"It is impossible to build an artefact that is peer to a human and therefore awarding any artefact legal personhood would break justice and democracy. Indeed, allowing humans too much power (or acknowledging in them too little) does the same!"

Joanna Bryson@j2bryson.bsky.social · 21h ago

Here are three articles about why you wouldn't want there to be anything other than responsibility for the developers of an AI system or else the deployers of it joanna-bryson.blogspot.com/2026/05/lega... The EU has done this correctly in their #AIAct #AIA, incidentally.

Here's a whole lot of lawyers (and me) testifying to British parliament that #AILiability actually after you think about it is not complicated at all. www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3wM... #AIEthics #digitalGovernance cc @markriedl.bsky.social

AI APPG 2022: AI and Intellectual Property Rights: IPR protection for AI-created work.

YouTube video by Big Innovation Centre

youtube.com

Nothing protects you from the superpersuaders: "interventions made the sycophantic AI appear less objective and trustworthy, none reduced its persuasiveness ... individual-level interventions, such as warning labels or AI literacy, may not be enough to protect users from AI harms."

Individual-level interventions against sycophantic AI reduce its appeal but not its persuasiveness

AI chatbots can be "sycophantic," or overly agreeable and flattering toward users. Sycophantic AI has been shown to entrench attitudes, yet users frequently fail to recognize it (a phenomenon we call ...

arxiv.org

It's always weird and funny knowing that to some I sound like a weird Old person when I point out that doing stuff *without* computers is frequently faster, easier, and way more efficient. (and also usually a lot cheaper / free)

Greg M. Epstein@gregmepstein.bsky.social · 18h ago

While we're focused on big-picture issues like creating AI Gods, banning social media, or regulating a many-trillion-$ industry, have we considered our whole society might lose its damn mind "saving time" emailing/texting about emotionally laden topics that should be CONVERSATIONS. Because it might.

It is great that AISI is doing and publishing this work, but also I think it's worth saying that this is the inevitable outcome of agentic AI and I v much doubt if this outcome is a surprise to any of the AI development labs

Hetan Shah@hetanshah.bsky.social · 10h ago

Fairly sober testing report from the AI Security Institute: they gave internet access and removed some guardrails from latest AI models and found without them they were capable of potentially harmful activity directed at real people and organisations www.aisi.gov.uk/blog/inciden...

💛🚫🤖 No AI Gods, No AI Masters 🤖🚫💛 I am massively excited to share the backstory ACADEMIC SHENANIGANS behind our Open Letter (& so this paper below too) — and as always big thanks to my co-authors {@irisvanrooij.bsky.social & @marentierra.bsky.social}: www.civicsoftechnology.org/blog/no-ai-g... 1/n

No AI Gods, No AI Masters — Civics of Technology

More on their open letter, Stop the Uncritical Adoption of AI Technologies in Academia  , and position piece, Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia , by Guest et al.

civicsoftechnology.org

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ@olivia.science · 11mo ago

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity. 1/n

When will we teach ethics to product designers?

Justin Hendrix@justinhendrix.bsky.social · 15h ago

"TikTok’s algorithm pushed him thousands of videos about suicide, sadness, hopelessness and loneliness, right up until he killed himself."

Question for AI industry-friendly defective altruist blogger Andy Masley: if the water issue is fake, how do you explain a disinformation campaign that exploits thirst?

Dean Jackson@dwj.eurosky.social · yesterday

My latest documents how the data center industry is deploying front groups, sockpuppet accounts, astroturf campaigns, and counter-insurgency tactics to neutralize community opposition. For @techpolicypress.bsky.social with UPitt's Sam Totoni. www.techpolicy.press/big-techs-pr...

Researching the various horrific social implications of technology up through (and maybe beyond?) the first quarter of the 21st is like being in a Twilight Zone episode where you're running around trying to give dire warnings but everyone keeps ignoring you and writing things down in little books.…

Cool new project from @mxdylanp.bsky.social and Natalie Rae and their lab: it’s a blog series titled, "Unearthing the Cloud: Civic Action in the AI Era”. The first post explores the question, “'[W]ho gets to have a voice in decisions that shape the places where people live?'"

Might anyone know of a small, non-intimidating zine-y guidebook that helps folks navigate the logistics (+ ethics) of *collaborative* publication — demystifying the design + production process; explaining formatting + rights clearances; addressing mutual accountability + collaborative review, etc.?

Why Self-Publish Under Fascism?

This publication was prompted by an invitation from Mariame Kaba to join her in a discussion titled: Why Make Zines in 2025: Information Control Under Fascism

halfletterpress.com

not just buried in Australia, but buried in every foreign jurisdiction that is taking the same ugly shortcuts to avoid real regulation of tech. Hello Norway :)

Ben Schwarz@benschwarz.bsky.social · 2d ago

Australia’s eSafety commissioner buried a report (released Friday afternoon) that shows the under 16 social media ban didn’t tangibly reduce teen social media use, and also resulted in parents tuning out of kids usage. We traded our privacy for no reason. theconversation.com/more-than-80...

peeking in from a mostly phoneless and therefore AI-free holiday, but seeing the Quanta piece on reasoning doing the rounds I can't resist pointing you to the section on *precisely this* in my paper, which starts with Ellen Langer's notion of 'placebic reasons' doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

Tech guys didn’t decide to be fascist: the structure of tech culture tended towards fascism as the kind of politics necessary to ensure public support for their boondoggles. Like… what other kind of politics aligns with the algorithmically driven surveillance state they imagine as the future?

