iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

after The Eye of the Master, we'll be reading "Hyperscale: The Ambition and Excess of Big Tech's Data Empires" by @parismarx.com. that debuts Oct 20, so please put in a preorder and try to get the book ASAP, because we'll start right away.

hyperscalebook.com

Hyperscale by Paris Marx

An eye-opening account of how the data-center boom is pushing our planet past its breaking point. A new book by Paris Marx.

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 29m

if you want to join us for this sprint of a book, please get a copy ASAP and sign up at the page below. emails go out mondays and fridays: mondays i point out what we're reading, and fridays i try to have some reflections and thoughts to provoke a conversation in the video chat at 3p eastern time.

buttondown.com

AI Skeptics Reading Group

A reading group for AI skeptics It's exactly what it sounds like!

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 29m

FYI if you're interested: the AI Skeptics reading group is starting "The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence" by Matteo Pasquinelli This week we're reading the Intro & chapter 1. next week we're reading Part I. the week after that we're reading Part II, finishing the book

bookshop.org

The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence

A social history of AI that finally reveals its roots in the spatial computation of industrial factories and the surveillance of collective behaviour.What is AI? A dominant view describes it as the qu...

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 15h

or alternatively do you think this represents a change in consensus among democrats (including schumer(!))

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 15h

maybe you've spoken to this elsewhere, but do you think this is one of those things where they know it won't cross the threshold so everyone can pretend to be courageous this one time (but when/if they're in any position to actually pass anything, suddenly a critical margin will equivocate/demur)?

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Kath Barbadoro @kathbarbadoro.bsky.social · 15h

Tbf it also exists to subject men to ritualized abuse in order to irreparably bond them to each other so that they won’t blow the whistle on all the raping

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Kat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · 16h

A truly heinous man has doxxed the Cornell victim on X and the comments are predictably vile. Based on countless interviews I’ve done with survivors, the trauma they are subjected to for coming forward is oftentimes even worse than the initial trauma they experienced. There is no real justice system

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 17h

it's also an incredibly, unreasonably charitable alternative to burning down the university.

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 17h

shutting down frat houses won't end rape culture, but it will disorganize a lot of rapists, and i think that's probably worth doing if only to destabilize what is apparently an ecology of organizations that functionally exist to rape women per the whole "purpose of a system is what it does" insight.

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 17h

was horrified reading about the gang rape of the cornell victim, and somehow it manages to get worse as people are apparently doxxing her now.

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 26/09/2026

this was really fun omg, lots of cool projects

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 25/09/2026

under no circumstances am i ever paying for "supergrok"

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 25/09/2026

if you're not able to make it today but you want to get in on the next book, we're reading "The Eye of the Master" by Matteo Pasquinelli. we're starting on monday (but it'll be a slow start before picking up the pace), so consider getting a copy from your local library

bookshop.org

The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 25/09/2026

hey, at 3p ET we're going to discuss The Nerd Reich by @gilduran.com one last time the last chapter in particular is worth reading if you just want to drop in today; it got me thinking a lot about imagination (citing @ruha9.bsky.social) and building an ambitious, inclusive future (w/o billionaires)

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 25/09/2026

there are a couple of tools that have a tiny shred of novelty to them, but so many tools and integrations are just like a window to a chatbot; just unimaginative. i don't know how to lament this garbage without risking sounding like i'm trying to give design feedback to "improve" it, so i'll stop 🫩

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 25/09/2026

i know i've griped about how it's baffling that, eg tools for correctly formatting parenthetical citations don't need to take the shape of a conversation - like that's just a reflection of an impoverished design imagination against a hegemonic backdrop - but i don't think i pursued it

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 25/09/2026

did someone write about how conspicuous and annoying it is that every tech intervention is like basically a chatbot these days? did i imagine that?

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 24/09/2026

as we've seen with reddit and lots of forums online, people can be intoxicated by a surprisingly trivial amount of power, too 🫠

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 24/09/2026

swear to god i'm using these as slides at some point. you can just start doing shit one day. start booing your city council! feel your way out from there!

When the council voted to send the bill to committee, someone in the crowd shouted “Bullshit!” Schrag tried to move on to the next agenda item, but the crowd booed and yelled. The mayor then paused the meeting, turned off the cameras, and cleared the room.
Police detained Powell, a freelance photographer in Springfield, as people filed out of the room. “I don’t have a lot of experience getting tickets or being detained,” Powell told 404 Media. “So this is kind of new for me.”

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 24/09/2026

i love that they're continuing to iterate

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 24/09/2026

imagine refusing to abide a world of surveillance and violence 🥵 omg

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 24/09/2026

abolition is my love language ✨

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justine zhang @tisjune.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

they're saying the AI can do math and science again, so it's time to reread Thurston's On Proof and Progress in Mathematics, a lovely articulation of the social work of assembling understanding, i.e., the best reason to tackle hard problems. www.ams.org/journals/bul...

