🚨D-7 The call for papers for INDL-9 is still open—until April 30, 2026. This time our annual conference will be hosted on Sept 9–11, 2026 at the International Labour Organization (ILO), Geneva. www.indl.network/indl-9/ cc. @ubiquity75.xyz @posada.website @milamiceli.bsky.social #ai #work #labor

I preordered mine - and you can too!!!

#PlatformExtractivism is available for 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫 (out Oct 20)! Thrilled to share what @geoplace.bsky.social has to say about the book: "A grounded and uncompromising account of the infrastructures and workers that sustain AI." 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤: www.ucpress.edu/books/platfo... #BookRecommendation #Books

Data centers are a physical manifestation of AI infrastructure and they've become a flashpoint precisely because they're tractable. They exist in specific places, consume specific resources, can be seen and pointed to. I spoke with @lorenaoneil.com @rollingstone.com about our urgent AI reckoning.

This week, I’ll be presenting my research at Princeton University’s Anthropology Department for a conference titled “the future of (data) work.” A huge thank you to Beth Semel and Hunter Akridge for the invitation and for organizing such an important event!

INDL-NA, the North American chapter of our International Network on Digital Labor, holds the 𝗦𝘆𝗺𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘂𝗺 𝗼𝗻 𝗟𝗮𝗯𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝗜, hosted at Yale University in April. The event, organized by @posada.website, opens with a keynote by Julia Ticona. Register here: www.eventbrite.com/e/internatio...

Registration is now open for @indl.bsky.social's 𝐒𝐲𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐮𝐦 𝐨𝐧 𝐋𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐀𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 at @yale.edu (Apr. 29), with a Doctoral Colloquium on Apr. 28. Join us to discuss workers building, using, and resisting AI. Please note: both events are in person only. indl-yale.eventbrite.com

I don't think people fully appreciate how apocalyptic things are for US science. I haven't had any new funding since 2024, but I'm still ok since typical grants are for three years. This means next year I will be completely out of funding and will have to fire everyone in the lab. It's not great.

We are pleased to announce the Fall launch of the Computing, Culture, and Society certificate. To commemorate the program, we are hosting a conversation with Paola Ricaurte, Kalindi Vora, and me this Monday at noon at Yale's Humanities Quadrangle. Our website will be online by then in csoc.yale.edu

Very interesting essay (as always) by @melhogan.bsky.social on "The Ends of AI: Sycophancy and psychosis": "The rage against DEI and the humanities is part of the ongoing project of building up the logics of AI and metrics as the great authority." disjunctionsmag.com/articles/end...

Ben Goertzel, popularizer of the term AGI and creator of the Sophia robot, congratulating Jeffrey Epstein the day after Epstein was released from prison. Goertzel is mentioned in the files nearly 800 times, including well after the Miami Herald investigation in 2018.

interested in questions of tech, labor, and worker futures? on April 10 in Princeton i'm hosting an outstanding lineup of panelists at "the future of (data) work," where speakers will discuss the ethnographic, archival, and participatory action research they've conducted with data + tech workers

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

I'll be at Yale today for a guest lecture in the “Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Society" course! My talk, “Global Imperatives for an Equity-Centered Approach to AI Governance,” will discuss my latest research, work, and vision for inclusive approaches to AI oversight.

Rest in peace Vicente Rafael. Just learned of his passing from @dukepress.bsky.social. We lose a giant today.

THE SILICON GAZE After reading a really interesting paper from @oii.ox.ac.uk (link below), I asked ChatGPT (version 5.2) to give an ranking of countries by IQ, 'extrapolating' and 'estimating' where data was not available. I then asked it to provide an 'approximate' heat map of the estimates 1/2

Absolutely damning from @aaronschaffer.com, @willoremus.com, & @nitasha.bsky.social. To get more data, Anthropic: * "destructively scanned" millions of books * downloaded the shadow library LibGen * hailed another shadow library's arrival as "just in time!!!" www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

“A lawsuit filed by a group of job applicants claims that some A.I. employment screening tools should be subject to the same Fair Credit Reporting Act requirements as credit agencies.” www.nytimes.com/2026/01/21/b...

