This afternoon I went on BBC News to talk about the harms of data centers. Jim Messina responded by saying I “must live in a yurt in the woods” if I don’t like data centers. You know AI boosters are on the backfoot if that’s their best response. Apparently 70% of the country lives in yurts?

“Algorithmic Realism” by @benzevgreen.bsky.social and @salome.bsky.social is on my short list of papers most foundational to my research. Super excited that Ben has turned it into a book, and it's available for pre-order! mitpress.mit.edu/978026205570...

Algorithmic Realism

The field of data science faces a moral crisis. Despite the desires of data scientists to develop algorithms for good, algorithms regularly produce injustice...

mitpress.mit.edu

Very excited to share this with the world. We have been working on it for a while! www.wired.com/story/the-ac...

The ACLU Is Arming Lawyers to Expose State Surveillance Secrets

A new toolkit for attorneys in Massachusetts targets the technologies police use—and conceal—to build criminal cases, from facial recognition to AI-written police reports.

wired.com

HYPERSCALE is hitting bookstores on October 20. Preorder it now! In the book, I dig into how the data center boom is pushing our planet past its breaking point, and the incredible efforts of people pushing back against the profit-driven interests of Big Tech. Get your copy: hyperscalebook.com

Super excited to share a new #FAccT2026 paper with Nel Escher and Nikola Banovic! We show that algorithm auditing policies in the US are wildly insufficient, as they don't account for how public sector algorithms actually function in practice. dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Algorithm Auditing Policies Rest on Flawed Assumptions About Public Sector Systems | Proceedings of the 2026 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency

You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.

dl.acm.org

Lol, so much for that AI ROI

The rapid shift toward unified, bipartisan opposition to data centers has been incredibly to witness. It's a real testament to the tech industry that they've managed to devise something so widely unpopular.

I wrote about the fight against data centers and how it could impact the midterms for @rollingstone.com

Can Local Outrage Over Data Centers Tilt the Midterms?

Artificial intelligence needs data centers, which are broadly unpopular and turning into a real issue that could impact the 2026 midterm elections.

rollingstone.com

Very pleased with this commencement speech trend of students booing AI boosters futurism.com/artificial-i...

Graduation Speaker Shocked When She’s Loudly Booed by Students for Saying AI Is the Future

UCF's commencement speaker was visibly shocked when graduating students booed AI as the "next Industrial Revolution."

futurism.com

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 3mo ago

There’s a long list of reasons to boo this man.

It's truly sick how much the AI companies have already wormed their way into schools, including elementary schools. www.newyorker.com/culture/prog...

What Will It Take to Get A.I. Out of Schools?

“I find myself speaking with my kids about A.I. in the same terms that we might discuss a creepy neighbor who lives down the block,” Jessica Winter writes. Read her report on the push for A.I. in educ...

newyorker.com

My team @aclu.org is hiring a Learning & Development Specialist to help train staff (lawyers, organizers, etc.) on privacy best practices! It's a two-year term limited $128k/yr position based in NYC. You're in the union & report directly to me. Please circulate/apply! www.aclu.org/careers/appl...

Careers at ACLU

Join our team! We’re looking for committed, passionate people for open roles at the ACLU.

aclu.org

I'm thrilled to share that my new book is now available for pre-order! *Algorithmic Realism: Data Science Practices to Promote Social Justice* presents a new vision for how data science can help create a more equitable world, alongside practical steps for data scientists to follow.

My latest for @techpolicypress.bsky.social: why Democrats need to take the data center backlash seriously—and why opposition to data centers can unify Democrats around a winning message. www.techpolicy.press/the-public-i...

The Public is Getting Fed Up With Data Centers. Politicians Need to Take Notice

Challenging data centers is not just the right policy move on its merits—it is also a position that will insure electoral success, writes Ben Green.

techpolicy.press

Tomorrow for any interested Ann Arbor folks.

This is one of the most sick statements I've seen from a tech company about how to get away with eroding privacy and civil liberties. Here's how Meta is strategizing about the release of new facial recognition glasses:

There really is no justification for this company’s existence.

Her daughter was unraveling, and she didn’t know why. Then she found the AI chat logs.

A majority of teens are interacting with AI companions, and many of their parents have no idea.

washingtonpost.com

Last week, I joined @justinhendrix.bsky.social and Maddy Dwyer @cdt.org to discuss DOGE, AI, and government "efficiency" initiatives for the @techpolicypress.bsky.social podcast. It's a rather grim topic, but I enjoyed making sense of it with Justin and Maddy. www.techpolicy.press/following-do...

Following DOGE, US States Pursue 'Efficiency' Initiatives | TechPolicy.Press

A conversation with Center for Democracy and Technology policy analyst Maddy Dwyer and University of Michigan scholar Ben Green.

techpolicy.press

This is such shoddy reporting by @washingtonpost.com that provides cover for AI hype and the Trump administration. It's incredibly clear that AI will make countless mistakes – and that the administration doesn't care.

