Another community burned to the ground. But yes let’s build another pipeline.
Richard
@rwpickard.bsky.social
Reader, tree-hugger, teacher, preserver of foodstuffs. Canadian. Deleter of rwpickard from Twitter/X. http://boughtbooks.blogspot.com
“US government map of Africa mislabels every country at global conference”
"A Reuters analysis found the image of the map included in the presentation contained an artificial intelligence watermark that signals it was made with OpenAI tools." www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
Canadian arts and culture folks: the federal government has launched a (methodologically flawed) survey on "the Cultural Sector's readiness for Artificial Intelligence". If you're ready to resist or refuse genAI, here's your chance to let them know. pch.research-recherche.ca/f/s.aspx?lan...
National Survey on the Cultural Sector’s Readiness for Artificial Intelligence
Powered by SimpleSurvey.com | Build and manage your own online survey, voting, form and panel management applications.
pch.research-recherche.ca
Here is a survey from the govt of Canada on "AI transparency." Please do it. While using only my own brain power, I managed to find multiple ways to say "Label it with a scarlet letter and keep it far away from me." ised-isde.canada.ca/site/ised/en... #CdnPoli
Have your say on advancing AI transparency in Canada
From: Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada
ised-isde.canada.ca
I don’t want to be too sensationalist about this but also I’m the least violent person in the world and I think if someone said this to my face I’d hit them
No longer content with pillaging intellectual work and dismembering our environment (already critically weakened), AI companies are now hellbent on destroying books galore including rare editions. Shut down these nefarious enterprises already.
University of British Columbia "excited to announce" that they are dropping support for human note-takers for students who need assistance, and instead going with genAI that hallucinates plausible but incorrect results. techenemy.com/a/3mrrhqx6fi...
yet another reason to boycott ai, if you didn't already have enough
Israel is giving Trump's former campaign manager millions of dollars to fill the internet with pro-Israel articles written by AI, not so that anyone will actually read them, but so that *LLMs will train on them* & regurgitate their perspective. This is the future of the information environment.
Surely the solution here is just *don't use AI tools* for your writing and research and continue to do your writing and research in ALL the ways you were doing it before you started using AI instead of doing the work??
Absolutely essential reading on why AI cannot "do" history.
“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...
Invitation to co-create a poetic action in solidarity with Gitxsan land defenders open.substack.com/pub/sendmylo...
Invitation to co-create a poetic action in solidarity with Gitxsan land defenders
Call for Submissions
open.substack.com
Hey Kylie Jenner, this Ray-Ban Meta glasses ad is better than your one x We don’t have to allow these pervert glasses to become normal. No one consented to this. LEGALLY OBJECT TO META USING YOUR FACE AND VOICE VIA THEIR PERVERT GLASSES HERE: ehe.movement-action.org/p/meta
We have reached peak stupidity.
"Polymarket listed almost 20 questions related to the wildfires burning up Southern California. How many acres will the Palisades Fire burn by Friday, three days after it ignited on a Tuesday? Will the Palisades Fire reach Santa Monica by Sunday?" @thatsmohrlikeit.bsky.social:
If you're still wondering why I'm often incandescently angry about AI boosters, and even casual and/or pointless AI use, this is reason #753 behind my hatred #resistAI
Why are they destroying the books?
I do worry a lot about the future for kids, but increasingly I also worry how this is going to affect my own generation growing older. Selfishly as well as selflessly, we must act.
Holiday in the climate emergency. No that’s not AI or edited, just a snapshot I just took with my phone on Lacanau beach in France. What future will this boy grow up in? It is in our hands, but time is running out.
So now I'm left wondering which junior person at the ad agency deliberately decided to use "Five Years," correctly betting that no one on Meta's team would realize it's about the end of the world.
this broke me techcrunch.com/2026/07/23/m...
Or, I don't know, we could RELY ON OUR OWN EXPERTISE.
Why are academics using GenAI to write articles, grade assignments, compose emails and a lot of other tasks that they would/should otherwise be doing themselves? A brief summary of our anonymous survey of over 200 academics' 'grey uses' of GenAI ... researchwhisperer.org/2026/07/21/a...
Or, I don't know, we could RELY ON OUR OWN EXPERTISE.
Why are academics using GenAI to write articles, grade assignments, compose emails and a lot of other tasks that they would/should otherwise be doing themselves? A brief summary of our anonymous survey of over 200 academics' 'grey uses' of GenAI ... researchwhisperer.org/2026/07/21/a...
Listen I will just say to any American politicians who are just watchimg their colleagues issue veiled threats at Canada for having wildfires in one of the largest boreal forests in the world you better not issue any "please buy or wine and visit our casino" notices
Look at this photograph. Burning too much fossil fuel releases more carbon as the forests burn and turn the world into old-fashioned photographic negatives— orangey sepia. I want to live in the blue-green world.
The view of the Northern Ontario forest fire haze engulfing the Toronto Skyline from Humber Bay Park West. #ForestFire #TorontoHaze #TheBigSmoke #Toronto
the World Cup final will be between two teams that Cape Verde played even through 90 minutes
People are always talking about the things we have today that our ancestors didn't, but nobody wants to look at the things our ancestors had that we've lost. Like community, and free time, and environmental sustainability, and a collective that cares whether we live or die
Climate change will manifest as a series of disasters viewed through phones with footage that gets closer and closer until you're the one calmly stating "we're encased in flame"
Kid1, who is both an conductor and engineer for CN and has driven trains through SK wildfires himself, just sent me this video from Ontario. When I tell you they arent paid enough!!! vt.tiktok.com/ZSXkuEadE/
"In a burning world we need to hold ourselves and each other to a higher standard. “Useful” is far, far from being good enough." https://tante.cc/2026/07/15/useful-is-not-sufficient/
"Useful" is not sufficient
So Linus Torvalds, head of the Linux kernel development, put his foot down on the Linux Kernel development mailing list when someone was bringing up criticism of LLMs: “Linux is not one of those anti-AI projects, and if somebody has issueswith that, they can do the open-source thing and fork it. Or just walk away. […]
tante.cc
Looking forward to reading the other books on this list, @thetyee.ca Thanks for including mine!
Lovely to see The Art of Looking Back on the Tyee this morning! thetyee.ca/Presents/202...
They are very loudly telling Albertans, and the rest of us, they are stealing our money and giving it to oil companies.
You can tell an infrastructure project is desperately needed by a private industry when the government has to pay for it and also pay that private industry to use it.
Lovely to see The Art of Looking Back on the Tyee this morning! thetyee.ca/Presents/202...
Eight Local Books to Upgrade Your Summer Reading List | The Tyee
A curated booklist to suit varied seasonal whims.
thetyee.ca