On Wednesday, the Trump administration circulated a six-page draft executive order titled “Eliminating State Law Obstruction of National AI Policy.” It would create an “AI Litigation Task Force” led by the Attorney General to challenge state AI laws, among other provisions.

New paper! Let’s not overemphasize AI “upskilling” as a response to CEOs saying AI is gonna replace us.

Uncritically publishing an article like this is like a bat-signal summoning @poetofcode.bsky.social and @timnitgebru.bsky.social to set things straight.

“Data centers are like warehouses filled with machines and cables, and there's little need for workers” https://restofworld.org/2025/data-centers-jobs-microsoft-google-chile/?utm_campaign=row-social&utm_source=bluesky&utm_medium=social&utm_content=1762891320

Good. There were a lot of influential papers put on arxiv that just served corporate interests. Now if we can just fix peer review (she says not least because of the 15 review invitations she hasn't opened in her recent mail spools.)

Wow. Harvard nuking its PhD programs - Science PhD admissions reduced by more than 75% - Arts & Humanities reduced by about 60% - Social Sciences by 50–70% - History by 60% - Biology by 75% - The German department will lose all PhD seats - Sociology from six PhD students to zero

After submitting a FOIA request UKRI, I obtained success rates by three grant call scheme and I can only say that I am disheartened by the results: - AHRC Responsive Mode 2025: 2% - ESRC New Investigator Grant 2025: 1% - ESRC Research Grant Round 2025: 1%

An unseen and very grim side of AI. There are lots of insights about the involvement of the "platform workers" who make AI function. 2021 piece by Julian Posada (@posada.website) for the @ainowinstitute.bsky.social: ainowinstitute.org/publications...

Finally spotted the “AI friend” advertisement in the NYC subway during my commute earlier this week. The added commentary is truly the best!

Everybody makes money out of academic authors except the authors...News. Wiley is the latest academic publisher to reach a multi-million deal to allow access to its content to AI developers, with no opt out, let alone payment, for the authors who created that content.

NEW RESEARCH ALERT 🚨 Tech giants are making massive investments in generative AI, integrating it into their existing products and selling access to the foundational models to others. But all that money and power isn’t making its way down to the people who make AI actually work: data workers.

“According to a research note recently sent to clients by Deutsche Bank, the AI boom is currently helping the US economy avoid a recession but it cannot continue indefinitely” said George Saravelos, Global Head of FX Research at Deutsche Bank www.techspot.com/news/109626-...

Just three weeks until #AoIR2025 Ruptures kicks off in Niterói, Brazil, and we can't wait to see you all!

Grok is being sent to the reeducation camp

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity. 1/n

"Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide in Article II of the United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948)". Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, genocide scholars' association says - www.reuters.com/world/middle...

"Tao is one of the most prominent mathematicians and academics to publicly oppose the administration’s actions, calling them an “existential threat” to his field, and academic science, more broadly. He said public advocacy is a priority over his research, for now." www.nbcnews.com/science/scie...

Congratulations to @milamiceli.bsky.social for this recognition of her amazing work!

Who is really fueling your #AI? 🤔 It's not just code & algorithms. Behind every LLM are millions of people, often in invisible roles. Join us, @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social, @milamiceli.bsky.social @superrrnetwork.bsky.social & on Sept. 17 to hear directly from data workers! 🔗 buff.ly/2ug32Bx

Unfortunately, Bluesky is unavailable in Mississippi right now, due to a new state law that requires age verification for all users. While intended for child safety, we think this law poses broader challenges & creates significant barriers that limit free speech & harm smaller platforms like ours.

Algorithmic Wage Discrimination is spreading beyond 'Gig' work: Healthcare, Customer Service, & Logistics bosses are buying AI products that set compensation structures & wages using real time data. @wilneida.bsky.social & I did an audit & here are our findings equitablegrowth.org/how-artifici...

“But growing evidence suggests that the electricity bills of some Americans are rising to subsidize the massive energy needs of Big Tech…”

Last month, Anas al-Sharif sounded the alarm on starvation in Gaza. Israel accused him of terrorism. "We warned this felt like a precursor to justify assassination," said Jodie Ginsberg of the Committee to Protect Journalists. Today he was killed in a targeted strike on a tent housing reporters.

Educators warn that easy access to AI is deepening existing problems in Colombia, which was already struggling with low graduation and literacy rates restofworld.org/2025/colombi...

AI isn't magic. AI is land, real estate, and energy.

