How will AI sycophancy change us? Early signs are not encouraging | Arwa Mahdawi

Two new entries to Crónica's archive on the twentieth anniversary of their release (!), Freiband's “Leise” and Stephan Mathieu and Janek Schaefer‘s “Hidden Name”, two beautiful, timeless, classics! www.cronicaelectronica.org/archive/ @schwebung.bsky.social

AI boosters claim that LLMs are the future of software development. But that could not be further from the truth. LLMs are the apotheosis of a paradigm 40 years in the making: the tech industry assigns you problems and then sells you the solutions. But that world is now coming apart at the seams.

"The world of the Borg, with drones lacking free will and visiting death and destruction on individuals who do, is a potential endgame that awaits humanity if we entirely relinquish our individuality through a diet of fakes: 1/2 reactormag.com/star-trek-tn...

Finding productive uses for LLMs while at the same time doing nothing to mitigate the numerous harms makes things WORSE not better. Responding to “AI” critique by saying that they have their uses and with work we can make them genuinely productive is not a rational response. It’s accelerationism

We repeat: we are not the same. Register at xcoax.org#registration and join us in Turin! #notTuring #xcoax2026

Nice analysis of the climate costs of Chrome pushing a 4GB Geminin nano to people's devices. Even just looking purely at the download (ignoring inference, re-downloads etc) it's substantial (not sure it's 'insane'), and shows the Google is just kinda doing stuff pretty thoughtlessly

Just making sure we are on the same page. The registrations to #xcoax26 are open! Go to xcoax.org#registration to join us in Turin in July!

Hilo larguísimo! (versión en English más abajo) Nuevo libro: acaba de salir publicado Jugar en el fin de un mundo. El libro está publicado en la colección ludografías de Shangrila Ediciones: shangrilaediciones.com/producto/jug...

Celebrating Labour Day, here are a few codes for Durán Vázquez + Kloob’s “Vinum Sabbati, In the Dawn of Science Fiction”. Redeem from cronica.bandcamp.com/yum l7mz-7n3n qmrz-vjlj frmu-6g5y 5xrv-ku7r gevr-kqql 3rb5-g9ge dmxb-uzfu pgem-ezvq k66q-vhna uz37-ge57

Celebrating Labour Day, here are a few codes for “Lisboa Soa, Sounds Within Sounds”. Redeem from cronica.bandcamp.com/yum yrs8-vjqh 2m43-ggg5 dgpw-uunf vvml-jx3n 698j-6pdj u2n7-yfwy mv5a-bmhr 9g68-x6pd n233-eg7c wmv5-u3qx

New paper with @casey-lynch.bsky.social on AI refusal, an introduction to our special issue on the topic. We examine cultural practices as potentially privileged, if messy and imperfect, sites of AI refusal. DM me for a PDF journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

I want a CD revival! we need CD players!

As a big Farocki fangirl, I'm ecstatic over the new issue of e-flux: Operativism: Labor, Automation, Agitation edited by Vogman and Pasquinelli 😍 especially Tom Holert's "Beneath the Information, the Operation: Harun Farocki and the Work of Images" SO GOOD www.e-flux.com/journal/162

In which I argue that "AI" as we understand it today is a structurally fascist artifact. https://tante.cc/2026/04/21/ai-as-a-fascist-artifact/

Some say #xcoax is better than chocolate, and who are we to disagree? By the way, the best chocolate in Italy is found in Torino (if it won't melt under the July sun). #xcoax2026 #torino

We're happy to announce that the next album by Marla Hlady & Christof Migone, “On and On and Off” is now available to preorder! An album that playfully searches for the underlying rhythms that drive us all — to work, home, around the bend. www.cronicaelectronica.org/250/ @christofmigone.bsky.social

Watch out: it doesn't actually rhyme with "mouth". Enjoy Torino, renowned worldwide for its tasty vermouths. #xcoax2026 #torino

This Friday I'll speak in Santiago de Compostela at the arteciencIA symposium. The event will be streamed, and will feature a number of really interesting speakers. Check out the programme at arteciencia.org

We had a great time performing at Sónar Istambul this weekend. Great crowd and a gigantic screen, fantastic experience! @ptudela.bsky.social @visiophone.bsky.social

Come to #Torino, enjoy #xCoAx2026 and the exquisite cafes! See you there! X

Diogo Alvim’s new album, his first in Crónica, is now available to download, stream, or as a limited-release CD. 12 beautiful tracks composed for a dance piece by choreographer Tânia Carvalho and now revisited and newly mastered for this edition! www.cronicaelectronica.org/249/

As much as "prediction" in the phrase "statistical prediction" implies something about the future it's actually just about the past. The data was collected in the past and a stats test on the data is about that past data. Maybe it's also true for the future, but that's not what it describes.

