www.404media.co/meta-tells-w... h/t @404media.co The "AI first" mentality in a nutshell: Meta's 5-fold efficiency demands confirms workers' intuitions: skilled humans must babysit the buggy AI work that is hard to fix since humans must figure out how the code was written and what it does.

A former DOGE staffer developed an AI tool that hallucinated the size of Veterans Affairs contracts. For example, it concluded that more than a thousand deals were each worth $34 million, when in fact some were for as little as $35,000. (Published June)

Chatbots are explicitly being designed “to elicit intimacy and emotional engagement in order to increase our trust in and dependency on them” (me in Wired magazine 🤭). This designed intimacy combined with AI sycophancy creates serious risks for delusional thinking www.wired.com/story/ai-psy...

None of us has yet fully read this; but it looks to be an important preprint from @olivia.science + @irisvanrooij.bsky.social Critical AI literacies means standing back from "AI first" stances that outsource critical activities to opaque systems, flattening and anthropomorphizing H-C relations.

10K Word Premium: OpenAI is another unprofitable, desperate AI startup building products on its own models, spending $2.60 to make $1. Sora 2 is a reckless attempt to grow ChatGPT that costs them at least $5 per generated video. They need to raise $20bn+ before EoY. www.wheresyoured.at/sora2-openai/

»Reports of awe and wonder over mind-boggling feats of computation compound and a generation is beckoned to prostrate before the altars of “frictionless knowledge.”«

NEW CRITICAL AI SERIES CLUSTER, "Gen AI and/as Religion" - edited by @johnmodern.bsky.social criticalai.org/2025/10/01/c... Please share widely!

I cannot express how wild this quote is. This is a top tech analyst at a well-regarded firm saying that there is not enough capital to actually pay for all the stuff that NVIDIA and OpenAI has promised. It is so important that everybody realizes that *there is not enough money to do this*

Oklahoma Schools Chief Ryan Walters made news almost daily for controversial actions threatening to take over the Tulsa schools and mandating Trump-endorsed classroom Bibles. He's leaving his post to run an anti-teachers union think tank. talkingpointsmemo.com/news/scandal...

Chronicle author @bethmcmurtrie.bsky.social discussed @nataliyakosmyna.bsky.social's study of "cognitive debt" re essay-writing with ChatGPT. McMurtrie then writes:

read.dukeupress.edu/critical-ai/... In her intro column to CAI 3.1, editor Lauren Goodlad talks about teaching critical AI literacies including new DESIGN JUSTICE LABS web resources, and using of COMPARATIVISM as a creative counter to "AI first" approaches to education.

ELON SCAM Elon's self-drive claim is untrue and he knows it. Even his promo vid was rigged. #USDemocracy youtu.be/6ltU9q1pKKM?...

Ricky D. Crano's mordant wit is at its most biting in our latest Wall of Shame entry: an outing of @insidehighered.com's use of its podcast for what sounds like an infomercial. criticalai.org/2025/09/15/r...

We're especially excited to share, from our #ReadingList, some critical formulations for computer-assisted writing. From @criticalai-journal.bsky.social and Dispersed Holdings @salrandolph.bsky.social, Kyle Booten's concept of Word Gyms is of definite interest to us here at re•mediate!

The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal. Donald Trump isn't a strongman, he's a scared man. Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.

We appreciate the plug! Fwiw, we tend to prefer "AI technologies in the public interest" to "human-centered" AI. Both are abstractions: but sometimes a "human-centered" approach overlooks (e.g.) the importance of the environment, the needs other living creatures. All that said TYVM!

Land grant university forbids land acknowledgments at / on all campus events, classes, syllabi, event programs, meeting agendas, social media, etc. (via The Chronicle)

A community of resistance is growing. Colleagues in Rutgers and @criticalai-journal.bsky.social have created this invaluable Critical AI Literacies library of resources: sites.rutgers.edu/critical-ai/ which includes comprehensive guides for university staff and students.

If this isn’t reason enough for every educator to spurn AI — or to at least set their bullshit detectors blaring — then critical thinking skills have failed us all and I don’t know what is.

www.wsj.com/politics/sil... Silicon Valley continues to show its contempt for democracy: planning a $100million super-PAC to combat regulation of AI. From @wsj.com's @amrithramkumar.bsky.social and Brian Schwartz. Thanks tech overlords!