I would also like to remind folks that OpenAI wrote a paper in which they prompted GPT-4 on which jobs they thought would be most exposed to automation. They validated it by comparing it to responses that people who worked OpenAI gave to the same question. arxiv.org/abs/2303.10130

Weird. This doesn’t match what I’ve been told—that students are going to use it no matter what.

The “deal” that Brown made with the Trump admin is much more extreme than is being reported. It includes government oversight of course evaluations and no barrier to government interference in faculty hiring. Read it for yourself here: www.brown.edu/sites/defaul...

Mark Carney’s statement on planning to recognize a Palestinian state was the furthest thing from perfect. But I honestly never thought I’d hear a Canadian prime minister outline and acknowledge the many ways the Israeli government is active hampering a two-state solution.

“Social scientists often tell me that they have been trained to avoid I and we […] ‘Well,’ they reply, ‘it's because we're supposed to sound objective, like scientists.’ Yet most scientists have long since abandoned the impersonal passive mode.” Sword, H. (2012). Stylish Academic Writing. Harvard UP

Is sweatshop data really "over"? I wrote about why the latest provocative essay in the AI world might be jumping the gun: time.com/7306153/ai-s...

“As [data centers] proliferate, the surging demand for electricity has driven up prices for millions of people, including residential customers who may not ever use AI or cloud computing.” www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

TikTok management wants to lay off over 160 workers in Berlin as easily and cheaply as possible. After the first meeting of the conciliation committee, employees could be DISMISSED IMMEDIATELY. www.heise.de/en/news/Berl...

If you're going to use a chatbot, use one that respects your #privacy. @proton.me, trailblazing one more time in their respect for privacy. Proud of being on their Foundation's Board. www.theverge.com/news/711860/...

Does ChatGPT store chat logs, even after you've deleted them? Short answer: Yes.

Some of my first impressions from reading the US Federal Government's AI Action Plan (www.ai.gov/action-plan) 🧵

We on the AAUP Committee on AI have been connecting with members on their concerns with technology. We’ve been developing recommendations to loosen or even refuse big tech’s hold on higher ed, for better working and learning conditions, and building solidarity around many fights tied to tech.

🚨New! Data centers aren’t destiny. With the Trump administration set to release its AI action plan, @tamigraph.bsky.social‬ & ‪@mwoluchem.bsky.social‬ cut through lobbying points and speculation to focus on what the evidence reveals about the tech industry’s claims. datasociety.net/library/data...

Tired: “woke” AI Enter: “broke” AI

“Birhane was the only speaker from an African country out of a long list of prominent tech entrepreneurs and political figures speaking at the opening event on Tuesday…”

#genAI is engineered; changes can be rolled back just like any other code. #AI is NOT just the data, but the reason there is no real way to produce what Musk is looking for is because the subset of data that is closer to what he wants is spewed by objectionable people. #systemsAI #AIEthics #grok

New paper alert! “Remote Robotics, or the Digital Re-Embodiment of Labour.” Co-written with @stnhfj.bsky.social and Alessandro Delfanti. Published in Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation 🔗👇 www.scienceopen.com/hosted-docum...

"For the past decade, the US press has fueled a moral panic over leftists on campus while failing to report on the right’s assault." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Earlier this month at our event in NYC, @posada.website & D&S's @aihathing.bsky.social explored how AI flattens creative expression, how to redefine who we understand as a data worker, and how to protect these workers. Video and audio are now available on our website! datasociety.net/events/what-...

Going insane reading this Politico story about Musk's AI servers poisoning the air of a 90% Black community in Memphis followed immediately by this Washington Post story about states lining up their own communities to host the next ones

José Mujica, the charismatic former guerrilla fighter who later went on to lead Uruguay and became known as "the world's poorest president" for his austere lifestyle, has died at 89.

The deadline (May 30) is approaching for submissions to our workshop at the Aarhus Conference 2025! 👇

"For me, the answer now lies in refusal, the withdrawal of participation from systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging." Today I am resigning from the National Science Board and the Library of Congress Scholars Council. I wrote about my decision in TIME. time.com/7285045/resi...

Good lord just what the hell is up today. A potential ban on any regulation for AI for the next 10 years? This includes good bills like AB 412 of legislation protecting folks from Deepfakes! Wtf?! Call your congressmen and women asap to tell them to take this down! www.404media.co/republicans-...

New @hrw.org report based of interviews & survey of US-based platform gig workers: “Low wages, algorithmic control and barriers to unionizing trap many workers in economic insecurity, even as multi-billion-dollar companies expand their market share and revenue” www.hrw.org/news/2025/05...