Today, a case was filed on behalf of the City of New York to get our city’s delivery workers the money they are owed.

For too long, companies like Motoclick stole tips from delivery workers and ignored the minimum pay rate law. Under our administration, they won’t get away with it any longer.

If Canada & others aren't willing or able to prevent Grok from being used and monetized as an automated sexual abuse tool then we really shouldn't expect any type of meaningful AI regulation to come from political leaders

If gen AI systems often just repeat what they have seen elsewhere, then researchers using LLMs to simulate human behavior might have a serious ethics conundrum: maybe such studies are just analyzing observational data without consent? cc @mjcrockett.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

Having served on the editorial advisory board for this book, I’ve seen firsthand the depth of insight it offers. This is a foundational text and a must-read for everyone in the field.

Literally a publication for eight-year olds 40 years ago

When the clock strikes midnight on January 1, creative works from 1930 & sound recordings from 1925 will enter the public domain in the US, like: 💄 Dizzy Dishes, first Betty Boop cartoon 🕵️♀️ First 4 Nancy Drew novels 🚂 The Little Engine That Could 🎩 Morocco 🍑 Georgia on My Mind and many more! 🧵👇

New article out in @bigdatasoc.bsky.social (with Dušan Cotoras). We examine how AI ethics is negotiated in practice through an ethnographic study of a predictive system developed inside Chile’s Public Defender’s Office. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

“In a Bloomberg interview, Vincke admitted that Larian has been pushing generative AI internally, even though it hasn't led to gains in efficiency or speed.” The “need” to rush into AI adoption is executive peer pressure. It is the ideology of business leadership triumphing over data and people.

The ACM Digital Library, where a LOT of computing-related research is published (I'd say at least 75% of my own publications), is now not only providing (without consent of the authors and without opt-in by readers) AI-generated summaries of papers, but they appear as the *default* over abstracts.

🧵 NSF is reducing external review requirements and eliminating routine expert panels, citing staff shortages that this administration implemented. This change expands program officer authority. But the solution to flawed accountability isn't less public accountability.

“At Vincennes there was no hierarchy among the students or the teachers⁠—none at all… It was a place of freedom, wisdom, equality. It was a marvelous, joyous, alive place. I was in charge of appointing the first thirty-six professors… ‘Would you like to join a university of dreams?’”

🚨 𝐂𝐅𝐏 𝐀𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐭: 𝐋𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐫 & 𝐀𝐈 𝐒𝐲𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐮𝐦 𝐚𝐭 𝐘𝐚𝐥𝐞 Theme: Workers Building, Using, and Resisting AI 📅 Date: April 29, 2026 📍 Loc: Yale University (In-person) 💰 Funding: Scholarships available for grad students & organizers! 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞: Jan 18, 2026 Submit here: indl-na.sciencesconf.org

That they chose “Lunch atop a Skyscraper,” a photograph of workers during the Great Depression, and superimposed the images of some of the top figures of the new Gilded Age tells you a lot about the role of labor in AI—it’s the Mechanical Turk all over.

Pleased to endorse the AI Civil Rights Act, comprehensive legislation to prevent companies from using AI for biased and discriminatory life outcomes, ensure algos are tested before and after deployment and increase transparency of algorithms used for critical decisions. #AIBillofRights

Flock exposed training materials and a panel which tracked what its AI annotators were working on. It showed that Flock, which has cameras in thousands of U.S. communities, is using overseas workers. @evystadium.bsky.social has more. Story by @josephcox.bsky.social: www.404media.co/flock-uses-o...

Sooo many folks I’m excited to work with on Mamdani’s technology transition committee. All hands on deck to bring the Affordability Agenda to life: childcare, housing, transportation. While its easy to get swept up in personality, this is a group focused on peoples real needs. LETS KEEP THE FOCUS.

Meta halted internal research that purportedly showed (young) people who stopped using Facebook became less depressed and anxious, according to an unredacted legal filing released on Friday. www.cnbc.com/2025/11/23/m...

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