Image models are not "a" model. Each component was built or integrated to solve a specific problem of computer vision — each engineered to automate a decision, each inscribing its bit of ideology into every generated image. My latest paper unpacks those decisions and what they inscribe.

✨ New in Big Data & Society ✨ “Agents of erasure: Following the deletion of public sector data through its value chain” by @frederikschade.bsky.social. 🔓: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... #personaldata #deletion #valuechain #publicadministration

Six years ago I published a book that engaged machine learning in terms of the politics of text, language & the impossibility of definitive authorship. Are any of the men writing now on LLMs, authorship, and text citing my 2020 work?…. No, reader, they are not.

Available for preorder - Algorithmic Capital: Resistance in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Jonathan Durand Folco and Jonathan Martineau A rich and audacious account of the mutually reinforcing transformations of capitalism and technology in the age of AI

It’s alive! Copies of @fintechcapital.bsky.social, by @paullangley.bsky.social and me, published by @princetonupress.bsky.social arrived this morning. Out in the US soon, and in the UK a little later.

"Anthropic is the clean coal of AI. And clean coal doesn't exist" - Karen Hao speaking at Hay yesterday.

On the one-year anniversary of EMPIRE OF AI, I am so, so excited to announce The AI Resist List, a new project that documents examples of resistance to the AI empires around the world 😍 airesistlist.org

Dave Beer and Benjamin Jacobsen ( @bnjacobsen.bsky.social ) have published on AI, distillation, and the reframing of reasoning in ‘Big Data & Society’ ( @bigdatasoc.bsky.social ). buff.ly/DfOxDKb

🚨 New in Big Data & Society 🚨 “Artificial intelligence, conceptions of distillation and the reframing of reasoning” by David Beer and @bnjacobsen.bsky.social. 🔓: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/.... #AI #reasoning #DeepSeeek #ML

From the Archive: Thomas Lemke, 'An Alternative Model of Politics? Prospects and Problems of Jane Bennett’s Vital Materialism' - discusses basic arguments and important achievements of Jane Bennett’s vital materialism. (2018) journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

I will be speaking at @rwth.bsky.social on 3 June 2026. My talk—"Causation as Sign Action: Semiotic Empiricism and the Causal Complexity of Large Language Models"—draws on my new work (soon to be published) on Peircean semiotics and LLMs. khk.rwth-aachen.de/event/causat...

With the cover now finalized, I am pleased to announce my forthcoming book: 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐄𝐱𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐦: 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐏𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐀𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞. Available this October from @ucpress.bsky.social s. 🧵 1/4

Sarah C. Dunstan and Ian Stewart eds. Race in the Modern World: An intellectual History - @universitypress.cambridge.org, August 2026 www.cambridge.org/core/books/r...

✨ How can model collapse help us make sense of the emergent risks of synthetic data? And how might it perpetuate notions of real data as 'gold standard'? @bnjacobsen.bsky.social will discuss this in his talk on March 18th - sign up ⬇️ www.eventbrite.com/e/trash-in-t...

🚨 Publication alert 🚨 I just published an article in the Journal of Academic Ethics that examines how academic staff investigate and sanction suspected cases of academic misconduct. link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007...

"Turnitin and Grammarly do not simply detect plagiarism but actively reconfigure what counts as authorship, originality, and intellectual integrity ... reshaping academic labor through anticipatory compliance and rendering originality as machinic compatibility." 🔥 doi.org/10.1177/0263...

In January, my @erc.europa.eu funded project ‘The Ethics of Synthetic Data in the Age of Machine Learning and AI’ started, and I am very excited to say that we are now hiring a fully funded PhD studentship for 2026/27 entry 🚨🚨 www.york.ac.uk/sociology/st...

New as Online First in Theory, Culture & Society: Ethan Stoneman and Joseph C. Packer, 'Writing for Machines, Formatting Originality: Plagiarism Detection and the Automation of Authorship'. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

@fayboundalberti.bsky.social Fay Bound-Alberti, The Face: A Cultural History - Allen Lane, February 2026 www.penguin.co.uk/books/459227...

New as Online First in Theory, Culture & Society: Tianren Luo, William Xing and Jingjia Xiao, 'Digital Sensing, Infrastructure of Sovereignty, and the Unmaking of the Chinese Surveillance State'. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

ICYMI: Louise Amoore and Volha Piotukh, 'Interview with N. Katherine Hayles' - Hayles discusses the themes of her book 'Unthought: The Power of the Cognitive Nonconscious' published in 2017. (Free Access) journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Annual Review: Diana Stypinska, 'Pastorate Digitalized: Social Media and (De)Subjectification' - shows how the digitalization of the pastoral directive culminates in the production of spectral subjects. (Open Access) journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

New as Online First in Theory, Culture & Society: Ross Abbinnett, 'On Late Fascism: Derrida, Toscano and the Return of Absolute Hostility' - examines the question of the return of fascism to the political mainstream in European liberal democracies. (Open Access) journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Take a look at what our academic and research staff published in January!👇

Berlin journalist @farangiesg.bsky.social writing on Palantir’s models & ICE, interviewed me about my work on the Deep Border & @erc.europa.eu research on machine learning worlds. Her article captures the violent spatial form of algorithmic targeting.