Luke O'Neil@lukeoneil47.bsky.social · 4d ago

Tech guys decided to be fascist first and foremost, so any product or development they are pushing is automatically also fascist now. Sorry I didn't choose this fact they did. Not my problem.

We are an ethical start up built on stolen labor. (This is addressed, rather unconvincingly, in the article)

Is paying artists enough to convince them to embrace AI?

AI startup Pippa is trying to entice artists with a revenue share system.

theverge.com

From the first piece I published about generative AI (in the Boston Globe a couple of weeks before ChatGPT was released in 2022). Full text outside paywall here: writinghacks.substack.com/p/what-we-lo...

"They want us to falter and get sick. They want us to have panic attacks, which sure, we will have, but — and this is the really vital bit — we will strive not to resolve the panic by allowing AI logics in."

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ@olivia.science · 3d ago

If useful, here's my attempt to process my feelings about how I feel sadly kinda — or rather very — sick from all this AI fascist nonsense as an academic. 😶‍🌫️ I'd be pleased if even one person finds something useful because there's something to be said for processing this all together, so, um, enjoy?

AI literacy builds resilience against ensorceLLMent.

Frank Pasquale@frankpasquale.bsky.social · 4d ago

“When users saw that all the emotional words spoken by their characters had been constructed as strings within a JSON file, the reality became unmistakable: It was a machine, not a real person. The process of relocating a character shattered the illusion” www.gingerriver.com/p/big-tech-p...

“We are interested in building alternative social infrastructure that allows us to be no longer reliant on Big Tech." www.404media.co/luddite-even...

Being a Luddite Is Fun Again

As tech backlash hits the mainstream, the ‘Summer of Ludd’ proves we don’t need social media to hang out and have a good time.

404media.co

Going to do a thread, using some of my own (incl. older) work, to clear up some of these relevant concepts. Hope it helps builds conceptual hygiene and immunity to hyped claims about “AI” capabilities. 1/🧵

Iris van Rooij 💭@irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 4d ago

In my work, as in theoretical computer science, we distinguish between (exact) algorithms, heuristics (no guarantees), and approximation algorithm (approx. guarantees) Clear distinctions is relevant in many contexts, for instance this one in cognitive science link.springer.com/article/10.1...

The adoption of these products is gendered and it's because men have been socialized not to value labor they invisibilized and this technologies most prominent use case is the invisibilization of labor.

Tressie McMillan Cottom@tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 4d ago

I sincerely believe that men cannot handle this. women may be falling in love with their chat bots, too. But I don't think they are categorically attached to its flattery to the same degree.

I like this notetaking example. it is a good case of how gender works. Notetaking has never been about producing a transcript. It is a bureaucratic skill in the 20th c. organixarion because it is SENSEMAKING. Those women socialized to take notes? They have been doing men’s metacognition for them

Jennifer Romig @jennifermromig.bsky.social · 4d ago

Notetaking in meetings is tiny case in point - used to be some predictable social assumptions who would do it; now anyone can offer to do ”notetaking” by turning on the AI listener. Further interesting scenario is human recollection / notes (taken by habit by a person) conflict with AI summary

It’s almost as it never works to tell people to use “critically” or “with caution” a given technology known to fail for particular uses. One might suggest making the company itself responsible for refusing to give directions in certain conditions.

The New York Times@nytimes.com · 4d ago

Three teenage boys printed directions for a hike on a trail in British Columbia, Canada that Google Maps estimated to be over five hours. In reality, their hike weeks ago lasted at least 12 hours and required the intervention of rescue crews, according to the Lions Bay Search and Rescue team.

This gets a lot more legible if you stop thinking of prisons as a failed effort to reduce harm and start thinking of them as a supply chain for involuntary labor

Michael Hobbes@michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 4d ago

It was inevitable that reactionary centrists would turn against harm reduction and call for a return to mass incarceration

Sending a round of applause to the authors of this paper for this completely genius title facctconference.org/static/paper...

Introducing LUDDENITES: a collective whose goal is to counter oppressive technologies like surveillance tech and generative AI, instead seeking communal infrastructures in service of CONSENTFUL PLAY and CREATIVE JOY. blog.wellssanto.com/luddenites/

Introducing Luddenites

Playing off both LUDENS and LUDDITES, LUDDENITES is envisioned as a collective whose goal is to counter oppressive technologies like surveillance tech and generative AI, instead seeking communal infra...

blog.wellssanto.com

www.research.ed.ac.uk/en/publicati... This triggers knowledge neglect btw.

Knowledge neglect in agent interactions (with chatbots)

research.ed.ac.uk

Eugene Vinitsky 🍒@eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · 5d ago

Fantastic paper demonstrating how LLM editing is gradually distorting our writing and the way we think to write: arxiv.org/abs/2603.18161

IMPACT: that company that was offering to buy books for AI companies’ training data — and probably destroy them in the process — says it will no longer offer this service following 404 Media’s exposure of it www.404media.co/ai-company-t...

Company Offering Printed Books to Train AI Stops After 404 Media Coverage

Citing backlash, ISBNdb removed its webpages about training AI, denied ever buying, scanning, or selling a book for AI training, and said the site was a "test of market interest."

404media.co

"Flesh supremacist 😂"

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ@olivia.science · 5d ago

Broke: it's a moral agent and deserves rights Woke: AI is bad Bespoke: it's an immoral agent and deserves wrongs

Someone had just emailed me on a Friday night to ask if I have any thoughts to share on AI in digital govt and I think my answer is that we should focus on making basic services work for everyone and stop worrying about AI