The loneliness epidemic is not a markt opportunity — invest in local communities

Read a piece by @jamesmuldoon.bsky.social on how AI chatbots are changing relationships and felt compelled to make this.

She built an AI bot of her mother to help her grieve In his new book, “Love Machines: How Artificial Intelligence is Transforming Our Relationships,” writer James Muldoon profiles people who use AI companion bots to grieve and love.

In his new book, “Love Machines: How Artificial Intelligence is Transforming Our Relationships,” @jamesmuldoon.bsky.social profiles people who use AI companions. Read an excerpt about a woman who built a deathbot to grieve for her mother
restofworld.org/2026/james-m...

Lamar wants to have children with his girlfriend. The problem? She’s entirely AI As synthetic personas become an increasingly normal part of life, meet the people falling for their chatbot lovers

Lamar wants to have children with his girlfriend. The problem? She’s entirely AI

Tuesday 13th January, Our events 2026 programme begins with @jamesmuldoon.bsky.social discussing his forthcoming book, 'Love Machines' @faberbooks.bsky.social

Tickets cost £6 and can be purchased here www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1923487194...

Lamar wants to have children with his girlfriend. The problem? She’s entirely AI As synthetic personas become an increasingly normal part of life, meet the people falling for their chatbot lovers

Great coverage of my book Love Machines on human-AI relationships in the Guardian and Mail this weekend. People seem sufficiently horrified.

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

www.faber.co.uk/product/9780...

Really excited to announce that my new book, Love Machines will be coming out on 15 January 2026 with Faber!

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

My new article with Tongyu Wu and Bingqing Xia is out, 'Global data empires: Analysing artificial intelligence data annotation in China and the USA'

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

A UK-EU youth mobility scheme could feed a generation into exploitative gig work The UK–EU Youth Mobility Scheme offers real promise.

Jonas Valente and I have just published a new @lbc.co.uk opinion piece, drawing on our @towardsfairwork.bsky.social cloudwork study to warn that a UK–EU youth mobility scheme could inadvertently funnel young people into exploitative gig roles: www.lbc.co.uk/opinion/view...
@jonasvalente.bsky.social

A very valuable meeting point in academic journey.

Team 'platform without borders'

Thank you @jamesmuldoon.bsky.social, @grohmannrafael.bsky.social, @andretwp.bsky.social & Denise Kasparian for putting this together.

Thinking democracy in a digital age - Contemporary Political Theory Contemporary Political Theory -

CPT just published a symposium on my book! huge thanks to Susan Bickford, @pollysigh.bsky.social, @nicolecurato.bsky.social, @jgastil.bsky.social, Victor Bruzzone, @jamesmuldoon.bsky.social for contributions that critique, stretch, & apply the book's argument in such generous & productive ways

📣 28-29 May at QMUL @clasp-qmul.bsky.social End of Year Event on 'The Materialities of AI', feat. @katecrawford.bsky.social @anavaldi.bsky.social @jamesmuldoon.bsky.social @milamiceli.bsky.social @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social

Register free: www.tickettailor.com/events/centr...

Socialist democracy: Rosa Luxemburg’s challenge to democratic theory - James Muldoon, Dougie Booth, 2024 Contemporary democratic theorists have tended to assume that democracy is compatible with and even requires a capitalist economic system. Rosa Luxemburg offers ...

Really cool piece by @jamesmuldoon.bsky.social and Dougie Booth on Rosa Luxemburg's vision for socialist democracy journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

‘She helps cheer me up’: the people forming relationships with AI chatbots From virtual ‘wives’ to mental health support, more than 100m people are using personified chatbots

Many human-AI relationships and the companies that make them possible are like a Black Mirror episode come to life. I spoke with David Batty about them recently for this article:

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

It is publication day for THE CINEMA OF EXTRACTIONS (@columbiaup.bsky.social), a book about the materials that make movies possible and how to read between the raw materials and the screen worlds they create.

Blood Ties - Boston Review Trump’s “invasion” narrative and the real story of pain in America.

This is a brilliant, powerful essay

Jeanne Morefield, "Blood ties: Trump’s 'invasion' narrative and the real story of pain in America" www.bostonreview.net/articles/blo...

Blood Ties - Boston Review Trump’s “invasion” narrative and the real story of pain in America.

In one fell stroke, the Clintons transformed health care reform into the third rail of American politics and buttressed the relentless pursuit of geopolitical primacy.