Resonance (UC Press) is looking for humanities research across the following topics: Sound in Political Crisis, Sound and Social Justice, Experiments in Sound, Sound Archives and Preservation, and we're convening a permanent series that'll examine "Film and Cinema Sound" this Fall. Please circulate!

Matthew Blackwell reviews Matilde Meireles for The Best Field Recordings on Bandcamp: “These four compositions are brilliant in their own right, but taken together, they form a dazzling mosaic of the River Lagan and its crucial role in Belfast." daily.bandcamp.com/best-field-r... @bandcamp.com

This has been in the works for more than a year, but I can finally say that today I began the contract for my research project Contextualizing Artistic Practice with Artificial Intelligence.

Hello Istanbul! We will be presenting "30xN" AV performance next week at the SonarScreen / Sónar Instabul !! Do I know anyone here from Istanbul? Come watch us :) @ptudela.bsky.social & @carvalhais.org : computers, sound; @visiophone.bsky.social : computer, lights, visuals.

We are in our teens and we are not afraid to rebel. No cap. #xcoax2026 #torino

NEW: Wikipedia has banned AI-generated content.

Reminder: Diogo Alvim’s first release in Crónica, the amazing “Música para Mysterious Heart” is now available to preorder! www.cronicaelectronica.org/249/

Sign here openletter.earth/open-letter-...

To those whose submissions were accepted: congratulations! To those whose submissions were not accepted: we truly appreciate you and we hope you will submit next year! To those who helped us with the reviewing process: we couldn't have done it without you! See you in Torino! #xcoax2026 #torino

Machienfabriek’s “Spelonk” reviewed by Chain DLK: “a set of spaces that feel strangely alive: alien (…) but not hostile. Just unfamiliar enough to remind you that listening, when taken seriously, is still a form of exploration.” www.chaindlk.com/reviews/13437 @machinefabriek.bsky.social

I wrote about AI -- but, really, about the close proximity to psychosis it brings us all to... a trillion dollar project to detach us all from reality, one way or another... disjunctionsmag.com/articles/end...

Reminder: new release in the 30xN series by @c and Visiophone, “30xN — LRJ2”, with guest remixes by Síria and Matilde Meireles! Now available to download or stream from www.cronicaelectronica.org/247/ @visiophone.bsky.social @ptudela.bsky.social @carvalhais.org

Torino, the city of vermouth. Join #xcoax2026 and drink responsibly. xcoax.org

If I'm being totally honest, this is a perfect expression of a thing that's in my heart these days: anthonymoser.github.io/writing/ai/h...

New entry in the Crónica Archive, Vitor Joaquim’s “Flow” www.cronicaelectronica.org/025/

Come study with us in the Master in Interaction and Computational Media Design! Second phase of applications is open until April 2nd! More info at mdimc.fba.up.pt/index-EN.html #InteractionDesign #UXUIDesign #WebDesign #ApplicationDesign #GameDesign #XRDesign #ArtisticProduction #CreativeDirection

Reminder: there's a new release in the 30xN series by @c and Visiophone, with a new track and video and guest by Síria and Matilde Meireles! Now available to download or stream from www.cronicaelectronica.org/247/ @visiophone.bsky.social @carvalhais.org @ptudela.bsky.social

crucial coverage from The Guardian that features our collaborative, movement-building website against-a-i.com

“Four Tales” expands on the work composed as part of DRIFT, a collaborative project centred on a modular, site-specific floating pavilion and public space in Belfast. DRIFT was commissioned by Belfast City Council as part of the Belfast 2024 cultural programme.

Out now, Matilde Meireles’s new album! In “Four Tales”, sound and architecture unite in a conversation that expands senses and entangles our rhythms with all other pulses that surround us. A city aware of itself. www.cronicaelectronica.org/248/

Twenty twenty X, if you're nasty. All info at xcoax.org #xcoax2026 #torino

LLMs get a bad rap but they remind us that computers are best not as pragmatic tools, but as agents of chaos

«To collect photographs is to collect the world,» Susan Sontag once wrote. Where photography appropriated the world, generative AI exploits what has already been appropriated. To generate synthetic images is to let the world disappear behind the dominant patterns derived from already existing images

New and recent things for today's Bandcamp Friday: @c + Visiophone’s “30xN — LRJ2” with remixes by Síria and Matilde Meireles. cronica.bandcamp.com/album/30xn-l... @visiophone.bsky.social @ptudela.bsky.social @carvalhais.org

New and recent things for today's Bandcamp Friday: Machinefabriek’s “Spelonk”. Selling quickly, but there are still some copies available. cronica.bandcamp.com/album/spelonk @machinefabriek.bsky.social

Thread. (TLDR: the House of Lords DCC report on AI came down hard on the correct side of the debate, rather than siding with industry lobbyists.)

The limited-release CD edition of this album includes a poster created by Rachel O’Grady (OGU Architects). Order your copy while supplies last! www.cronicaelectronica.org/248/