Alexandra Mateescu
@cariatida.bsky.social
RIP Social Media. Researcher @ Data & Society, living in Boston | labor, technology, care | tetrapyloctomy | Labor & Tech newsletter: http://bit.ly/2Fv5xfX | https://acmateescu.com/
The expansion of the ‘public charge’ rule is just the latest in a barrage of efforts by the Trump administration to impede immigrants' participation in public life.
‘People Will Die’: Mamdani Sues Trump Administration to Stop Attempt to Cut Benefits for Immigrants
The new public charge rule is the latest in a barrage of efforts by the Trump administration to impede immigrants from participating in public life.
documentedny.com
The Balkans as usual are living in the year 3000. "Technologia!" as the meme goes. www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2...
telegraph.co.uk
"The inescapable conclusion is that AI could kill us all, but also might not, with a combined probability we estimate at approximately 100%. The estimated number of deaths due to AI could range from zero to more than 8 billion." alignmentalignment.ai/caaac/blog/p...
Prediction: AI will kill every human by next year, or not
Our latest prediction model uses cutting-edge binary methodology to forecast potential AI futures
alignmentalignment.ai
How can NYC protect New Yorkers as AI reshapes the economy? Reserve your seat for our talk with @hellodcwp.bsky.social, Commissioner @saalevine.bsky.social, and writer @edwardongwesojr.com Sept. 30 3:30–5 PM Co-sponsored by the CUNY Law Burns Program, @cplusc.bsky.social, @rooseveltinstitute.org
Governing AI for Workers and Consumers: NYC's Public Approach
Dive into what NYC can do to advance affordability for working families during the rise of AI and corporate consolidation.
governing-ai-for-nyc-workers-and-consumers.eventbrite.com
This event is the culmination of 6 months of work in partnership with the @pulitzercenter.org team leading up to #ClimateWeekNYC
Data & Society@datasociety.bsky.social · 2mo agoSept 22 in NYC! Join us and the @pulitzercenter.org during #ClimateWeekNYC as we talk data centers w Data & Society's @mwoluchem.bsky.social; @texastribune.org's Alejandra Martinez; @foodandwater.bsky.social's Ginny Marcille-Kerslake, and more. www.eventbrite.com/e/how-data-c...
"What event is so small that it sits outside of time, irrelevant to the currents of its age? For much of Ginzburg’s work, the sheer weirdness and singularity of his subjects is fundamental. It's their unease with their historic moments, not their value as a holotype, that illuminates their context."
The Baffler@thebaffler.com · last mo.The Italian leftist historian Carlo Ginzburg died this year at the age of eighty-seven. @emmaclairefoley.bsky.social remembers how the champion of lone nonconformists challenged the notion that history is made by great men.
The purpose of a system is what it does.
Electronic Frontier Foundation@eff.org · 2mo agoA new Medicare program uses AI to evaluate prior authorization requests. New records obtained by EFF show that this program has resulted in widespread delays and denials of care, operational chaos, and reports of patients waiting in pain. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...
As a US-born Romanian who's spent most of my life between those countries, yea water is wet. Much of Anglo-American culture is full of flaky, transactional, therapy-speaking hyper-individualists. That said, this essay is sooo "diaspora adult conjures up wildly romanticized fantasy of the homeland."
Karen Attiah@karenattiah.bsky.social · 2mo agoThis essay by a Romanian shows why US/Canadians should read about how people from different cultures observe us and our practices. "Never in my life have I seen people so completely unsupported, even with such a large network of friends." the6thspence.substack.com/p/north-amer...
I've been saying it, AI is coming for home healthcare and nursing homes: www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-ne...
OpenAI’s chief economist sees ‘care economy’ jobs growing in AI age
Ronnie Chatterji says AI is already reshaping job duties, but its broader effects may take another 18 to 24 months to show up in productivity statistics.
nbcnews.com
“In addition to monitoring activists in the vicinity of Anthropic executives and keeping tabs on protests near physical Anthropic assets, the firm is also implementing a ‘pre-crime’ approach… In some cases, that also means reporting suspects to police before a crime occurs.” @drboguslaw.bsky.social:
Anthropic Is Building a Predictive Surveillance System to Monitor Activists - The American Prospect
New hires and comments in interviews show that the AI giant is using its capabilities against dissenters.
prospect.org
Unfortunately, I doubt Romania will pursue extradition given how hard Nicușor Dan has been kissing the ring of the Trump admin lately, but one can hope...
Sarah Kay@k-interarma.bsky.social · 2mo agoAndrew Tate is finally indicted, with Romanian prosecutors listing sex trafficking of minors and money laundering www.reuters.com/world/romani...
Gazans who need access to critical lifesaving care along with management of chronic illnesses are not being allowed to leave to get it while at the same time their medical infrastructure is in shambles. People are dying or experiencing unnecesary complications.
The Patients Israel Won't Let Leave Gaza
For many Palestinians in the territory, survival depends on a chain of administrative decisions over which they have no control
newlinesmag.com
Mechanical Turk may be shutting down, but AI will always depend on data workers whose knowledge trains and tunes models. AI runs on extracted cultural skills and knowledge, and culture is always changing. Less the end of an era, but the end of an early prototype.
Louise Matsakis@lmatsakis.bsky.social · 2mo agoAmazon is officially shutting down Mechanical Turk next month. It feels like the end of an era. I've written about the platform on and off for close to a decade. We wouldn't have the AI tools we do now if it weren't for the low-paid, largely invisible labor of MTurkers
An ICE agent directed Emilio, a Venezuelan Deaf man, to get onto a bus. He asked for an interpreter and didn’t get one. When he saw a Mexican flag, he realized he was being deported to Mexico, sans passport. My latest for @motherjones.com. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
How Trump’s deportation machine deprives Deaf people of their humanity
An extra layer of cruelty is added by limiting communication access for Deaf people.
motherjones.com
I know the "I want AI to do my laundry so that I can do art and writing, not the other way around" quote resonated with a lot of people, but I feel like most haven't fully thought through the degree of surveillance, alienation, and abjection that future also may lead towards...
