The investment is the latest example of circular financing during the AI boom—the practice of tech companies investing in AI startups to help the latter buy products or services from the original investors.
New from me: Tech bros have launched a campaign to convince Christians that AI is godly: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
Big thanks to the editors of @disjunctionsmag.bsky.social for their generous engagement with this piece!
My article on the geopolitics of ‘slop’ as computational pastiche, cannibalization of Western IP, and (hopefully) the erosion of Hollywood’s visual monopoly over the spectacle of war.
Deeply embarrassing stuff
Three years into the AI era, educators say they face a major crisis. Bosses and clients replacing tutoring jobs with AI. Replacing *athletic coaching* with AI. Many students now cannot grasp why they would *not* use AI for schoolwork. And worse.
The 5th installment of AI Killed My Job—educators:
“AI can never be AI without humans. It is not artificial intelligence. It’s African intelligence...We are training our own death. We train ChatGPT and it’s killing us slowly.”
Kenyan workers are still the underpaid labor behind AI training, moderation, and sex chatbots. Now, they're fighting back.
Amsterdam was lovely as always.
Great to be back at my old workplace for the GenAI & Creative Practices conference. Thanks so much to @tpoell.bsky.social and the wonderful organizing team for two terrific days of timely conversations.
It is really just an unspeakably beautiful thing that a socialist was able to defeat the nexus of the world's most curdled billionaires for mayor of New York
You’re here and not necessarily hearing / reading the experiences of Palestinians in Gaza in real time.
Here are just some of the tweets from Palestinians in Gaza as Israel turns this into one of the bloodiest nights of the genocide.
This is a little bit genius: an analysis of OpenAI based on a close reading of a 22-second video of CEO Sam Altman cooking pasta. “His kitchen is a catalogue of inefficiency, incomprehension, and waste.” [ft.com]
The AI jobs crisis is not coming—it's here right now. It just might not look the way many thought it would.
www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-ai-job...
Pierre Poilievre declared defeated in his seat
can’t tell you how much joy i get from seeing pierre poilievre lost his seat
New data reveals just how many African workers are indirectly employed in the tech sector, doing outsourced jobs like content moderation, customer service, and data annotation for AI models
restofworld.org/2025/big-tec...
"In an earlier post, she wrote: "As for the inevitable death, if I die, I want a loud death, I don't want me in a breaking news story, nor in a number with a group, I want a death that is heard by the world, a trace that lasts forever, and immortal images that neither time nor place can bury."
New from 404 Media: we've obtained a leak from inside Palantir describing Palantir's plan to help ICE find people to deport. Includes peoples' location. Palantir is expecting a backlash, preparing comments for employees to tell their family. Says ICE "mature partner"
www.404media.co/leaked-palan...
Such a shameful capitulation to Hindutva’s manufactured victimhood, modelled on the same lobbyist playbook for silencing all criticism and dissent. The Empire’s multicultural facade is now an open endorsement of caste discrimination.
SCOOP: Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi went into an interview today hoping he would come out a U.S. citizen. Instead, ICE arrested him. theintercept.com/2025/04/14/i...
Please share in your networks. Goldsmiths, UoL are offering 5 scholarships in Undergrad & MA courses for Palestinian students. The scholarships include: tuition fee waiver, £19,550 allowance, return trip to & from the UK.
Eligibility details & further info at link👇🏽
www.gold.ac.uk/fees-funding...
BREAKING— Last week, while Israel re-escalated its genocide in Gaza, Google Cloud acquired Israeli start-up Wiz, signaling Google's continued investment in Israel and its commitment to genocide profiteering.
Will @theacademyusa.bsky.social use its worldwide prominence to speak up for an Oscar-winning director? Hamdan Ballal was attacked and seriously injured—and the IDF arrested HIM while he was in the ambulance. No charges, no sign of him since. Where are you, AMPAS? chng.it/dzMJYfSbqM
In memoriam photo of Jonathan Sterne (1970-2025)
It is with profound sadness that we mourn the passing of Jonathan Sterne, an extraordinary scholar whose groundbreaking work transformed the fields of sound studies, media theory, and the cultural study of technology.
Indeed, Carrie is so wonderful and brilliant. Amazing that you had them both as professors!
Jonathan Sterne performing in Montréal, Fall 2022.
An absolute titan of the field and one of the very best human beings I’ve come across in academia (and I was never formally a student or colleague).
WATCH | Australian medic Muhammad Mustafa describes the aftermath of last night’s attacks at Baptist Hospital in Gaza City:
“It was just mostly women and children burned head to toe, limbs missing, heads missing…”
🧵 Israel has resumed its genocide in Gaza.
After weeks of systematically violating ceasefire agreements, Israel launched massive airstrikes across Gaza overnight, targeting homes, hospitals, and shelters for displaced civilians.
