I'm afraid the Doomer discourse has persisted for another week (UN "AI" briefing, etc) so in case you missed this when we first put it out earlier in this bananas news cycle, I'm reposting it: buttondown.com/maiht3k/arch... w/ @alexhanna.bsky.social and @deccamuldowney.bsky.social

What To Read To Stay Grounded Amidst AI Doomerism

Our recommendations for the anxious and perplexed By: Emily M. Bender, Alex Hanna and Decca Muldowney There’s a subculture within the “AI” industry that...

buttondown.com

From @timnitgebru.blacksky.app and me on what we should take from the 2026 summer of AI hype: www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/22/1...

Don’t be fooled by this summer of AI hype

Breathless claims about AGI and new capabilities fall apart pretty quickly under scrutiny.

technologyreview.com

SF is rich, but its kids struggle to get to school. Why? SFUSD has outsourced buses to a private company, Zum. Only 43 of 122 schools are served, mostly for students with special needs, and drivers raise issues with student treatment, safety, and more. bayareacurrent.com/where-are-sf...

Where Are All the Yellow School Buses in San Francisco?

In a city dripping with cash, San Francisco can’t get its kids to school.

bayareacurrent.com

Very proud of this issue of @newint.bsky.social that I edited on the increasing use of terrorism laws to police protest, featuring pieces from Arab Barghouti, @berglundoscar.bsky.social, Julia Damphouse, Iris Gonzales and @bencsmoke.bsky.social. Preview the issue here: newint.org/issues/2026/...

New Internationalist@newint.bsky.social · 2mo ago

🚨 NEW ISSUE 🚨 Globally, activists standing up for climate justice, racial equality or against genocide are being targeted under ‘counter-terror’ legislation. How did protest become equated with terrorism – and how can citizens reclaim the right to resist? Subscribe at www.newint.org

United Steel Workers Local 5 has been on strike, and is now locked out, for over 134 days at Martinez Renewables. 𝐶𝑢𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡 profiled one of those workers: Tomas Rivera, a proud union member and family man, who refuses to back down. bayareacurrent.com/tomas-rivera...

Over 134 Days on the Picket Line at Martinez Renewables, and Tomas Rivera Won’t Give Up

“I'm just a dad that wants to go back to work.”

bayareacurrent.com

Normalize doing profiles of everyday, rank-and-file workers who actually embody a form of heroism. Read about Tomas and his 130+ day strike and lockout:

Bay Area Current@bayareacurrent.bsky.social · 2mo ago

United Steel Workers Local 5 has been on strike, and is now locked out, for over 134 days at Martinez Renewables. 𝐶𝑢𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡 profiled one of those workers: Tomas Rivera, a proud union member and family man, who refuses to back down. bayareacurrent.com/tomas-rivera...

Thank you, Hasan Piker, for reading up on SF's homegrown techno-reactionaries. Help us continue our coverage of tech from the belly of the beast by becoming a paid subscriber: bayareacurrent.com/about/#/port...

Jimmy Wu continuing his career as @bayareacurrent.bsky.social's in-house chronicler of the Bay Area tech right's most venal and dimwitted gatherings bayareacurrent.com/sfs-tech-cae...

SF's Tech Right Debates the Ideal Dictator

Putrid vibes reigned at SF billionaire-funded Hamilton Society debate.

bayareacurrent.com

hell is empty and all the devils are here

Bay Area Current@bayareacurrent.bsky.social · 2mo ago

SF's billionaire-backed Hamilton Society, an extension of the Bay's right-wing tech scene, gathered 700 people to debate whether the US needs a dictator. The vibes were as rotten as you would expect. bayareacurrent.com/sfs-tech-cae...

SF's billionaire-backed Hamilton Society, an extension of the Bay's right-wing tech scene, gathered 700 people to debate whether the US needs a dictator. The vibes were as rotten as you would expect. bayareacurrent.com/sfs-tech-cae...

SF's Tech Right Debates the Ideal Dictator

Putrid vibes reigned at SF billionaire-funded Hamilton Society debate.

bayareacurrent.com

People love to shit in Waymo cars... and more. We know because we spoke with one of the workers paid to clean them. bayareacurrent.com/theres-a-lot...

“There’s a lot of cleaning up poop”: A Depot Worker on the Human Labor Behind Waymo’s “Autonomous” Vehicles

Human feces isn’t even the nastiest thing they’ve found in the backseat.

bayareacurrent.com

New on the MAIHT3k newsletter -- how to move away from the untenable, uncomfortable middle ground and towards firm "AI" resistance. buttondown.com/maiht3k/arch... w/ @deccamuldowney.bsky.social

Six Problems With Talking About the “Ethical” or “Responsible” Use of “AI”

How to move away from the untenable, uncomfortable middle ground By Emily M. Bender and Decca Muldowney A dancing ledge, as viewed from above. Image: Will...

buttondown.com

"Part of what makes that middle ground untenable and uncomfortable is that it requires carrying water for these clearly bad actors. The good news is you can set that bucket down and step out onto firmer ground." buttondown.com/maiht3k/arch...

Six Problems With Talking About the “Ethical” or “Responsible” Use of “AI”

How to move away from the untenable, uncomfortable middle ground By Emily M. Bender and Decca Muldowney A dancing ledge, as viewed from above. Image: Will...

buttondown.com

New on the Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 newsletter: @emilymbender.bsky.social and @deccamuldowney.bsky.social on what we're talking about when we talk about "ethical" "AI", and how to move away from the untenable middle ground and towards firm "AI" resistance. ⬇️ buttondown.com/maiht3k/arch...