Amazon’s chief lobbyist fighting a delivery worker protection bill in New York City endorsed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani is Jessica Schumer, the daughter of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, according to public lobbying records and three sources with knowledge of the situation. buff.ly/nUbHf64
Mamdani’s Taking On Amazon. His Opponent? Chuck Schumer’s Daughter. - The American Prospect
Legislation before the New York City Council would end Amazon’s subcontracting of delivery drivers. Jessica Schumer is the lead lobbyist against it.
prospect.org
My god, what an image. Dead kings in a plastic box, carried off as the world burns.
Reuters@reuters.com · 2mo agoSpain removes remains of 11th century kings from monastery as wildfire rages reut.rs/4zAAN4r
It's Medicaid's 61st birthday! I wrote a piece lifting up the perspectives of people who rely on it. Here's what they told me: cuts hurt people, paperwork requirements burden families, fraud is a red herring, & elected leaders are out of touch. Read more here: www.syracuse.com/opinion/2026...
Historic Medicaid cuts are a body blow to vulnerable Americans (Guest Opinion by Jamila Michener)
Cornell researcher's team interviewed dozens of enrollees. They said H.R. 1 will create impossible burdens and reflect a double standard between how rich and poor are treated.
syracuse.com
Given that we are all upset today about Anthropic-shredding-books, I’ll add that I address this here, and it’s part of the same infrastructure threatening the preservation and profession of history but people don’t want to talk about that if the same industry is paying for their research.
Sonja Drimmer@sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · 3mo ago“AI has become a blunt instrument in the enterprise to impose precisely this form of sanctioned ignorance about America’s past...Taken together, [Trump’s & Musk’s] plans amount to a one-two punch, history in the hands of the corporate state.” My latest on AI & history: www.salon.com/2026/07/28/t...
ICE shared Medicaid data it wasn't supposed to have in the first place with Palantir. First Medicaid officials shared data about millions of people with ICE. ICE then shared that data with Palantir, according to a new court filing reported on by @NPR. /1
ICE shared Medicaid data it wasn't supposed to have with Palantir
The revelations came out in a federal court case brought by Democratic states challenging ICE's access to Medicaid data to aid in deportation efforts.
npr.org
“…AI cannot account for consent. For women and other marginalized communities, what matters is not the content of the image, but the lack of consent, the harm experienced, and the intention with which the abuse is perpetrated.”
The problem AI content moderation cannot solve
Meta and other big tech companies are increasingly using AI for content moderation, but as the backlash to Muse Image shows, it cannot protect users because it does not account for consent.
restofworld.org
“Journalists could be reduced to mere raw-material suppliers for this new information ecosystem.” www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
A Peter Thiel-backed startup makes a surprising bet: Putting reporters in statehouses
State Affairs combines media and technology at a time when tensions between the two industries are at a fever pitch.
washingtonpost.com
"Functionally, there is no difference between not being able to microwave a burrito at 3 a.m. because an in-person watchman prevented you from doing so, or because an AI tool warned your family members about it and they then chastised you from afar." www.disabilityculturelab.org/posts/from-i...
From Inside The House: How Surveillance Tech Further Threatens Independent Living — Disability Culture Lab
Independent living is facing a threat from a less obvious source: tech tools often marketed explicitly as facilitating the ability of aging and disabled people to stay at home. The use and proliferati...
disabilityculturelab.org
Amazing sentence: “D’Souza is concerned about what he views as the affliction of journalism on the powerful. ('I’ll accept that I’m powerful-adjacent,' he told TechCrunch in April.)" www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/bus...
A Peter Thiel-Backed Tribunal Is Putting Journalists on Trial. I’m Its First Target
The billionaire has reteamed with the legal strategist who helped him bring down Gawker to start an AI-powered appeals court for the rich and aggrieved.
hollywoodreporter.com
Encountered Romania's last functioning Jacquard loom in Brașov's ethnography museum. Somehow I hadn't known that the Romanian word for war (război) is also the word for loom, probably from Slavic verbs related to "striking/beating."
People have been asking me if I know of a resource like StandWithMinnesota for New Jersey, and I haven't found something comprehensive. So, for the moment, I have put together all the links to NJ orgs, crowdfunding links, events, and stuck them on a page of SWM. standwithminnesota.org/jersey
New Jersey — Stand With Minnesota
standwithminnesota.org
Today is the last day to comment to the FCC that LGBTQIA2S+ names, stories, identities don't need a warning label. This new potential rulemaking is an attempt at criminalizing the mere fact of being trans or otherwise queer, in the name of discrimination, bigotry, and persecution. Tell them no, now.
Tell the FCC that LGBTQ Stories Don’t Need a Warning Label | GLAAD
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is targeting LGBTQ stories. They are trying to control what you see on television. This government overreach is dangerous...
glaad.org
🎃 Killy Witches 👻@tillybridges.bsky.social · 5mo agoCIS PEOPLE TIME TO STEP UP it’s once again time to yell at our bad government via online comment form the FCC is trying to make trans and nonbinary content require special ratings on shows GLAAD has a good writeup on it below TELL ‘EM NO direct link to comment form: www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings...
“His actions without a doubt delayed, distracted and ultimately deterred these two individuals from gaining access to the greater areas of the mosque where as many as 140 kids were within 15ft of these suspects”
Robert Evans (the Only Robert Evans)@iwriteok.bsky.social · 5mo agohard to exaggerate how heroic these men were. they likely saved dozens of children's lives. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
