I'm still thinking about one of my favorite tech demos from SXSW this year. Are you also stressed about the e-waste of single-use vapes getting tossed every day? Turns out, you can turn them into rechargeable, universal tool/e-bike batteries!! Other things are possible ✨ 2ndchancemnd.com

Lots of us in the tech critical space get hit with the "do you even code bro" "do you even understand how this stuff works" all the time... meanwhile:

I'll be running another virtual Possible Futures workshop as part of the Refugees in AI event ⬇️

🔇🔇🔇 On Friday April 17th (9am PDT/5pm CET/7pm EAT), we'll have a virtual event introducing our Refugees, Migrants and AI research program which centers the lived experiences of refugees and migrants and puts power back into their hands🧵 ☘️☘️☘️ Register at www.eventbrite.com/e/refugees-a...

PNW folks, please consider joining us at PDX 350 for an in-person art-making workshop. @dylnbkr.bsky.social and I will lead this event, designed to prompt us to imagine alternative technofutures and be in community at such difficult times. Registration/Info: www.eventbrite.com/e/dair-data-...

If you need a 1-hour break from doomscrolling, I recommend this interview with Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, the creator of BlackTransArchive.com. Art can challenge us, hold us accountable, AND still give us hope. postgame.substack.com/p/video-game...

Got another workshop coming up this weekend in Portland! ✨

File under "a lot of damage isn't irreversible and other things are possible" ⬇️

I had an experience in a meeting today which showed how old school note taking can actually get you ahead of the game. The meeting involved a document that's about 400 pages long. It's exactly the kind of thing that AI fans would suggest should be summarized by AI. Instead...

Game developers share their deliberately crude placeholders to make the point that AI illustration for placeholders isn't offensive, it's poor practice because it could make it into production. kotaku.com/crimson-dese...

So happy to bring this event to Oregon with @dylnbkr.bsky.social 🥹

New in-person workshop incoming, this time co-hosted with @datasociety.bsky.social in Portland, OR! Saturday, April 11, 1pm-3pm at 350 PDX. For tickets and more info, head over to Eventbrite ⬇️ www.eventbrite.com/e/dair-data-...

see? here's the thing. A lot of people are like, the earth is fucked, it's beyond salvation, it's hit the tipping point, but time and time again we see that if we just fucking fixed the problem, it rebounds so incredibly fast. Imagine what could be done if people actually cared

every time somebody promotes something like that all I can see is this toy from like 2009

Said it last year when this article came out, this is why "just brainstorming" is still impactful bsky.app/profile/dyln... See: gizmodo.com/chatgpts-pol...

can't roll my eyes enough at the QuitGPT initiative telling people to switch to Anthropic as the "more ethical" option. we gotta raise our standards for the alternatives we imagine for ourselves y'all

If you still want to spend several $$$ on tacky sunglasses, consider instead: www.reflectacles.com (This whole fiasco did inspire me to go see what people in anti-surveillance fashion have been up to lately and it is kinda fun ⬇️)

Very much builds on the weird notion that coding (or STEM) is somehow the hardest and most complex discipline, a true aptitude for which little boys are granted at age 12 and the rest of us can only ever hope to emulate

"I have seen the word “flawed” used to describe it. As shipped and on a basic technical level this is true, but spiritually it is not." Honestly, I want to reclaim the idea of "personalized" tech to refer to stuff like this. aftermath.site/xteink-x4-ch...

This whole thread is 🎯 If you've written software with a team, you know that most of the time, most of the work is having meetings sorting out minutiae. & even in the coding, SO much work is in the testing, maintaining, documenting— where "vibes" won't cut it.

god a total aside but if the longtermists are sooo preoccupied with the hypothetical lives of billions of people in the distant future, why can't they be obsessed with like, ending single-use plastic production 😭

Across the US, people fed up with Flock cameras surveilling their communities, and with local governments that are often unwilling to listen to concerns over privacy violations and ICE data sharing practices, are taking matters into their own hands—and tearing them down.

