When I led local 'EA' groups, I used to half-jokingly say that effective altruism is a cult. I still like many of the well-intentioned people there. But I've left. Over time, I've come to understand how it's actually a cult. My forum bio now says this:

I have a new paper out in @jhokjournal.bsky.social - "Loss: A notion of error in machine learning." It attempts to draw some wider historical comparisons than are perhaps usual. I would love to know what you think. journalhistoryknowledge.org/article/view...

“This was the system that let Epstein in and kept him in. It is also the system now steering the most consequential technologies of the coming century. The convergence of Silicon Valley’s elite, the techno-authoritarian right and the labs coding AI and crypto, has only intensified since his death.”

“As many as 150,000 residents of El Fasher remain unaccounted for since the city fell to the RSF.” www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Excited to announce @leverhulmecal.bsky.social posts - we are looking for 7 interdisciplinary fellows to join our Leverhulme Centre for Algorithmic Life, closing date 30 January 2026 (1/3) durham.taleo.net/careersectio...

❔Does anyone know of groups where disabled people/people w chronic conditions and working in Critical Data Studies/AI can meet up? Like a Queer in AI but for disabled folks? I constantly think about how helpful it might be to talk to other people navigating disability, who are doing similar work

In newly leaked audio, Peter Thiel admits he urged JD Vance to ignore Pope Leo XIV on moral questions — including the ethical development of AI. He goes even further, branding Leo “the woke American pope” and suggesting he’s a tool of the Antichrist.

I'm officially a Doctor. I'm very proud of the work I did on the harms of language technologies, my thesis here: lnkd.in/eh6FqZkZ It is a privilege to graduate, when not a single university still stands in Gaza. Thank you to everyone who has supported me, in particular @bjoernross.bsky.social.

📣 Last few tickets left now!!

My student Arlene Lo has a paper on the philosophical underpinnings of Canada's attempts to integrate Indigenous groups into its environmental impact assessments. It's now out in (appropriately enough!) the Canadian journal of philosophy. It's good, check it out! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

I think the shortest version of why LLMs are an anti education technology is that education is fundamentally about making shared context to understand ourselves, each other, and the world And by design LLMs destroy shared context

Our final event of the semester is happening on December 3rd! Interested in critical health data studies? Come along to High School Yards :)

🔔new paper alert🔔 I argue that language technologies are usefully understood as a type of language management (i.e., ways of changing how people use and think about language) -- especially in the workplace -- connecting critical work on AI with language policy www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Heading to Edinburgh next week for this exciting event on 🤖🏳️‍⚧️Gender and the Machine🧟‍♀️🧑‍💻, where @naz-andalibi.bsky.social and I will be talking about our research! Thanks to @sj-bennett.bsky.social and @kevinguyan.bsky.social for organizing! Register here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/gender-and...

🥰🥰🔴⭐️

Can’t wait for this!! Only a few weeks away now🕺

'Resisting AI' foreshadowed much of our technofascist moment, but a lot has happened since publication. Why does a broken tech attract such huge commitments? How can it burn so much energy yet claim to save the planet? And can decomputing offer an escape from AI-drive nihilism?

hear me talk about how AI is *really* ruining your job, not by taking it but by undermining your autonomy, enabling (nay, encouraging) your boss to monitor and assess you all the time, and removing everything that sparks joy in your working day Edinburgh (🥰), 28/11!

"UN refugee agency official Jacqueline Wilma Parlevliet said that the new arrivals told stories of widespread ethnic and politically motivated killings, including reports of people with disabilities shot dead because they were unable to flee" this keeps getting worse www.ctvnews.ca/world/articl...

"If de Waal is anywhere close to right, this conflict will have killed 7.5 percent of the prewar population of Gaza in just two years." www.nytimes.com/2025/10/23/o...

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....

Our second event of the semester is next week! 🎉

✨excited to start my UKRI AI Metascience fellowship, where I’ll examine how AI-generated synthetic data is (re)shaping medical research cultures and knowledge practices. Super happy to be staying at Durham University with @amoorelouise.bsky.social as my mentor! www.ukri.org/news/interna...

