Slight clarification to my last post: It's more accurate to say that text is appearing in Google searches that neither I nor the cosplayers pictured wrote. It's mediocre and sounds as if an LLM was involved. Whether it's generated by Google or Instagram is unclear. But it's problematic either way.

“Bring up AI in a Seattle coffee shop now and people react like you’re advocating asbestos." 🥲 I love this city.

This is your regular reminder that execs don't know shit about what their workers actually do and how to make it better. Do not be afraid to tell your manager and their leaders that they are wrong and are making a mistake if they try to incorporate 'AI' into your workflow. YOU know your work best.

Today I learned that Business Insider is going to have a byline for an 'AI' bot. This throws credibility out the window. ACTION: Sign this petition to send a signal to newsrooms that you want human journalists for accuracy and accountability. actionnetwork.org/petitions/st...

Over the summer, artists packed the CA statehouse to support a proposed AI transparency law that'd require tech co's to alert creatives and rightsholders when their work is used in AI models and offer a mechanism to remove it. They forced another hearing. It's next week, at Stanford. I'll be there.

This is the difference between making the park safer and keeping it “in tact” for the preservationists that the Landmarks Board said was just not possible to approve Before (dangerous). After (safe).

People keep saying that driverless cars will end congestion. In reality, all driverless cars do is change the math so that instead of roads being jammed with cars with just 1-2 people in them, the roads will be jammed with cars with 0-1 people in them.

Meta is creating and serving these ads for their 'AI' with your own photos.

THIS is the story. That the feds are spying on people doing completely legal stuff and characterizing them as “anarchist violent extremists.” The story is NOT that you need to be afraid to court watch or patrol your neighborhood for ICE activity. DO NOT SELF-REPRESS.

Your First Amendment right is being surveilled.

Saw a lawn sign that read "SLOW THE FLOCK DOWN" with an image of a bird on it. I thought it could be about community resistance to Flock automatic license plate readers, but it's reminding people to slow down on a turn that should be done at 25MPH. 😅

🚨 Yet again Ted Cruz and Steve Scalise are trying to sneak in a moratorium on state GenAi legislation. If passed states can no longer enact laws for transparency, child safety, privacy, environmental protection etc. We got 3 days to stop this. Call now! www.senate.gov/senators/sen...

ICYMI, state and local cops are NOT supposed to be collaborating with the feds yet they searched Flock ALPR databases on behalf of ICE. THEN it turned out ICE was doing their own searches in a pilot program with Flock. @404media.co has been making FOIA requests for stories. Livestream here:

Gen AI is a FastPass to cheapen your brand.

Flock should have no business anywhere. Fuck the surveillance state.

Best metaphor I've heard is that using AI is like bringing a forklift to lift the weights at the gym. The point is to build YOUR muscles, not to make the weights go up and down.

Just wanna highlight that Seattle Public Schools teacher salaries start at just over $60,000, less than half what a new Seattle police officer will make after six months under the new contract. Cops get bonuses for two-year associate degrees; teachers, of course, have to have finished college.

ICE accessed license plate readers at 30 WA police agencies, including Renton and Auburn. A month ago, city council voted to expand surveillance despite warnings that something like this would happen.

This is like letting an app do the cosplaying for you. It's outsourcing the fun part to the machines.

reminded of when they showed the very first PIXAR short to tech guys and they all asked “what program did you use to make it funny” and they had to very gently explain that it was the people that made it funny, not the code

The vibe around Windows 10 was that it was supposed to be a final OS and the company would follow Apple in providing free updates. That did not age well. :/

Violent radical transgender leftists

they spelled his name that way bc that's how the racists say it

Woke up and chose hyperfixation

Lolllllllllllll there are so many memes about Susan Collins being 'concerned' and ineffective. How is our governor's staff so out of touch?? 🤣

This is the right thing to do when you do when you have a platform.

Turns out not being mad that a far-right hate influencer got shot is NOT a fireable offense if you are a teacher or professor. 1A wins again.

LA Comic Con, please read the goddamn room.

How it started. How it’s going

Number did not go up enough, so it must go down.

calling an AI marketing tool "liars" seems a little on the nose doesn't it

this iconic advertising copywriter named Kathy Hepinstall Parks died over the weekend and I wanted to share something from her website I thought Bluesky would like

Age verification doesn't achieve what its supporters say it does. And I'm glad Bluesky chose this action rather than complying with censorship laws.

Oh no.

Humans wrote this document on standards of what Meta AI is and is not allowed to talk about.

REQUEST FOR INQUIRIES: I’m looking to interview Seattle-area folks who may be harmed by Meta’s reckless Instagram maps feature, and especially folks who have previously or are currently experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity.

G2 geomagnetic storm with Kp6 likely on Aug 7 8-11pm PDT (Aug 8 3-6am UTC).

By far *BY FAR* one of the best things about joining Bluesky was how many people got introduced to our social media strategy for the first time.

I've updated my past newsletter platform cost comparison to incorporate Ghost's recent pricing changes for Ghost Pro. (Note that past Ghost users are grandfathered in.)

Some Nintendo Switch 2 games that are sold in physical cases are actually only game keys for digital download.

when you accidentally close all your tabs, that's a tabula rasa

"They're delisted from search right now because they're clearly adult games, but they're meant for adults, who have a right to understand them and play them as art objects."

2016: I created an Instagram account 2022: I started using my IG account 2025: IG still doesn't have a fullscreen iPad app and the browser version doesn't have parity with mobile either Meanwhile they're trying so hard to make 'AI' companions a thing.

I did not know about underwater 'marine snow' before reading this 🤯

Palantir—a data-mining and analysis firm co-founded by tech billionaire Peter Thiel, is using WA state invested funds to support ICE and Israel. The JVP is demanding that Washington divests.

Update thread #2. Hemlock One thing we worked on is a different tool to complement Nightshade. We discovered a new attack on diffusion models that is more generalizable than Nightshade. It targets an entirely different part of AI training pipeline, basically making AI models poison themselves.

today's a great day to make sure "require alt text before posting" is enabled in your settings and to continue to make bluesky more accessible and inclusive bsky.app/settings/acc...

The Senate removed the moratorium on state regulation of 'AI' tech from the OBB Bill with a vote of 99-1. BUT a lot of those votes were about asserting states' rights and NOT about the harm already done by the tech and tech companies.

Say you book four roles a month, one per week. Say each session is four hours. $600 per week. $2400 per month, or $26,000 per year. In either Dallas or LA. No residuals, no bonuses, no employee benefits like insurance. And you wonder why voice actors went on strike against AI?

And yet the voice actors that star in them only get paid $150/hr for their work. Half, or even quarter that if you're in Texas and can only work for Crunchyroll. And that's a total buyout: no residuals, nothing else. You'd make more money working a full shift at a Starbucks that day.