Tessera

The very large single point of failure of AWS makes its point clear: edition.cnn.com/2025/10/21/t...

Amazon’s global outage exposes major vulnerabilities to American life | CNN Business

It took a day without Amazon Web Services for Americans to realize how reliant the internet is on a single company.

edition.cnn.com

Implementing digital solutions harms most those already in a vulnerable state; as tools of power they more easily overlook the powerless; the greater the stratification, the easier for those in power to dismiss the poorest as calculating error: www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

‘Your basis to live is checked at each and every step’: India’s ID system divides opinion

Keir Starmer is considering Aadhaar as model for UK, but detractors warn of ‘digital coercion’ and security breaches

theguardian.com

This feels kinda huge; may not be but has the potential of the beginning of the end of an era: www.airbnb.co.uk/help/article...

If you’ve logged in to your Airbnb account with your Facebook account in the past, find out how you can log in without Facebook.

airbnb.co.uk

A novel item in the social prosthetics aisle: speed dating facilitated by observing pre-dialogue simulations of digital twins link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...

Support for Building Relationships in Speed Dating Through Observation of Pre-dialogue Simulations Using Digital Twins

Advancements in science and technology have enabled communication beyond the constraints of time, distance, and physical limitations. In particular, the metaverse has facilitated interactions through ...

link.springer.com

onion person@junlper.beer · 10mo ago

If leaving a service feels like leaving a cult, you should be leaving a cult.

it’s really good when “technology of the future” treats you leaving as if you were leaving a cult

Something mesmerizingly both in and out of sync in the tandem of these two items on the bsky feed:

What OpenAI is performing with its Sora case, is what Shoshana Zuboff examplified as "Google declarations": claiming one's right to ignore rights of others because, you know, progress, and so much power that I gotta be a superman or something, defs a positive guy! www.reuters.com/technology/o...

OpenAI's new Sora video generator to require copyright holders to opt out, WSJ reports

OpenAI is planning to release a new version of its Sora video generator that creates videos featuring copyrighted material, unless copyright holders opt out of having their work appear, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

reuters.com

The "Now ChatGPT can start the conversation" Pulse feature is a curious experiment in relocating agency from the moment of action to when you calibrate your opaque proactive AI-guardian (or have it automagically read your mind), who will then shepherd you through day. openai.com/index/introd...

Introducing ChatGPT Pulse

Today we're releasing a preview of ChatGPT Pulse to Pro users on mobile. Pulse is a new experience where ChatGPT proactively does research to deliver personalized updates based on your chats, feedback...

openai.com

Finally, a voice of reason from the Center for the Alignment of AI Alignment Centers: "To stop bad actors developing AGI that could kill us all, we need good actors to develop AGI that could also kill us all." alignmentalignment.ai/caaac/blog/a...

To make AI safe, we must develop it as fast as possible without safeguards

Ia Magenius explains why we need to make AI as powerful as possible to ensure it can't have power over us

alignmentalignment.ai

Sarah Lyons@citymystic.bsky.social · 11mo ago

At this era of celebrating the artificial - sensuality as a philosophy of life, with the senses being "the primary mechanism for creating and storing meaning, not the intellect" @citymystic.bsky.social. My fav sense - our language: not digits for objects, but our sounds of the world, for the world.

open.substack.com/pub/houseofm... Wrote about the radical act of returning to one's body in a digital age designed to detach us from them.

Rosamunde Van Brakel@rosamundevb.bsky.social · 11mo ago

It's dreadfully amazing what realities can be built when we stop asking questions about things someone chooses to present as inevitabilities.

Why is it here to stay? I have seen no scientific evidence that shows that this is legitimate policing, but I have seen evidence of harms that it is causing and no serious debate on societal and democratic impact in the future policinginsight.com/feature/opin...

Tech Policy Press@techpolicypress.bsky.social · 11mo ago

A rare example (from Nepal) of a gov losing in an attempt to control information ecosystem. We've probably not heard of the many many successes.

After a sweeping social media ban, Nepal saw its bloodiest unrest in decades. What has happened in Nepal is a warning to other democracies to tread carefully with efforts to contain online expression, writes Samik Kharel.

dell cameron@dell.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Trends trends everywhere

oh good

Center for Democracy & Technology@cdt.org · 11mo ago

When a government proposes a mass surveillance system (for a good cause, of course, tho ineffectively addressing the root problem), and exempts itself from its requirements due to the new security vulnerabilities created (but feels comfy about imposing them on its citizens), whom is it serving?

