Published a new article with @coloradoboulevard.bsky.social about our fights against data centers in LA, specifically in the San Gabriel Valley www.coloradoboulevard.net/la-doesnt-wa... #ai #datacenter #la #environment #earthday

LA Doesn’t Want Data Centers: Big Tech Is Building Them Anyway

OPINION The dream of AI infrastructure is a tech billionaire hallucination far removed from the reality of what normal people want and need. By Nicholas Rabb

coloradoboulevard.net

This study is really something. Kudos to @myra.bsky.social and the team for this great paper. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... I'll summarize my takeaways below contextualized through my research lens... 🧵

Sycophantic AI decreases prosocial intentions and promotes dependence

Despite rising concerns about sycophancy—excessive agreement or flattery from artificial intelligence (AI) systems—little is known about its prevalence or consequences. We show that sycophancy is wide...

science.org

Join me on Friday with Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace for a discussion of AI, data centers, and technologies of control -- how this infrastructure is pushed on us to power systems of mass tech-enabled violence. #AI #datacenters #sgv #militarism #surveillance

Revealing tidbit from WSJ about Meta's AI revenues (www.wsj.com/tech/ai/meta...). Basically, Meta is claiming AI is working because it's growing it's advertising business -- ad clickthroughs on FB up 3.5% and $10b in Q4 from AI-generated video ads. This is AI's business model. Ads.

Meta Has Been Spending Like Crazy on AI. It’s Actually Paying Off.

Its planned capital spending of up to $135 billion represents a significant acceleration, but the company’s ad business is keeping pace.

wsj.com

So now the EPA officially provides resources for data center developers to get around the Clean Air Act. That's nice. www.epa.gov/stationary-s...

Clean Air Act Resources for Data Centers | US EPA

A compilation of relevant resources on data center development.

epa.gov

Just when I thought my days getting riled up about Kyrsten Sinema were over, she comes back into my life. I was reading about data center fights across the U.S. and found that Sinema, former enemy of real climate policy, has now taken to AI lobbying zeteo.com/p/kyrsten-si...

How Kyrsten Sinema Bullied an Arizona City to Approve Her Client’s AI Data Center

Just months after leaving the Senate, Democrats’ former corporate villain is raking in money while lobbying for the AI industry and proudly working "hand in glove with the Trump administration."

zeteo.com

When is enough enough? The U.S. violence against Venezuela is an indication that our society is off the rails, totally uncontrolled. I wrote a brief response on my blog discussing how we need to build back the means of controlling our rogue nation. ricknabb.medium.com/the-attacks-...

The Attacks on Venezuela Signal We Need to Drastically Change Society

The U.S. is no stranger to unaccountable acts of state violence. But when is enough enough? To stop these acts, we need to double down on…

ricknabb.medium.com

Over and over the US inflicts obscene violence against the global South, in flagrant violation of international law, to maintain the conditions for capital accumulation for its decadent billionaire class. It's disgusting and intolerable. We cannot continue to accept this.

This morning from @wsj.com. Trump admin is looking to override states regulating #AI. The contradictions from the party of States' rights are thick. Tech companies' actions are already deeply undemocratic. This techno-authoritarianism is unacceptable

NEW from @pewresearch.org: Most popular chatbots among US teens www.pewresearch.org/internet/202...

Had a fun time revisiting Heidegger to comment on AI's potential to create massive alienation through AI-driven production -- making us see the world of human creativity as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself #AI #tech #philosophy #bigtech www.instagram.com/p/DR40cuBDot2/

Nick Rabb 🌅🌊 on Instagram: "Have you ever considered the social and psychological toll that will come if AI becomes the dominant mode of production of social and cultural artifacts? It seems bad. Thi...

AI production is reshaping the world, but at what cost? Join the conversation about the potential risks of alienation, creativity loss, and environmental destruction. Heidegger's philosophy offers a u...

instagram.com

Yesterday, at my university's Academic Senate, we raised critical questions to the administration about the CSU's $17m purchase of ChatGPT-Edu. This blog post contains the questions as well as lengthy context on AI and education ricknabb.medium.com/my-universit... #AI #Education #HigherEducation

My University is Critically Questioning AI in Education

At a recent Academic Senate session, I worked with other instructors to raise questions to administration about their decisions to push…

ricknabb.medium.com

Came across this interesting article a bit late: edsource.org/2025/ai-assi... CSU used AI in a legal filing as it fights against RAs joining the Employees Union & it hallucinated a court case in its argument Embarrassing for the system pushing to be the "AI leader" in higher ed #AI #highered

Cal State says staff AI use ‘resulted in errors’ in legal filing

An administrative law judge said a document filed by Cal State had "all the hallmarks" of AI hallucinations.

edsource.org

Well this article is a nightmare. When your technology is so unpopular that you have to force usage of it through firing the unwilling and hiring proponents, you have an issue. WSJ of course pushing forward the fear of retaliation on behalf of Big Tech www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-w... #AI

The Boss Has a Message: Use AI or You’re Fired

At companies big and small, employees have feared being replaced by AI. The new threat: Being replaced by someone who knows AI.

wsj.com

This monster also promoted the invasion of Iraq, which killed hundreds of thousands of people and created mass child malnutrition.

