Speculative futures can come from the left or the right. An interesting article on different approaches to sci-fi and how Musk, Thiel etc are attempting to 'turn its contents into tools for their own forms of memetic warfare'. artreview.com/space-racism...

Reform MPs completely absent from Commons statement on ‘grooming gangs'. This speaks volumes. There are MPs working hard to tackle child exploitation whereas Reform can't even be bothered to turn up. thecanary.co/uk/news/2025... @thecanaryuk.bsky.social

AI inevitability isn’t destiny — it’s rhetoric. Read my review of Becker’s More Everything Forever. His critique shows how Longtermism rests on speculative futures and 'troubling moral arithmetic' rather than grounded evidence. medium.com/@kin.artcoll...

What is inside the black box of AI? My latest video installation is an exposé of the hidden labour that goes into making AI, specifically click-work and data-labelling which is outsourced by hugely profitable US companies often to low-paid, precarious workers. cell-less.com/2025/09/10/d...

Digging into the 'troubling moral arithmetic' of Longtermism, this is my review of Adam Becker's latest book More Everything Forever (Basic Books): medium.com/@kin.artcoll...

Billionaires interfering with our democracy. Who would have thought it? 🙄

Really enjoyed recording this last podcast episode with Dr Eleanor Dare whose recent work includes the AI Forensics project at @camdighum.bsky.social We talk about AI and power, impossibly huge datasets, deskilling and the impacts of ChatGPT in education contexts #ai #bigtech #technews

And.... it finally happened. #23andMe is a perfect #privacy example to learn from. When companies who amass troves of very personal data go bankrupt, the data gets sold or acquired by other companies, further complicating already questionable "consent" practices.

Some photos/videos from my recent commission at NewBridge Project, Newcastle, thinking through algorithm-related issues like visibility/black-boxing/agency/public engagement through the metaphor of 'dissolving': cell-less.com/2025/05/02/t...

There are 4 episodes in my podcast series interviewing artists/researchers about narratives of inevitability in technology discourses, automated decision-making and ideologies of the tech industry. It's very niche but if you're into this kind of thing, listen here: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/d...

"A new dataset, visualized as maps, reveals the extent to which African workers are indirectly employed in the tech sector, doing content moderation, customer service, and data annotation for AI models, among other jobs." restofworld.org/2025/big-tec...

the ACM CHI conference has fully embraced AI snake-oil this year. this is the world-leading conference on human-computer interaction. absolutely unacceptable. if the conference won't remove these and distance itself from pseudoscience, the HCI community loses all credibility

Great attendance at the wave of protests yesterday in Newcastle. Why is the government cutting support for disabled people yet increasing spending on defence/military? It can't go unchallenged. #WelfareNotWarfare spread the message.

Well this is kind of cool... An interactive website teaching about Dark Patterns on the internet neal.fun/dark-patterns/

An AI-bot accuses a university scholar of being a 'terrorist'. In what crazy world does the university act on AI-fabricated claims without verifying any legitimacy? And this university was rated #1 of Best Law Schools! mondoweiss.net/2025/03/susp... @yaleisp.bsky.social

'A study by Uplevel Data Labs tracked 800 software engineers using Copilot on GitHub and found no measurable increase in coding productivity, despite this exact use case being the one pointed to the most by AI companies'. Is anyone still convinced by AI hype? prospect.org/power/2025-0...

The money being poured into AI far outpaces the Manhattan Project ($30b today) and Operation Warp Speed ($18b) combined, and rivals the cost of the entire Interstate Highway System ($114b) - for gains that are much much more speculative.

With 23andMe filing for bankruptcy, there's talk of genetic data being for sale. Data from 15 million people (plus any relatives who are connected genetically). If it's sold to a company with ties to law enforcement, what could possibly go wrong...? www.eff.org/deeplinks/20... @eff.org

I've been endlessly obsessed with masks/pseudonyms so I love reading stuff like this: 'Our masks are not there to hide our identity but to reveal it... Masking symbolises the rejection of the cult of personality, rooted in consumer capitalism’. Written on masks at Carnival Against Capital, 1999.

Love this: 'The process of invisibilization...from the cloudification of networks to the emergence of algorithmic governance – has gone hand in hand with the evolution of media activism and hacktivist practices employing anonymity and invisibility as tactical weapons': inactual.it/zone-di-opac...

Spent the afternoon at a seminar on AI in schools. It was a small group but good to see that people in Newcastle are thinking critically about AI in Ed-Tech. 1/2

Alexa-enabled devices lost Amazon $25 bil from 2017-2021. How are they planning on saving it? By sending everyone's voice recordings to the cloud so that you can activate Alexa without having to actually say 'Alexa'... Are people happy to sacrifice privacy for this? arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025...

A few pics from Peter Kennard's 'Archive of Dissent'. He says that his art "rails at the waste of lives caused by the trillions spent on manufacturing weapons and the vast profits made by arms companies.” I particularly like his newer works incorporating light/projection into photomontage.