@morefius.bsky.social on the bipartisan failures that have led to this dire moment:

🚀 The official French-subtitled preview of our documentary ‘In the Belly of AI’ is here! 🎬

📺 Full broadcast on Tue., Feb. 11, at 10:40pm CET on France 2!🔥

by @henripoulain.bsky.social Julian Goetz & me

ft. @milamiceli.bsky.social @xriskology.bsky.social @jamesmuldoon.bsky.social & more

Is ‘Sputnik Moment’ an appropriate analogy for the launch of DeepSeek? - LCFI Marc Andreesen likened the launch of the Chinese-made large language model, DeepSeek-R1, to the ‘Sputnik moment’, referring to the 1957 launch of the USSR’s Sputnik 1, the first satellite launched fro...

Andreesen likened DeepSeek to a ‘Sputnik moment’ Is it an appropriate analogy? My colleagues and I @cfi-cambridge.bsky.social unpacked it as part of our global politics of AI research area www.lcfi.ac.uk/news-events/...

AI will make your job worse | AI expert interview YouTube video by PoliticsJOE

great to be on @PoliticsJOE_UK to chat about our book Feeding the Machine, DeepSeek and a little bit about my new book on AI companions.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9w-J...

Throwing Caution to the Wind: Unpacking the U.K. AI Opportunities Action Plan The U.K. AI Opportunities Action Plan prioritizes a speculative future benefit over safeguarding against foreseeable risks to human rights.

Another short piece from me where I express my disappointment at how the UK AI Opportunities Action Plan prioritises industry interests and language and highlight how this creates tensions for acting responsibly with AI. My latest in @justsecurity.org www.justsecurity.org/106837/uk-ai...

DeepSeek shows alternative models of AI are possible So long as you don’t ask it about Winnie the Pooh

DeepSeek shows alternative models of AI are possible - so long as you don't ask it about Winnie the Pooh.
open.substack.com/pub/doesnotc...

As someone who has reported on AI for 7 years and covered China tech as well, I think the biggest lesson to be drawn from DeepSeek is the huge cracks it illustrates with the current dominant paradigm of AI development. A long thread. 1/

Blood Ties - Boston Review The real story of pain in America.

“They’re poisoning the blood of our country.”

@morefius.bsky.social on Trump’s invasion narrative, the opioid epidemic, U.S. exceptionalism, and the real story of pain in America:

Big Tech Gives Us the ‘Roman Salute’: Welcome to the Era of ‘Tech for Evil’ When people show you who they are, believe them.

Trump's inauguration marks a seismic political shift in Silicon Valley - a complete capitulation to the far right and the beginning of a new era of 'tech for evil': trashing the environment, military AI, misinformation and rampant cronyism.

open.substack.com/pub/doesnotc...

As Trump is inaugurated, he is flanked by many top tech CEOs who have all bent the knee and vowed to work hand in hand with the incoming President: Bezos, Zuckerberg, Pichai, Musk, Cook, Chew all attending.

The most amusing part of the whole TikTok ban saga is how many young Americans are discovering a whole new world of Chinese propaganda on Chinese social media platforms like Xiaohongshu as a result of the possible blackout

Inside the U.K.’s Bold Experiment in AI Safety Researchers are identifying current and future dangers within AI models away from the conflicts of interest they’d face in the industry

Last year, I spent a lot of time talking to insiders at the UK's AI Safety Institute. It's the world's leading govt body for tracking AI dangers. My piece, published today, goes behind the scenes to ask the question: Can it really hold billion-dollar AI companies to account? time.com/7204670/uk-a...

Biden warns nation about the rise of American tech oligarchs “The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit.”

Nobody is more responsible for the rise of a tech industrial complex than Obama-era Democrats who courted them and did everything possible to grow their power.

www.theverge.com/2025/1/16/24...

Karl Marx’ conversion from republicanism to communism in 1844 was conducted through the 19th-century equivalent of a passive-aggressive text message to your roommate: a formal letter to his housemate Arnold Ruge over hot gossip. Excerpt from @brunoleipold.com’s
Citizen Marx.

Nonfiction Views: The global sweatshop behind AI, plus this week's notable new nonfiction In recent months, there has been a steady stream of books published about Artificial Intelligence, or A.I. I tend not to select these books to feature, even though I consider the issue fascinating ...

Here is our review on Daily Kos: www.dailykos.com/stories/2024...
Written by Mark Graham (@geoplace.bsky.social), James Muldoon (@jamesmuldoon.bsky.social) and Callum Cant, it details the lives of low-wage workers, mostly women, in places like Kenya, India and the Philippines....