A tale of two "AI" documentaries By: Decca Muldowney and Emily M. Bender Emily was interviewed for two documentaries which premiered at Sundance this year: The AI Doc: How I Became an...

"Instead of engaging in journalism (fact checking, what?) he just lets himself get buffeted by the imaginations of some of the most unhinged people in this space, and platforms their nonsense"

@deccamuldowney.bsky.social + @emilymbender.bsky.social on 2 big new AI docs coming out:

🤖 Last day to pre-order our forthcoming issue AI: The People Behind the Machine. 🤖

Subscribe by MIDNIGHT TONIGHT to receive your copy in print – susbcribe.newint.org

Get the Facts on AI in our latest issue 👉newint.org/issues/2026/02/19/ai-peo...

🚨 NEW ISSUE 🚨

AI is everywhere. It’s being pushed into every corner of our societies. Boosters of the technology say it can save the world. Doomers say it has the potential to destroy us. But what’s beyond the hype?

Preview the issue and subscribe for full access 👉 newint.org/issues/2026/...

Thank you to @newint.bsky.social and @deccamuldowney.bsky.social for letting us write about Pennsylvania, its planned AI futures, and how people are pushing back. Read online and find in print! The entire March issue is about the humans behind the AI empire machine.

Fuck Waymo, Long Live KitKat A self-driving car killed a beloved SF cat. It’s part of a long history of tech companies using the Bay as a testing ground at our expense. People have had enough.

Fuck Waymo—Long Live Kit Kat!

A self-driving car killed a beloved SF cat. Kit Kat's murder fits into the long history of tech companies using the Bay as a testing ground — at our expense. But the Bay has had enough.

Read @alexhanna.bsky.social's searing take: bayareacurrent.com/fuck-waymo-l...

OpenAI Tries to Shift Responsibility to Users OpenAI is trying to shift the blame for bad legal and medical advice from its chatbot away from the company and onto users. We agree that no chatbot should be used for medical or legal advice.

New on the Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 newsletter: @deccamuldowney.bsky.social and I write about OpenAI's transparent attempt to shift accountability.

buttondown.com/maiht3k/arch...

🎧 NEW: Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 podcast episode 65 - 'Crunching The Numbers' 📈

@emilymbender.bsky.social & @alexhanna.bsky.social talk to journalist @deccamuldowney.bsky.social about how so-called AI tools are infiltrating newsrooms, particularly when it comes to data analysis.

🔗 Below ⬇️

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000, Episode 65:
www.buzzsprout.com/2126417/epis...

… in which @deccamuldowney.bsky.social joins me and @alexhanna.bsky.social to talk about what it means to actually do journalism.

Thanks to Ozzy Llinas Goodman for production!

Meta to Mine Media for More “AI” Training Data We read this week in the Wall Street Journal that Meta is on the prowl for more content to train its ever-hungry AI tools and chatbot.

“The drive to adopt AI is, of course, part of a much longer story about the decline of quality journalism across the world, driven by the dramatic reduction of advertising revenues, the consolidation of media companies, & the loss of trust in media as an institution.”

buttondown.com/maiht3k/arch...

Every podcast ad: “you need our new AI product to enhance your productivity/launch your business/save your job!!”

Every podcast: “…and then ChatGPT told him how to tie the noose”

Back to School is Better Without "AI" It’s that time of year again, when fall is in the air and “AI” is back and worse than ever, creepy-crawling into every corner of our education system.

The latest on the Mystery AI Hype 3000 newsletter: Back to School is Better Without AI

buttondown.com/maiht3k/arch...

w/ @alexhanna.bsky.social and @deccamuldowney.bsky.social

"Stop Hiring Humans" billboards menaced SF workers with messages of automation and unemployment. The ads were strategic: by pissing working-class people off, the tech company received the kind of attention that venture capitalist investors love.

🔗 bayareacurrent.com/ai-tech-comp...