I'm hiring for a postdoc! 🌟 pls help spread the word Senior Research and Teaching Associate (PostDoc) with a focus on Internet Use and Society details here: webuse.org/postdoc/

"the Harvard Electricity Law Initiative reviewed 40 special contracts...between utilities & data centers. If these contracts offer discounted electricity rates to data centers,...other customers may end up paying for the shortfall through higher utility bills." web.archive.org/web/20250314...

Digital colonialism: 'US tech monopolies...have embedded themselves into South African society'. E.g. Operation Phakisa, 'designed to equip public schools with digital tools but, in reality, hands over the country’s educational data sovereignty to US corporations. lab.cccb.org/en/counterin...

Enjoying these 'Human-Computer Counter-Choreographies' at NewBridge Project's exhibition Everyday Algorithms.

All AI is Political. AI is not a technological artifact with political features, it as a political artifact, part of an ideological project to shift authority and autonomy away from individuals, towards centralised structures of power. Ali Alkhatib ali-alkhatib.com/blog/definin...

✍️[Calls & Applications] The Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) is seeking a new editor or editorial team for its Diamond Open Access journal, Engaging Science, Technology, and Society (ESTS). 🖱️More details at: tapuya.org/category/calls-applications/ @estsjournal.bsky.social

End stage of technology and carceral logics.

2023's AI Summit was dominated by conversations about risk and safety. 2025's summit in Paris was all about growth and opportunity. Says it all really... centerforhumanetechnology.substack.com/p/policy-upd...

An event coming up at @factliverpool.bsky.social for those interested in disability arts and the potential of telepresence in performance: disabilityarts.online/events/dada-... @disabilityarts.bsky.social With Birds of Paradise and CRIPtic Arts.

Thank you NewBridge Project for inviting me to lead the last Creative Code Club session. So many insightful comments and feedback on my latest commission as it develops in tandem with the exhibition Everyday Algorithms.

Entering the world of anthropomorphic design in chatbots... A thoughtful article about how the lack of safety features is a DESIGN CHOICE, and has led to suicides like Sewell Stezer (14 years old): centerforhumanetechnology.substack.com/p/racing-to-...

Elon Musk thinks the poor are a "Parasite Class", & his philosophical guru Curtis Yarvin has "joked" that they should be melted down into biodiesel. But this is a fascist ethos, & some say the true "Parasite Class" are those who have become grotesquely rich off the labor of others.

This seems typical of the "AI will replace your job" push thats happening. It can't _actually_ do this job.. maybe it can handle like 60% of requests but it will do it poorly and anyone who needs nuance or real help will be lost. AND, it will be much more expensive.

I think this must be my earliest digital artwork. Probably 1995. I found these as printouts in a folder marked with my name, age 6 years old. Probably also the closest to me posting a selfie on social media 😅

Wrote a little something for @disabilityarts.bsky.social. Being asked to write a music review is a special kind of joy: disabilityarts.online/magazine/rev...

🎶 @cell-less.bsky.social listens to and reflects on 'Letting the Light In', a new album that features songs all written by disabled composers (Sonia Allori, Sarah Lianne Lewis, Jo-anne Cox, Elinor Rowlands, Leon Clowes and Sorcha Pringle). https://buff.ly/4hov2wF

If people in power can't explain the decisions that AI makes (in welfare, health, education, visa systems etc), then they can't be held accountable or be scrutinised. This deepens social inequalities and is not the vision of AI that we are being sold: www.techpolicy.press/the-uks-big-...

Lots I agree with in @anuradhas.bsky.social's recent @techpolicypress.bsky.social article, including how 'The government must recalibrate its relationships with tech giants, establishing itself not as a junior partner but as a firm regulator'. www.techpolicy.press/the-uks-big-...

‘Clouded Vision: Artists’ Insights on the Internet’ Interesting article by Mia Stern for The Brooklyn Rail about artistic practices that approach the materiality of the internet. brooklynrail.org/2024/07/art-...

Kate Crawford's 'Welcome to the psychopolitics of AI'. www.miumiu.com/content/dam/...

Job opportunity: Digital Community Manager, 21 hours a week, remote, at Parents & Carers in the Performing Arts. Apply here: disabilityarts.online/opportunity-...

Great to see arts organisations like @disabilityarts.bsky.social making the shift from X to Bluesky! For all things disability arts/politics/social, give them a follow if you haven't already.

Wild... Tuning into the conference Rethinking Inevitability in AI. Documentaries are now using AI images as archive evidence. Where is the integrity?!

'What the future holds for babies born today'. Does anyone actually want any of this technology? 'Renting out your fingernails as an ad for social media', smart contact lenses, sending your AI avatar on dates to see who you actually want to meet... www.technologyreview.com/2024/08/15/1...

This is me for the next 3-4 years... I've been awarded a full scholarship to undertake a PhD in Fine Art/Digital Media focusing on what I'm calling 'digital fatalism' and how algorithmic systems impose limitations on our autonomy and deepen social inequality.

Just getting started on BSky so apologies for some doubling up of tweets while I get settled in!