In Article About Horrific Shooting That Killed Eight Children, Forbes Lets Readers Place Bets About Gun Control In a story about a mass shooting that left eight children dead, Forbes is encouraging readers to bet on the news with fake money.

“In a January interview with Digiday, Forbes chief innovation officer Nina Gould described ForbesPredict as the ‘gamification of following a story.’”

🤬 futurism.com/future-socie...

Reminds me of this post: AI is so hyped up that it's reached many people who have been entirely unaware of the world of automation over the past 40-50 years, and so they think it's something entirely brand new that needs LLMs.

[AI Skeptics] Why We Fear AI coda, chatting with Hagen Blix, and other things Hello! There are a lot of updates this week: chat with Hagen Blix on Thursday stickers (in production) local stuff (including a conference) Read on for more...

AI Skeptics Reading Group update:

- chatting with @hagenblix.bsky.social on Thursday
- stickers (in production)
- some local stuff (including a conference on Sunday)

I’ll go in and check this out!

So it's out! Our edited book, "Platforms and the Planet: Big Tech, Digital Platforms and Environmental Responsibility" is now published as an eBook by Emerald, co-edited with my amazing colleagues Mervi Pantti and Olga Dovbysh.

bookstore.emerald.com/platforms-an...

This is likely a bit outdated so please add your stuff and others'!

Canadian doctors obeying a U.S. executive order that doesn’t even apply to Canada is deeply offensive to both trans people and to Canadian legal sovereignty.

The First Statewide Ban on Data Centers Is on the Verge of Becoming Law

www.nytimes.com/2026/04/16/u...

Every Data Centre Is a US Military Base | The Tyee Understanding how the US uses its tech companies to serve its empire — and how Canada should respond.

thetyee.ca/Opinion/2026...

Platforms and the Planet Developing a critical understanding of environmental responsibility and accountability of digital platforms, Platforms and the Planet focuses on the environmental responsibility of the so-called Big Tech, their digital media platforms and their role in the sustainability transition as a discursive, material, and ethical question.

Hot off the press:

Platforms and the Planet
Big Tech, Digital Platforms and Environmental Responsibility
Salla-Maaria Laaksonen|Mervi Pantti|Olga Dovbysh

bookstore.emerald.com/platforms-an...

The Pentagon’s AI war machine The Pentagon has spent years building AI tools to help identify targets, speed up battlefield decisions, and make war more “efficient.” What started as an effort to analyze drone footage has grown…

really worth a listen, pca.st/episode/e2c5...

We’re hiring an Editor-in-Chief We are seeking our next ambitious and visionary Editor-in-Chief to lead our strategic pivot, as we reimagine the publication for this more urgent mandate.

Rest of World seeking our next ambitious Editor-in-Chief to reimagine our publication for this new era of tech volatility. We’re looking for a visionary leader to take the reins of our world-class newsroom. Join us: restofworld.org/about/hiring/editor-in-c...

excited to listen!

oh no a hit post

If you want to imagine a better future that doesn't have bullshit like this in it, you can check out my S̶o̶u̶n̶d̶C̶l̶o̶u̶d̶ podcast @dreamingagainstthemachine.com here: pod.link/1890733564

Conference 2026 The People’s Political Economy of Computing Conference

!!!

when they said we're living in a computer simulation, what they meant was that they'd be forcing us into one eventually, where humanity becomes just a set for predictions and gambling, and where winning a bet is more important than actually living ...everything is numbers, dollars, metrics

In Article About Horrific Shooting That Killed Eight Children, Forbes Lets Readers Place Bets About Gun Control In a story about a mass shooting that left eight children dead, Forbes is encouraging readers to bet on the news with fake money.

Forbes is gamifying news about the horrific mass shooting in Shreveport, LA this weekend, encouraging readers to bet on the likelihood of gun regulation with fake money via its "ForbesPredict" feature.

Eight children were murdered in the shooting.

futurism.com/future-socie...

Critical Data Center Studies Critical Data Center Studies Books Amoore, Louise. 2020. Ethics Algorithms and the Attributes of Ourselves and Others Duke https://www.dukeupress.edu/cloud-ethics Bedir, M; Groen. L; Kuijpers. M; S...

This has been restored! Thanks to folks in Mexico who'd made a copy and re-shared it with me... not sure how it got deleted but it's back!

Open biblio that anyone can copy/paste and add to (please add anything that fits!)

CRITICAL DATA CENTER STUDIES

docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Love this: “AI writing” is actually “synthetic text generation.”

Why would a time-pressed human bother to read text that no human bothered to write?

There's an entire section on ART, too, so feel free to add new projects there! It's at the bottom of the biblio, in its own section.

It probably has format glitches as it was restored from a PDF, but will be fixed in time. Feel free to edit and fix!

Critical Data Center Studies Critical Data Center Studies Books Amoore, Louise. 2020. Ethics Algorithms and the Attributes of Ourselves and Others Duke https://www.dukeupress.edu/cloud-ethics Bedir, M; Groen. L; Kuijpers. M; S...

This has been restored! Thanks to folks in Mexico who'd made a copy and re-shared it with me... not sure how it got deleted but it's back!

Open biblio that anyone can copy/paste and add to (please add anything that fits!)

CRITICAL DATA CENTER STUDIES

docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Still trying to wrap my head around universities allowing genAI to be used for getting a PhD.... so damn dark and depressing.

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

🚨NEW ESSAY ALERT🚨Broken Connections: Fieldnotes from the Old Internet. The most personal thing I've written in years. I trace my history with internet communities & online relationships & how much of that is now gone. And a lot about LiveJournal. Open Access! journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

The Mechanic and the Luddite by Jathan Sadowski - Paper Scholarship is a powerful tool for changing how people think, plan, and govern. By giving voice to bright minds and bold ideas, we seek to foster understanding and drive progressive change.

You might find a chapter in my new book relevant — such as the chapter on “Innovation,” which is really about the political economy and socio-technical power of venture capital. www.ucpress.edu/books/the-me...

Significant US data center capacity at risk of delay

FT looked at satellite imagery of other big data center projects. Its verdict: progress is much slower than the AI hype machine would suggest.

Platforms and the Planet Developing a critical understanding of environmental responsibility and accountability of digital platforms, Platforms and the Planet focuses on the environmental responsibility of the so-called Big Tech, their digital media platforms and their role in the sustainability transition as a discursive, material, and ethical question.

Hot off the press:

Platforms and the Planet
Big Tech, Digital Platforms and Environmental Responsibility
Salla-Maaria Laaksonen|Mervi Pantti|Olga Dovbysh

bookstore.emerald.com/platforms-an...

We all understand that when a ceo ‘predicts’ cutting their staff by 20-30% it’s a hope not a prediction. They want to cut costs and increase profit. They also have seemingly no awareness that their company too will fail if there are no customers because no one has a job.

I think it’d have been good to state my position from the start, that I won’t examine AI generated dissertations, but not knowing this was allowed (!) by the institution put me in a weird spot — so I’ll fold it into my feedback and see!

Now, I have a statement up for future…

How the AI oligarchy devoured America

This story is a part of "Power Hungry," our latest package on the AI oligarchs who are upending communities over their plans for massive data centers across the country.

Check it out: