Gone are the days when “cloud” as a metaphor could hide the material impacts of data centers, so now they are sold with AI hype.
06.03.2026 14:01
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Gone are the days when “cloud” as a metaphor could hide the material impacts of data centers, so now they are sold with AI hype.
On the next Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000, @mwoluchem.bsky.social and @livgar.bsky.social join me and @alexhanna.bsky.social to get into the reality of data center construction.
Livestream info:
Monday, March 9, noon PT,
twitch.tv/dair_institute
AI is central to this illegal war.
New from me -
buttondown.com/creativegood...
There is such an easy route that Uni's are failing to take. Lead with culture change. Stop spamming us about the new software and partnerships. Stop the endless workshops in the teaching and learning centers. Start talking about what learning is and when these products help or hurt this process.
If your tent is big enough for fascists, it's no longer a tent but a concentration camp in the making.
A quick note on that new "AI declaration", which is mostly just a bit clueless but which also assembled some of the most vile people on the planet for a bunch of scientists and activists to put there name next to.
https://tante.cc/2026/03/05/nothing-to-declare/
What do tech dudes have to be mad about? We interview author and activist @naomiaklein.bsky.social on our latest episode of Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000. Check out Episode 72: How the War Department Learned to Stop Worrying and Love AI.
(cc @emilymbender.bsky.social)
Them: Why don't you make common cause with the doomers?
Us: Because there is a scare resource we are competing for: policy maker attention
Bernie: Posts a video on X of a conversation he had with Yud & co at MIRI.
@alexhanna.bsky.social e io siamo al settimo cielo per la traduzione in Italiano del nostro libro "The AI Con"; "L’inganno dell’intelligenza artificiale" sarà disponibile il 17 Marzo!
fazieditore.it/libro/979125...
Scare was meant to be scarce, but yeah.
Meanwhile, the MIRI crowd are busy making friends with the (overt) fascists.
See this analysis by @tante.cc :
bsky.app/profile/tant...
Them: Why don't you make common cause with the doomers?
Us: Because there is a scare resource we are competing for: policy maker attention
Bernie: Posts a video on X of a conversation he had with Yud & co at MIRI.
Perhaps you don't read Italian and haven't understood the title of this book?
I am going to shed my human form and swallow Grammarly's HQ whole. (But maybe I'll wait until the class-action lawsuit brought by Dreyer et al. has concluded. I may well be one of the alia.)
@alexhanna.bsky.social e io siamo al settimo cielo per la traduzione in Italiano del nostro libro "The AI Con"; "L’inganno dell’intelligenza artificiale" sarà disponibile il 17 Marzo!
fazieditore.it/libro/979125...
Uh, no. The point of academic freedom is that you can pursue scholarship *even if* it pisses off other academics (and other power brokers, more importantly). But this clown isn't pursuing scholarship, so.
The immediate person I'm QT-ing? That list of mutuals is distressing me.
Uh, no. The point of academic freedom is that you can pursue scholarship *even if* it pisses off other academics (and other power brokers, more importantly). But this clown isn't pursuing scholarship, so.
Thanks, dude. A little mansplaining was definitely what was missing from my day.
If that's how you plan to behave, I feel sorry for your students, your colleagues, and whomever could have made better use of your tenured post.
Prof. @akoustov.bsky.social, the point of tenure is academic freedom, but you seem to be either announcing to the world that you aren't interested in doing research, that you have no respect for the work (or time) of other scholars, or both.
>>
It's been pointed out to me that @akoustov.bsky.social 's pinned post (from 2 months ago) is one announcing that he just got tenure.
>>
"Author"
Sharing before I get blocked to flag that he is in fact showing his whole ass here.
... and the author admits he's wasting everyone's time with synthetic text.
bsky.app/profile/akou...
Boy do I dislike my quibble being prescient!
It would be tempting to do thematic analysis on the quote-skeets here, if only the sample could be understood as representative of anything.
It's not even just a single article. It's a whole newsletter series.
At the end of @theguardian.com articles there's a banner explaining how they don't have an owner so they cannot possibly be bought by oligarchs. They forget to mention that a big 'partnership' with OpenAI motivates advertorial articles like this. They HAVE been bought.
Obvious ai manipulation on the left. Original photo by David Batcheller on the right. Look at the wings, feather shape, head, neck and bill shape, lack of tail etc. This is way more than a filter and absolutely destroys the joy and wonder of the original.
So loads of people are sharing an obvious ai "glow up" of an actual photo. I never share ai stuff even to dunk, but in this case I'm sharing a comparison to show the problem. We have to stand against this slop at every level or it becomes normalised. They want us to stop caring. See alt text.