A scrolling break of artistic delight: I went to a trans art show/zine fair and got some new gems for my zine collection! Wanted to share a few of my favorites 🧵 (and stay for some Dylan lore at the end)

truly! take it from me, an engineer with many lefty engineering friends, there are many of us writing longingly about high-speed rail and building stuff like this www.hackster.io/news/a-porta...

incredible, no notes

🧵 1/ It’s hard to find hope amidst so much collapse. But in the wreckage of today’s crises, people are also powering solutions — and The 51st, backed by the community of D.C., is one of them. Will you help us build a local newsroom that a billionaire can’t break?

sigh

I wanted to write more about this recent piece of art I love from a few weeks back. Quili.ai, or, a town's ambitious initiative to save its water from AI. Want a picture of a dog eating spaghetti? Ask Benji. 🧵 (h/t to @karenhao.bsky.social for posting about this initially)

@timnitgebru.bsky.social tells us how “frugal AI” is actually an old concept—what’s new is the billionaire pipe dream of building a machine god. www.themaybe.org/reframing-im...

Ok technically this is only half not in English but I will always take the opportunity to plug one of my fave artists, if you don't listen to Lana Lubany she's a Palestinian artist and her music is SICK www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q701...

aww everyone's honking and people are cheering in public and interacting with strangers

These companies are always lying about the extent of their automation because some things cannot be fully automated in principle futurism.com/advanced-tra...

I am so moved by the the love letters to Minneapolis woven through so many of the gut-wrenching accounts coming out of the city. The birder breaking down seeing the hawk in the beautiful old elm— reminds me of that iconic Andrea Gibson poem every time. "Let your heart break so your spirit doesn't".

Evaluating social impacts of technical systems, quantitatively or qualitatively, can feel Sisyphean at times. It's endlessly imperfect. But it's also a critical foundation for meaningful AI regulation. Happy to have gotten to contribute my small piece to the work: academic.oup.com/edited-volum...

They called it AI and now I gotta debate the definition of intelligence with my barber

A doomscroll break: While it feels like everything is burning down and I'm packing whistle kits, I'm reminded of one of our earlier workshops, themed around fire. Many things in nature rely on fire as part of their lifecycle. What if it all burns down? What do we want to grow in its place? 🧵

Trusted friends in Minneapolis tell me that this fund is supporting many people but does not have enough money. If you can give, please do: chuffed.org/project/1671...

No one says to legit business owners, "hey I see there's an underground market selling toxic knock-offs of your product: how will you incorporate the toxic product AND protect your customers against its harms?" But apparently it's fine to make this suggestion to educators with respect to AI.

It was such a delight to get to chat with Arielle on the Joy Report! We talk about the impact of AI on our world, and—most importantly—what we can be doing to build the future we want 🌱 Check out the full episode below! ⬇️ intersectionalenvironmentalist.substack.com/p/the-joy-re...

New virtual Possible Futures workshop coming up in just a few weeks! Grab your tickets now! ⬇️

I'm back with another possible future: This time, about rest. This thread is an invitation for anyone returning from a break feeling immediately re-burnt-out by the "welcome back, hope you're ready to hit the ground running!!" energy the new year can sometimes bring. 🧵 (stay for dog pics 🐶)

As promised, we have another free virtual Possible Futures event,(and our first official co-hosted event)! There are a lot of fun new things I'm excited to share :) Before you log off for the year, treat yourself and book in your first workshop of 2026! ⬇️

Today, DWI publishes a powerful essay by @mgasia.bsky.social, who works impersonating an AI sex companion: data-workers.org/michael/ This piece offers a rare glimpse into the psychological and economic realities behind one of the fastest-growing sectors: AI-assisted intimacy.

"nobody trained claude to do anything like this" except like. one bajillion sci fi books and undergrad philosophy essays they threw into the hopper

Today in "other things are possible": a story about some hackers and CO2 monitoring! I have some thoughts. 🧵 (and read to the end for some DAIR lore)

“LLMs aren’t going away” statements are wishes, not predictions, that they’re trying to make happen. Treat them as advocacy for a specific future, not observations of inevitability

The Possible Futures workshops are so centering for me. They always bring me back to what any of this is for. People approach this from so many angles, and still the same themes emerge: we want connection, belonging, healing, purpose, safety. 🧵

makes me sad to think about young readers' access to poetry, as a former super-into-poetry tween :( It seems like playing with form & subverting the expectations of the reader— as poems are wont to do!— would be almost definitionally incomprehensible with three-cueing.

Reminder that I'm running a workshop this Sunday in Seattle from 2-5pm! Come make art and imagine otherwise with me :) www.eventbrite.com/e/dair-prese...