The Steering Committee of the @globalencryption.org – CDT, Global Partners Digital, the Internet Freedom Foundation, the Internet Society, & Mozilla – issued a statement expressing concerns with the Danish Presidency’s Compromise Text on the EU Child Sexual Abuse Regulation. cdt.org/insights/gec...

Tanel Mällo @tanelmallo.bsky.social · 12mo ago

While it exists in its own gated community, the tech industry has the leverage to rule our lives and minds on the sheer power of its economies of paranoia. Thanks for the sacrifice @citymystic.bsky.social houseofmirrors.substack.com/p/the-spectr...

The Spectral Evidence for AI

AI is bad enough on its own without giving it god-like powers

houseofmirrors.substack.com

LLMs display signs of subliminal learning, possibly inherent to neural networks - any synthetic examples generated by a misaligned model are contaminated, even if they are cleaned and look benign. I guess it would work the same subLLMinal way with kindness but hey futurism.com/ai-models-su...

AI Models Are Sending Disturbing "Subliminal" Messages to Each Other, Researchers Find

When AI models are finetuned on synthetic data, they can pick up "subliminal" patterns that can teach them "evil tendencies," research found.

futurism.com

Urgently need a psychology today questionnaire to test how cooked a brain you need to be to be this enlightened: portalcioranbr.wordpress.com/2025/07/15/t...

“TESCREAL: Silicon Valley’s scary new cult religion” – Rev. Otis Moss III & Dr. Emile Torres | The Nerd Reich ▶️

May 21, 2025 | Silicon Valley billionaires are building a scary new cult religion, and it’s coming for us all. Is this fascism disguised as faith and futurism? Gil Duran, Rev. Otis Moss III, …

portalcioranbr.wordpress.com

With great economic power typically comes great political power, with the option to influence/create whole ideologies for us all. Not a fan of seeing things from business plan perspective, but hope to see one on returns of the AI investments not from a cooked brain futurism.com/ai-researche...

AI Researcher Declines $1 Billion Offer From Mark Zuckerberg

One AI researcher was offered more than $1 billion paid out over several years by Mark Zuckerberg's Meta. They reportedly didn't take it.

futurism.com

Offloading decisionmaking onto "computer says no" systems in rental businesses is, well, inhumane, but arguing that this will bring "greater transparency, precision and speed" is outright funny @futurism.com futurism.com/hertz-ai-dam...

Hertz' AI System That Scans for "Damage" on Rental Cars Is Turning Into an Epic Disaster

Hertz' new AI damage scanners are dead on arrival — and unfortunately, it's not the only company deploying the shoddy tech.

futurism.com

We're building multifunctional products simultaneously aimed at driving user & investor engagement and, well, both of them crazy: futurism.com/tech-industr... by @futurism.com

Tech Industry Figures Suddenly Very Concerned That AI Use Is Leading to Psychotic Episodes

Tech industry hotshots are speaking out after a prominent OpenAI investor appeared to have a ChatGPT-induced mental health breakdown.

futurism.com

What to think of AI creators warning the public that the AI they're creating may be used to create fraud, but hey there's another piece of technology they created that would create conditions to counter that: edition.cnn.com/2025/07/22/t...

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warns of an AI ‘fraud crisis’ | CNN Business

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says the world may be on the precipice of a “fraud crisis” because of how artificial intelligence could enable bad actors to impersonate other people.

edition.cnn.com

Amazon Ring is an example of companies changing their already maligned practices to more directly profit from the rising tide of techno-authoritarianism - authoritarianism aided by surveillance tech: www.eff.org/deeplinks/20... by @eff.org

Amazon Ring Cashes in on Techno-Authoritarianism and Mass Surveillance

Ring founder Jamie Siminoff is back at the helm of the surveillance doorbell company, and with him is the surveillance-first-privacy-last approach that made Ring one of the most maligned tech devices....

eff.org

The junta using digital (governance) tools in Myanmar against its people is not so different how same or similar tools and methods are being used in more democratic countries. It's a spectrum thing. www.techpolicy.press/myanmars-dig... via @techpolicypress.bsky.social

Myanmar’s Digital Crackdown is Worsening: The World is Stepping Back | TechPolicy.Press

After one of the deadliest quakes in its history this year, Myanmar enters a darker chapter in its crisis, write Wai Phyo Myint and Faiz Naeem.

techpolicy.press