Six Problems With Talking About the “Ethical” or “Responsible” Use of “AI”

How to move away from the untenable, uncomfortable middle ground By Emily M. Bender and Decca Muldowney A dancing ledge, as viewed from above. Image: Will...

buttondown.com

"Instead of engaging in journalism (fact checking, what?) he just lets himself get buffeted by the imaginations of some of the most unhinged people in this space, and platforms their nonsense" @deccamuldowney.bsky.social + @emilymbender.bsky.social on 2 big new AI docs coming out:

A tale of two "AI" documentaries

By: Decca Muldowney and Emily M. Bender Emily was interviewed for two documentaries which premiered at Sundance this year: The AI Doc: How I Became an...

buttondown.com

🤖 Last day to pre-order our forthcoming issue AI: The People Behind the Machine. 🤖 Subscribe by MIDNIGHT TONIGHT to receive your copy in print – susbcribe.newint.org

Get the Facts on AI in our latest issue 👉https://newint.org/issues/2026/02/19/ai-people-behind-machine

🚨 NEW ISSUE 🚨 AI is everywhere. It’s being pushed into every corner of our societies. Boosters of the technology say it can save the world. Doomers say it has the potential to destroy us. But what’s beyond the hype? Preview the issue and subscribe for full access 👉 newint.org/issues/2026/...

Thank you to @newint.bsky.social and @deccamuldowney.bsky.social for letting us write about Pennsylvania, its planned AI futures, and how people are pushing back. Read online and find in print! The entire March issue is about the humans behind the AI empire machine.

Data & Society@datasociety.bsky.social · 9mo ago

In @newint.bsky.social, D&S's @mwoluchem.bsky.social and @livgar.bsky.social write about their work tracing the impacts of, and resistance to, the AI industry's development push in Pennsylvania — and introduce us to some of the people living in the thick of it. newint.org/science-and-...

Fuck Waymo—Long Live Kit Kat! A self-driving car killed a beloved SF cat. Kit Kat's murder fits into the long history of tech companies using the Bay as a testing ground — at our expense. But the Bay has had enough. Read @alexhanna.bsky.social's searing take: bayareacurrent.com/fuck-waymo-l...

Fuck Waymo, Long Live KitKat

A self-driving car killed a beloved SF cat. It’s part of a long history of tech companies using the Bay as a testing ground at our expense. People have had enough.

bayareacurrent.com

New on the Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 newsletter: @deccamuldowney.bsky.social and I write about OpenAI's transparent attempt to shift accountability. buttondown.com/maiht3k/arch...

OpenAI Tries to Shift Responsibility to Users

OpenAI is trying to shift the blame for bad legal and medical advice from its chatbot away from the company and onto users. We agree that no chatbot should be used for medical or legal advice.

buttondown.com

🎧 NEW: Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 podcast episode 65 - 'Crunching The Numbers' 📈 @emilymbender.bsky.social & @alexhanna.bsky.social talk to journalist @deccamuldowney.bsky.social about how so-called AI tools are infiltrating newsrooms, particularly when it comes to data analysis. 🔗 Below ⬇️

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000, Episode 65: www.buzzsprout.com/2126417/epis... … in which @deccamuldowney.bsky.social joins me and @alexhanna.bsky.social to talk about what it means to actually do journalism. Thanks to Ozzy Llinas Goodman for production!

“The drive to adopt AI is, of course, part of a much longer story about the decline of quality journalism across the world, driven by the dramatic reduction of advertising revenues, the consolidation of media companies, & the loss of trust in media as an institution.” buttondown.com/maiht3k/arch...

Meta to Mine Media for More “AI” Training Data

We read this week in the Wall Street Journal that Meta is on the prowl for more content to train its ever-hungry AI tools and chatbot.

buttondown.com

Every podcast ad: “you need our new AI product to enhance your productivity/launch your business/save your job!!” Every podcast: “…and then ChatGPT told him how to tie the noose”

The latest on the Mystery AI Hype 3000 newsletter: Back to School is Better Without AI buttondown.com/maiht3k/arch... w/ @alexhanna.bsky.social and @deccamuldowney.bsky.social

Back to School is Better Without "AI"

It’s that time of year again, when fall is in the air and “AI” is back and worse than ever, creepy-crawling into every corner of our education system.

buttondown.com

"Stop Hiring Humans" billboards menaced SF workers with messages of automation and unemployment. The ads were strategic: by pissing working-class people off, the tech company received the kind of attention that venture capitalist investors love. 🔗 bayareacurrent.com/ai-tech-comp...

📰 🗞️ Personal news 🗞️ 📰 On Sept 1 I’m starting at @newint.bsky.social as a co-editor. It’s a magazine w a serious internationalist perspective I’ve admired for a long time. I’ve written for them on Kneecap, Irish, Palestine, art as resistance and lots more. Can’t wait to start!

"These ads might not be for you, but they do have a message for you nonetheless. And the message is this: if you do not understand these billboards, this city is not for you." bayareacurrent.com/the-billboar...

San Francisco's Billboards Aren't For You

Wendy Liu, author of Abolish Silicon Valley, explains what those weird tech billboards are really saying

bayareacurrent.com

"The more complicated answer – the ecstatic truth, if you will – is that billboards are the windows to the soul of a region." The great Wendy Liu on the awful AI billboards dotting the US 101 in San Francisco.

Bay Area Current@bayareacurrent.bsky.social · last yr.

Ever wonder what the hell SF's weird tech billboards are saying? Wendy Liu—@dellsystem.bsky.social—tells us that while the billboards aim to sell to other businesses, they have a hidden social meaning: This city is not for you: SF belongs to tech ruling class. bayareacurrent.com/the-billboar...