The @leverhulmecal.bsky.social PhD studentships are now live here leverhulmecal.webspace.durham.ac.uk/leverhulme-c... Are you looking for a PhD programme that supports interdisciplinary approaches to algorithmic life? Closing date 26 February

Our @leverhulmecal.bsky.social postdoctoral fellowship posts close for applications on 30 January. A few reflections on the frequently asked questions we have received. So much looking forward to reading your applications and building our team together youtube.com/watch?v=x4AMkxhe4bQ

Architecture Against Architecture: A Manifesto by Reiner de Graaf, out March 2026 from @versobooks.bsky.social! writers & reviewers, let me know if you’d like a copy!

Pleased to see this piece. Personally, I find these uses of synthetic data v concerning and I find the traction and endorsements that this work has to be quite baffling, esp given the well-storied role of algorithmic targeting in undermining democracy

@bnjacobsen.bsky.social and colleagues at @geogdurham.bsky.social have published an article examining how prompting in machine learning is reshaping political power, expertise, and governmental decision-making in Economy and Society. #Prompting #MachineLearning #PoliticalPower #Decision #Government

Good to see this bad boy out in the world!! New article from me on drone delivery, AI testbeds, and the long history science and technology testing in the colony. Online first and gloriously open access ✨ doi.org/10.1177/2976...

Gilles Deleuze, On Painting: Courses, March-June 1981, ed. David Lapoujade, trans. Charles J. Stivale – @uminnpress.bsky.social, August 2025 www.upress.umn.edu/978151791840...

53 years young and still trending

Today is the official UK publication day for Silicon Empires! I'm excited to have it out and hear what people think. There's an enormous amount happening every day in AI, and it's difficult to gain a stable perspective. I wrote the book to try and get some secure hold on that constant flux. 🧵

Travel data has historically been a correlative proxy. Early 2000s data mining used one way flights (*purchased third party) in terror algorithms. These apparent “errors” by HMRC illuminate machine learning logics: 1/ combine gov cloud data www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Morten Høi Jensen, The Master of Contradictions: Thomas Mann and the Making of "The Magic Mountain" - @yalepress.bsky.social, October 2025 yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...

Want to know more about #syntheticdata #assetization, #blockchain and #cloudinfrastructures in #finance? In this paper for @financeandspace.bsky.social , I talk about those topics, plus how synthetic data might be reworking financial #subjectivities! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

New in Theory, Culture & Society: Kriss Ravetto-Biagioli, 'Inhabiting the Face: From Fake to Deepfake' - traces how new technological developments in face recognition and artificial intelligence affect the way we inhabit our own faces. (Online First) journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Our article on the politics of AI prompts is out now @econsocjournal.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... 1/n

Such a nice paper on feature extraction as a project of perception - drone enclosures in digital India. “Feature extraction is an entirely speculative endeavour” rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

✨Deeply honoured to deliver this year's Annual Digital Lecture at The National Archives! Drawing on our @erc.europa.eu Data Loss project, I'll explore how preservation creates loss in the digital age and what that means for the politics of archives. Nov 20 6pm at Senate House, London. Do join us!

ICYMI: David Beer. 'Explorations in the Indeterminacy of Computation: An Interview with M. Beatrice Fazi' - this interview with M. Beatrice Fazi explores in detail her work on computation. journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Glyph: Johns Hopkins Textual Studies – Samuel Weber, Deconstruction and the American Reception of French Theory progressivegeographies.com/2025/09/07/g...

I am very excited and honoured to be the recipient of an ERC Starting Grant, starting January 2026 🔆 @erc.europa.eu. The five-year project will explore the broader social, political, and ethical implications of training algorithmic models on synthetic data. www.york.ac.uk/news-and-eve...

If you are at the Association for Philosophy & Literature conference, check out the panel “Philosophies of Intelligence,” organised by @theoryculturesociety.org I will be speaking alongside N. Katherine Hayles, Luciana Parisi and Joel McKim. 📆 22 August 2025 ⏰ 1.45 pm 🗺️ APL 2025 Frankfurt

Digital Twins special issue in New Media & Society edited by Christoph Borbach, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun & Tristan Thielmann. 15 papers including one by Oliver Dawkins & myself. Interdisciplinary exploration of the conceptualisation and practices of digital twinning. journals.sagepub.com/toc/nmsa/27/8

One study concluded 70% of increased electric cost across US due to AI data centers. apnews.com/article/elec...

My essay “Because the twin is not a copy: the politics of digital twins” - written for a 2023 workshop organised by Christoph Borbach & out now in a special issue on digital twinning in #NewMedia&Society #DigitalTwins #algorithms journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

I have a new article out: "Do artifacts have political economy?" It's a riff on an old argument by Langdon Winner about the embedding of politics in technology #STS #sociology #technoscience #technology #innovation journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...