Send your thoughts and feelings to: Decca.muldowney@newint.org

📰 🗞️ Personal news 🗞️ 📰
On Sept 1 I’m starting at @newint.bsky.social as a co-editor. It’s a magazine w a serious internationalist perspective I’ve admired for a long time. I’ve written for them on Kneecap, Irish, Palestine, art as resistance and lots more. Can’t wait to start!

San Francisco's Billboards Aren't For You Wendy Liu, author of Abolish Silicon Valley, explains what those weird tech billboards are really saying

"These ads might not be for you, but they do have a message for you nonetheless. And the message is this: if you do not understand these billboards, this city is not for you." bayareacurrent.com/the-billboar...

"The more complicated answer – the ecstatic truth, if you will – is that billboards are the windows to the soul of a region."

The great Wendy Liu on the awful AI billboards dotting the US 101 in San Francisco.

San Francisco's Billboards Aren't For You Wendy Liu, author of Abolish Silicon Valley, explains what those weird tech billboards are really saying

Ever wonder what the hell SF's weird tech billboards are saying? Wendy Liu—@dellsystem.bsky.social—tells us that while the billboards aim to sell to other businesses, they have a hidden social meaning:

This city is not for you: SF belongs to tech ruling class. bayareacurrent.com/the-billboar...

it's a crazy time to launch a new publication, but i'm proud to be tech editor for @bayareacurrent.bsky.social, an outlet for working-class stories and perspective

we have some bangers already up on the site and many more coming

Bay Area Current Bay Area Current covers the news unabashedly from the left and highlights working-class issues too often ignored by the media.

Check out BayAreaCurrent.com, a new site covering working class perspectives. It launched today!
@bayareacurrent.bsky.social

thank you for reading Xander!

Why Venture Capitalists Are Leaving Oakland’s Iconic Greyhound Station to Decay Oakland’s downtown Greyhound bus station was a center of working-class life for decades. Now it's owned by the “Uber of buses.”

The @bayareacurrent.bsky.social launch is even better than expected. Check out this fantastic article on the "abandoned" Greyhound bus station in Oakland. bayareacurrent.com/why-venture-...

Why Venture Capitalists Are Leaving Oakland’s Iconic Greyhound Station to Decay Oakland’s downtown Greyhound bus station was a center of working-class life for decades. Now it's owned by the “Uber of buses.”

Oakland's historic Greyhound bus station exemplifies how venture capital works: the more our cities decay, the more they profit. The iconic station has been left to rot — like so many other spaces in Oakland — in the gamble for future profits.

bayareacurrent.com/why-venture-...

Launch Coyote Media Collective A new alt-weekly-style publication is hitting the Bay Area

Second: Coyote Media Collective: givebutter.com/coyotemedia

They're trying to raise $80k in order to launch in late summer!

Bay Area Current Bay Area Current covers the news unabashedly from the left and highlights working-class issues too often ignored by the media.

We are living in tough media times. So it's warmed my heart to witness the launch of not one, but TWO new Bay Area news orgs founded by journalists I deeply admire.

I encourage yall to join me in supporting them!

1) Bay Area Current: @bayareacurrent.bsky.social bayareacurrent.com

The Torched Waymos: Burning Effigies of Tech Oligarchy When protesters burned Waymo vehicles in the streets of Los Angeles it wasn’t wanton destruction. It was a direct message from the working class.

LA's Burning Waymos have become symbols for a growing anti-deportation movement. Some cry chaos—but @veenadubal.bsky.social argues that the flaming robo-taxis represent something else: the public’s fury at tech companies' interests trampling the common good. bayareacurrent.com/the-torched-...

I’ve got something coming out with them soon too! So happy there’s a new Bay Area news publication, especially one that focuses on the lives and needs of working class people. Long live Bay Area Current!

I’m pumped for this! Some are going to dismiss it because it’s openly left wing.

But I don’t think reporting should be or even can be unbiased.

What’s important is to be accurate, honest, and curious about why the people you may agree and disagree with think what they think.

some ~(un)professional news~~

I'm proud to be managing editor of @bayareacurrent.bsky.social, alongside a team of great writers, thinkers and organizers who believe the Bay deserves a local news site for the people.

Let's get it