An excellent example of AI bias and how it stands to influence thought & media production. This is a GenAI tool in YT Studio to help creators get ideas for videos based on previous content. It gave me "The Future of Work: Automation and Human Purpose," which I expected to be totally different 🧵

Just read this post by @404media.co about Google hosting CBP's new app on the Play store while removing ICE tracking apps. What struck me most is how the CBP app reminded me of surveillance systems used to police Palestinians 🧵 www.404media.co/google-has-c...

Google Has Chosen a Side in Trump's Mass Deportation Effort

Google is hosting a CBP app that uses facial recognition to identify immigrants, while simultaneously removing apps that report the location of ICE officials because Google sees ICE as a vulnerable gr...

404media.co

Join me and other young movement organizers on Nov 18th to hear our perspectives on what the priorities should be for the peace and justice movements 🕊️ Register at: bit.ly/cpdcs-rising-gen #peace #justice #socialmovement #socialjustice

I created a list of 5 books you can read to develop more critical takes on #AI, cutting through the hype. I have my students read most of these. Take a look at the list and let me know which other books you'd recommend! www.instagram.com/p/DQp3afejL7... #BigTech #tech #critical #sociotechnical

Well this is a nightmare. #palantir hiring high-schoolers to intentionally not go to college and instead learn to become a tech worker by working at the company. Problematic for so many reasons 🧵 www.wsj.com/business/pal... #education #bigtech #tech #engineering

Maybe a bit late to this, but I found out about the latest Bill Gates climate memo from @climatedefiance.bsky.social and wanted to give my two cents. Written up in long form here: ricknabb.medium.com/bill-gates-c... But I'll summarize some main points in the 🧵 #BillGates #climatechange

Bill Gates’ Climate Memo is Carefully-Crafted Propaganda Serving his Own Business Interests

What is being positioned as pragmatic wisdom is nothing more than a current manifestation in a trend of Gates seeming to care

ricknabb.medium.com

This is the most neuro-nerd thing I've ever seen and I love it. IYKYK

Jay Van Bavel, PhD@jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 9mo ago

I made some #halloween treats as a tribute to Phineas Gage--the most important lesion patient in neuroscience Gage survived an accident in which an iron rod shot through his frontal lobe that damaged his social capacities If you want to make these treats www.powerofusnewsletter.com/p/why-people...

Exciting position @northeasternu.bsky.social ! Managing Policy Director at the new Institute for Information, & Democracy, please share with interested parties. northeastern.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/career...

📹 New reel on IG: 3 Media Literacy Tips to help you Navigate GenAI Misinformation From a misinformation researcher's standpoint, here are three media literacy tips you can use to not get fooled by GenAI garbage: #misinformation #ai #socialmedia #openai #sora #vibes #media

How should we think about China in today’s debates on AI and society, and how might China serve as a productive analytical lens? In this commentary, @zhifan-luo.bsky.social and I offer a typology to see China as mirror, prototype, counterpoint, and global actor. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Happy to share our commentary is published on Big Data & Society today! Instead of seeing China as AI’s dystopian specter, what if we use it as a generative lens to rethink global AI? journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

China as an analytical lens for AI and society - Chuncheng Liu, Zhifan Luo, 2025

How can “China” serve as a productive analytical tool for understanding the relationship between artificial intelligence (AI) and society? This commentary propo...

journals.sagepub.com

Chuncheng Liu@cliu.bsky.social · 11mo ago

How should we think about China in today’s debates on AI and society, and how might China serve as a productive analytical lens? In this commentary, @zhifan-luo.bsky.social and I offer a typology to see China as mirror, prototype, counterpoint, and global actor. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

📝New newsletter! poiesis.beehiiv.com/p/ai-and-pow... In it, I discuss AI and militarism, a recent webinar I was on discussing social movement power, and the new GenAI social media platforms -- Sora 2 and Vibes. #AI #tech #power #organizing #socialmedia #militarism

AI and Power: Misinformation, Surveillance, Targeted Repression

Thinking about power is one of my preoccupations. AI is rapidly changing power relations, as a new tool that influences the information ecosystem, corporate power, and supercharges systems of dominati...

poiesis.beehiiv.com

Thinking about the materiality of AI. While people are discussing water & electricity use, do we think about the cost of making countless chips for data centers? This @unep.org report "AI end-to-end" details some of that aspect wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/ha... #AI #climate #sustainability

On Indigenous People's Day, I'm reflecting on important work from one of my former students: reciprocity and materiality of data science and AI. AI has a material reality, and it's unsustainable www.instagram.com/p/DPwv51ekkpz/ #AI #indigenouspeoplesday #IPD #Indigeneity

Tonight! Come join CPDCS for a discussion of the state of the peace and justice movements, and how we should move forward. Featuring rad organizers from MA Peace Action and @codepink.bsky.social #activism #justice #strategy #peace #antiwar