New article from the Algorithmic Societies group at Durham where theorize prompting as "a mutation in the exercise of political power, beyond the direct command and even the more indirect ‘action at a distance’ characteristic of liberal governmentality...." www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

“Computation has now been reconfigured by machine learning…” Looks awesome: events.humanitix.com/1000platform...

This is going to be a really engaging and interesting workshop! If you’re around in Edinburgh next Friday, you should come along :)

"A Luddite is someone who is against the *abuse* - not the use - of technology." The kids get it.

Consider the annihilation of agricultural land alongside the genocide – and grasp the chilling totality of this attempt to eliminate all life www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

this exists it is called thinking

The key problem with what Ezra Klein says here is that he fails – or is unwilling – to grapple with the fundamental reality of the political conflict: The movement that dominates today’s Right fully rejects the very idea of “living here with each other” as equals. That’s their defining position.

Interested in environmental justice & how gender inequalities are embedded in technology infrastructure? Join us for the 4th Gender & Tech webinar, Sept. 29 11am EDT, with Paz Peña Ochoa & @tamigraph.bsky.social. Free & open. Registration: virginia.zoom.us/webinar/regi... Co-org w/ @yasmincurzi.com

📣 NEW -- In The Economist, discussing the privacy perils of AI agents and what AI companies and operating systems need to do--NOW--to protect Signal and much else! www.economist.com/by-invitatio...

Since surely we are taking an evidence-based approach to assessing AI’s value, and in light of last week’s MIT study showing similar results for businesses, we will now be halting the ‘put AI into everything everywhere always’ campaign? *listens in earpiece* oh no

Philosophy is structurally unable to acknowledge that "I dunno, man, maybe?" is objectively speaking the correct answer to most of our questions.

Four journalists were killed by an Israeli strike on a Gaza hospital today, including Mariam Dagga, a freelancer with the @apnews.com. She has a 12-year-old son, who was evacuated from Gaza earlier in the war. She was a true hero, like all of our Palestinian colleagues in Gaza. tinyurl.com/3cn5c9vb

Join us Tuesday!

The thing that's so difficult in fighting pseudoscience is that its followers fundamentally don't believe in expertise. Exceptional people? Sure. The naturally gifted? of course. But I've talked to people face-to-face who simply don't believe people can get better at things.

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

Trans Technologies is available now! My book examines how technology creates new possibilities for transgender people, and how trans experiences, in turn, create new possibilities for technology. "An absolute must-read for anyone that cares about technology and trans liberation." - Alex Hanna

Still scratching my head about how US company OpenAI can support building in sovereign AI in the UK, which - last time I checked - was not an American state

🎉 A lovely wedding present from Big Data & Society! I bring together an ethnographic study of AI practitioners with Simone de Beauvoir’s ethics of ambiguity, exploring how ambiguity shapes AI practice and ethics journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

✨really enjoyed being a very tiny part of this last week, giving the intro - thanks for organising @velocitygravity.bsky.social!

At STS Italia and immensely excited to hear the first keynote from Ruha Benjamin!

got a room full of people laughing about network graphs last week at the @aies-edinburgh.bsky.social Queer Data Showcase - who knew! Thanks to @kevinguyan.bsky.social @sj-bennett.bsky.social @mystikaglamoor.bsky.social and all my co-presenters for a fantastic evening ☺️ 📸Daniel McGowan Photography

The Queer Data showcase is fantastic. Lots of excellent funny, thought-provoking presentations and my highlight so far has been @katherinewyers.bsky.social with improv sax accompanying her story of the emotional toll of queer fieldwork.

✨inspired and energised by our wonderful speakers at the Queer Data Showcase, hosted by fantastic @mystikaglamoor.bsky.social, supported by @prideinstem.bsky.social, and co-organised by @kevinguyan.bsky.social and yours truly @sj-bennett.bsky.social @velocitygravity.bsky.social @srravya.bsky.social

Super excited for this tomorrow!! ✨

Unsure how to collect gender, sex and sexuality data following the UK Supreme Court ruling? 📝 New writing on how a biology-first approach to diversity data WILL NOT WORK and how we can defend inclusive approaches. kevinguyan.com/2025/05/27/d...