There are many bad parts of Trump's new AI Action Plan, but the focus on accelerating data center development is going to be particularly damaging. Data centers aren't just bad for the environment in general -- they're also harmful to the communities they're located in.

What Happens When Data Centers Come to Town?

stpp.fordschool.umich.edu

Just because AI seems cool, that doesn't mean it's a reliable tool for making critical policy decisions. And with so many hallucinations, AI is probably slowing people down because they need to double check everything. www.techpolicy.press/using-ai-to-...

Using AI to Reform Government is Much Harder Than it Looks | TechPolicy.Press

Policymakers need to rethink the values that justify government AI adoption in the first place, writes Ben Green.

techpolicy.press

FactPost@factpostnews.bsky.social · last yr.

Reporter: The FDA has a new AI tool that's intended to speed up drug approvals. But several FDA employees say the new AI helper is making up studies that do not exist. One FDA employee telling us, 'Anything that you don't have time to double check is unreliable. It hallucinates confidently'

Big tech promotes the story that since ChatGPT burst onto the scene, AI has been so popular it's rushed to meet the demand. The reality is different. A study by design scholars shows tech co's have had to push AI on its users with a variety of intrusive tactics. How big tech is force-feeding us AI:

How big tech is force-feeding us AI

Plus, OpenAI's absurd listening tour, top AI scientists say AI is evolving beyond our control, Facebook is putting data centers in tents, and the AI bubble question — answered?

bloodinthemachine.com

In our new policy brief for @datasociety.bsky.social, @mwoluchem.bsky.social and I break down the myths and industry talking points attached to data centers. Who benefits from unbridled data center growth and who is most at risk when such speculative ventures fail?

Data Centers Aren’t the Future of American Prosperity

Tamara Kneese and Maia Woluchem cut through lobbying points and speculative myths to focus on what the evidence reveals about the tech industry’s claims.

datasociety.net

Excellent explainer on data centers @stpp-um.bsky.social to help communities understand them, their challenges, and policy options to manage their risks. Written by Terry Nguyen BA '25 @umfordschool.bsky.social and @benzevgreen.bsky.social, in partnership w/ Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition.

What Happens When Data Centers Come to Town?

stpp.fordschool.umich.edu

Even as a longstanding critic of "tech for good" initiatives, this is the most appalling example I've ever come across. If "AI for good" can't include challenging the use of AI to facilitate genocide, then it's truly a bankrupt movement.

Dr Abeba Birhane@abeba.blacksky.app · last yr.

a couple of hours before my keynote, I went through an intense negotiation with the organisers (for over a hour) where we went through my slides and had to remove anything that mentions 'Palestine' 'Israel' and replace 'genocide' with 'war crimes' 1/

States and AI companies tout data centers as a boon for local economies, but what's the reality? This policy brief reviews the evidence: data centers are harmful for the environment and tax breaks are a bad deal for communities. @stpp-um.bsky.social stpp.fordschool.umich.edu/research/pol...

What Happens When Data Centers Come to Town?

stpp.fordschool.umich.edu

This is a fascinating study and a valuable reminder not to rely on user surveys when evaluating the impacts of AI. My guesses to explain the results: users might 1) be susceptible to AI hype in framing their guesses of time saved and 2) systematically discount the time spent interacting with AI.

METR@metr.org · last yr.

We ran a randomized controlled trial to see how much AI coding tools speed up experienced open-source developers. The results surprised us: Developers thought they were 20% faster with AI tools, but they were actually 19% slower when they had access to AI than when they didn't.

Great job AI! Thanks for solving climate change! www.ft.com/content/6922...

Meta’s AI climate tool raised false hope of CO₂ removal, scientists say

Big Tech group accused of using inaccurate data in effort to identify materials that can attract carbon dioxide from the air

ft.com

In exchange for tax breaks, a Michigan data center promised to bring 500 high-paying jobs. It delivered only 26 low-paying ones. What did the state do? It lowered the standard of job creation so that the data center was in compliance. And then passed more tax breaks. Absolutely infuriating.

New paper hot off the press www.nature.com/articles/s41... We analysed over 40,000 computer vision papers from CVPR (the longest standing CV conf) & associated patents tracing pathways from research to application. We found that 90% of papers & 86% of downstream patents power surveillance 1/

Computer-vision research powers surveillance technology - Nature

An analysis of research papers and citing patents indicates the extensive ties between computer-vision research and surveillance.

nature.com

"In my 12 years as a legal aid lawyer ... my clients wrongfully lost Medicaid, Unemployment Insurance, or Social Security benefits due to AI. People got terminated when AI sent out incoherent paperwork" –@kevindeliban.bsky.social in @techpolicypress.bsky.social www.techpolicy.press/austerity-in...

Austerity Intelligence | TechPolicy.Press

Kevin De Liban says AI, pushed by Big Tech and the Trump administration, threatens democracy by deepening inequality and undermining public participation.

techpolicy.press