If you haven’t seen this, it’s about time you did. Sound up!

The latest issue of Critical AI (@criticalai-journal.bsky.social) is out, with lots of great reads including the final, edited version of our ARRG! paper on Creative Misuse of AI Systems that you all have bookmarked :) read.dukeupress.edu/critical-ai/...

Texas Is Letting Parents Dictate What All Students Read progressive.org/public-schoo...

the enshittification of education is underway restofworld.org/2025/colombi...

Trump's new #AIActionPlan threatens to expand the surveillance and criminalization of our people under the guise of “innovation.” We’re breaking down what this means and how we can resist next WEDS, 7/30 at 6PM ET | 3PM PT, bit.ly/our-techfuture

One wonders if these "snowflake" critics would have thrown shade on those who refused to read Der Stürmer....

All they have to sell at this point is surveillance and magical thinking.

sign.moveon.org/petitions/de... MOVE ON's petition against Delta's plans to use algorithmic pricing! Congress had been considering legislation to stop this predatory and surveillant scheme which already harms renters and is just the tip of the iceberg.

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/o... Granted, that the US in 2025 shocks daily. But Iowa is banning Orwell's 1984? 🤯😱WTF? "Conservatives" used to think Orwell wrote 1984 for THEM (as a criticism of an authoritarian Left). Curious what @dorianlynskey.bsky.social thinks of this horrifying turn.

No surprise but... www.technologyreview.com/2025/07/24/1...

The Weekly Read is "Generative AI, Everyday Aesthetic Production, and the Imperial Mode of Living" by Jakko Kemper. The article, freely available through September 6, is in the most recent issue of @criticalai-journal.bsky.social (3:1). Read it here: buff.ly/ROdfibJ Learn more: buff.ly/6qSjjVx

Ah just stumbled on this thread only a year later about my talk during the Design Justice AI summer institute at the University of Pretoria. Having now developed social media anxiety, I don't have the nerve to read the thread in full though... Sigh. Sigh

p2a.co/ngolXgc Tell your senators and representatives: this is NOT what democracy looks like.

"Beyond Chatbot-K: On Large Language Models, Generative AI, and the Rise of Chatbots," the second of a two-part special issue of @criticalai-journal.bsky.social, is now available: buff.ly/nHL9uxw Learn more and subscribe: buff.ly/qCjBzI3

#AI #carbonfootprint. It's not pretty. From @technologyreview.com

From @bcmerchant.bsky.social's Substack.

there’s been no more effective force at normalizing mass surveillance than US tech companies

#NYT wavers b/w useful reporting & #AIhype. Here straightforward evidence for #Hinton's mistaken claims for AI radiology are spun as if it's a complex debate. NYT links to #Roose's nonsensical #AGI puffery; #Metz et al's report about persistent confabulations would have been a much better source.

An excellent keynote!

Join #CriticalAI's DESIGN JUSTICE AI post-institute, a hybrid event featuring work by @vukosi.bsky.social, #HappyBuzaaba, #WesTaylor, #NourArafat, #DalakiLivingston, @designjustice.bsky.social, #MatthewStone, #LaurenGoodlad, #WebbKeane and others. Register here criticalai.org/2025/04/23/n...

#CriticalAI editor #LaurenGoodlad joins #Rutgers student #RayzelFine in their article for @local802.bsky.social's #Allegro magazine. Read "Defining the Magic," a tribute to poetry, music, and solidarity. mailchi.mp/local802afm/...

criticalai.org/2025/04/24/n... Join us F 5/9 @zimmerliartmuseum.bsky.social for a public DESIGN JUSTICE AI DiscoTech featuring @designjustice.bsky.social @mollycrabapple.bsky.social celebrating #Rutgers DESIGN JUSTICE undergrad researchers H/T @nehgov.bsky.social, #RutgersSAS, #RutgersChancellor

Sounds like a worthy event!

english.rutgers.edu/about-us/dep... Check out #RutgersEnglishDepartment Statement on AI. We think its a model for how to set up foundations for #criticalAIliteracies