most curdled billionaires for mayor of New York

You’re here and not necessarily hearing / reading the experiences of Palestinians in Gaza in real time. Here are just some of the tweets from Palestinians in Gaza as Israel turns this into one of the bloodiest nights of the genocide.

This is a little bit genius: an analysis of OpenAI based on a close reading of a 22-second video of CEO Sam Altman cooking pasta. “His kitchen is a catalogue of inefficiency, incomprehension, and waste.” [ft.com]

Poisoning the air of a Black community for a fucking chatbot.

The AI jobs crisis is not coming—it's here right now. It just might not look the way many thought it would. www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-ai-job...

can’t tell you how much joy i get from seeing pierre poilievre lost his seat

New data reveals just how many African workers are indirectly employed in the tech sector, doing outsourced jobs like content moderation, customer service, and data annotation for AI models restofworld.org/2025/big-tec...

"In an earlier post, she wrote: "As for the inevitable death, if I die, I want a loud death, I don't want me in a breaking news story, nor in a number with a group, I want a death that is heard by the world, a trace that lasts forever, and immortal images that neither time nor place can bury."

New from 404 Media: we've obtained a leak from inside Palantir describing Palantir's plan to help ICE find people to deport. Includes peoples' location. Palantir is expecting a backlash, preparing comments for employees to tell their family. Says ICE "mature partner" www.404media.co/leaked-palan...

Such a shameful capitulation to Hindutva’s manufactured victimhood, modelled on the same lobbyist playbook for silencing all criticism and dissent. The Empire’s multicultural facade is now an open endorsement of caste discrimination.

SCOOP: Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi went into an interview today hoping he would come out a U.S. citizen. Instead, ICE arrested him. theintercept.com/2025/04/14/i...

Please share in your networks. Goldsmiths, UoL are offering 5 scholarships in Undergrad & MA courses for Palestinian students. The scholarships include: tuition fee waiver, £19,550 allowance, return trip to & from the UK. Eligibility details & further info at link👇🏽 www.gold.ac.uk/fees-funding...

BREAKING— Last week, while Israel re-escalated its genocide in Gaza, Google Cloud acquired Israeli start-up Wiz, signaling Google's continued investment in Israel and its commitment to genocide profiteering.

Will @theacademyusa.bsky.social use its worldwide prominence to speak up for an Oscar-winning director? Hamdan Ballal was attacked and seriously injured—and the IDF arrested HIM while he was in the ambulance. No charges, no sign of him since. Where are you, AMPAS? chng.it/dzMJYfSbqM

It is with profound sadness that we mourn the passing of Jonathan Sterne, an extraordinary scholar whose groundbreaking work transformed the fields of sound studies, media theory, and the cultural study of technology.

Jonathan Sterne performing in Montréal, Fall 2022. An absolute titan of the field and one of the very best human beings I’ve come across in academia (and I was never formally a student or colleague).

WATCH | Australian medic Muhammad Mustafa describes the aftermath of last night’s attacks at Baptist Hospital in Gaza City: “It was just mostly women and children burned head to toe, limbs missing, heads missing…”

🧵 Israel has resumed its genocide in Gaza. After weeks of systematically violating ceasefire agreements, Israel launched massive airstrikes across Gaza overnight, targeting homes, hospitals, and shelters for displaced civilians.

In an effort to make scholarship on African film and media at #SCMS25 visible, please note and share widely these papers and panels with an African focus.

Wow. Watch this from Zohran Mamdani. It looks like the exact "fight" and "conviction" people are hopelessly asking for from the people in charge of the Democratic party:

Mahmoud Khalil has become a political prisoner for protesting a US-backed genocide. His detention heralds new vistas of repression made possible by institutions and technological developments begun by the War on Terror.

NO OTHER LAND!!!! No Other Land now has more Oscars than it did distribution offers. a great and enduring shame upon the American film industry. free Palestine forever.

We discuss AI images and fascism in this episode -- have a listen: shows.acast.com/the-data-fix... it'll help you understand that aesthetic...

Wait a minute. You mean to say that we don’t need to blanket the earth with data centers and coal & gas plants to maybe arrive at a future where we can wave a magical AGI wand to make all of the consequences of that go away? Yes. This is a false trade off. Let that sink in. 16/

Stunning cowardice by the AHA Council. For shame. "The Council considers the Resolution to Oppose Scholasticide in Gaza ... to contravene the Association’s Constitution and Bylaws because it lies outside the scope of the Association’s mission and purpose." 🗃️ www.historians.org/news/busines...

Journalist Anas Al-Sharif removes his helmet and announces a ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel. His voice steady as his fellow Palestinians lift him into the air in celebration. For 15 months, the Al-Jazeera correspondent has reported on the genocide of his people in Gaza.

Israel's genocide in Gaza has failed because although it destroyed Gaza’s infrastructure, it couldn’t destroy Gaza itself; it couldn't destroy the people. Just as Israel has been unable to destroy Palestine after 76 years of trying. mondoweiss.net/2025/01/pale...

A stereotypical film about Mexico, this time from a Frenchman, earning Hollywood’s applause. Business as usual for the Global North.

This Haaretz piece of IDF soldiers’ confessions of human rights violations absolutely wrecked me www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024...

Why would professors want to automate TA labour? TAships are financially essential for grad students and also an important step in their development as future academics. Garbage tools like this one are designed to undermine university pedagogy and should be on the watchlist of faculty unions.

💥 FINAL SHOWDOWN 💥 32 of the worst people in tech have been narrowed down to the final 2 — a return of the matchup we had in 2022. Who will take the crown? 🗳️ Cast your vote: forms.gle/C6W5vLXTTraU...

96% of children in Gaza feel that their death is imminent and almost half want to die as a result of trauma. 92% of the children in the survey were “not accepting of reality”, 79% suffer from nightmares and 73% exhibit symptoms of aggression.

What an excellent and timely resource for media scholars to learn from, engage with, and incorporate into their teaching and research!

Really looking forward to my first SCMS as part of a panel on Synthetic Media with @rakeshsengupta.bsky.social, Nadine Chan, and @shanedenson.bsky.social #scms2025

ICC issues arrest warrant for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu

Fully agreed. The SCMS board’s reluctance to issue a statement condemning the destruction of every university and the killing of thousands of students and hundreds of professors in Gaza implicates the field of film and media studies in the ongoing scholasticide. Solidarity is the bare minimum.

"Gaza has become a graveyard for children" Israel has killed at least 17,400 Palestinian children since last October. 🔴 LIVE updates: aje.io/lvp7pu

Please spread the word, and do send us an abstract if you are reflecting on solidarity, worldmaking, media and communication infrastructures, and figures like Bruce Lee, Kwame Nkrumah, and Jawaharlal Nehru.