When I started as a graduate student at Berkeley, I had trouble imagining
how I could "prove" a new and interesting mathematical theorem. I didn't
really understand what a "proof was.
By going to seminars, reading papers, and talking to other graduate students,
I gradually began to catch on. Within any field, there are certain theorems and
certain techniques that are generally known and generally accepted. When you
write a paper, you refer to these without proof. You look at other papers in the
field, and you see what facts they quote without proof, and what they cite in
their bibliography. You learn from other people some idea of the proofs. Then
you're free to quote the same theorem and cite the same citations. You don't
necessarily have to read the full papers or books that are in your bibliography.
Many of the things that are generally known are things for which there may be
no known written source. As long as people in the field are comfortable that
the idea works, it doesn't need to have a formal written source.

At first I was highly suspicious of this process. I would doubt whether a certain idea was really established. But I found that I could ask people, and they
could produce explanations and proofs, or else refer me to other people or to
written sources that would give explanations and proofs. There were published
theorems that were generally known to be false, or where the proofs were generally known to be incomplete. Mathematical knowledge and understanding were
embedded in the minds and in the social fabric of the community of people
thinking about a particular topic. This knowledge was supported by written
documents, but the written documents were not really primary.

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Ypsilanti District Library @ypsilibrary.org · 23/09/2026

Free flu and COVID vaccines at YDL-Whittaker start tomorrow! Walk-ins welcome. 📅 Thurs, Sept 24 | 4–8:30pm 📅 Tues, Sept 29 | 10am–1pm 📅 Sat, Oct 3 | 10am–2pm On Sept 24 and Oct 3, onWHARD will also be here with free anemia screenings, period kits, and health resources.

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to wound the autumnal kitty @blurry-line.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I firmly believe that we (queer ppl and especially trans ppl) should never talk to the press about intra-community conflicts. I can’t see any way that it can benefit us, and it’s obvious how it can hurt us.

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 23/09/2026

i keep seeing posts about zeynep tufecki and something or other about AI putting cancer researchers out of work or something, and like... did i miss something?

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 23/09/2026

add some lettuce, also slang for money.

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 22/09/2026

if you're looking for an appropriate number to donate, given my age, i'm 1000 years old today.

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 22/09/2026

Today is my birthday. If you can donate to The Sameer Project, I would really really appreciate it. Thanks!

thesameerproject.org

The Sameer Project – Palestinian-led mutual aid group working towards liberation

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Alex S. Vitale @alexvitale.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Who should I talk to in Detroit about Public Safety organizing?

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 21/09/2026

we don't give enough credit to the editors when the title is really good.

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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

New: we are starting to get data showing what cops are using Axon's license plate cameras for, which are replacing Flock around the country. But we need your help: is your city using Axon? We have written the request you need to get this data yourself. Get it here: www.404media.co/is-your-city...

404media.co

Is Your City Using Axon License Plate Cameras? We Need Your Help

404 Media is filing public records requests around the country to find out how cops are using Axon's ALPRs. Here is how you can do that too.

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 21/09/2026

not that i know of, but i would truly love to talk to an air traffic control worker about this...

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 21/09/2026

oh i forgot to link the one-pager from the FAA. the only mention of AI in the document is here > Using AI, SMART analyzes airline schedules, weather, airport capacity, airspace conditions, and operational constraints to predict traffic flows and identify potential conflicts before they occur (???)

faa.gov

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 21/09/2026

and again^2, no idea if that's the extent of it. if it turns out the company delivering this "SMART" system is just wrapping some garbage around chatGPT, then that's gonna be a bit more alarming. but it doesn't seem like that

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 21/09/2026

to be clear, i'm not bothered by FAA air traffic control workers having tools that tell them how far outside of historical patterns a flight is operating. that seems potentially useful. but... again lol, to call it AI is such a stretch (i mean, it's always a stretch, but this strains imagination)

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 21/09/2026

inside me there are two w̶o̶l̶v̶e̶s̶ passengers on a bus.

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 21/09/2026

a while ago i made a comment that pilots have a little-known hotline that they can call to get a briefing from a human being on the weather anywhere in the US. i joked/worried that turning that into a chatbot would be the easiest and dumbest shit i could imagine the white house doing. not there yet!

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 21/09/2026

i keep thinking about Lucy Suchman's "thinginess of AI" piece, or maybe more saliently @meredithmeredith.bsky.social's comments about AI as a marketing term. if Sean Duffy (secretary of transportation) or Trump says he wants AI, and you ever calculate a standard deviation or do a t-test, call it AI!

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 21/09/2026

i'm guessing it's somewhere above "intro to stats" and somewhere below "hooking up a chatbot and having the chatbot talk pilots through landing", but it's interesting that the FAA is doing comm's in that yawning chasm of ambiguity.

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 21/09/2026

i read a lot more about the FAA thing than i wanted to and i'm not sure they're doing any machine learning with this AI air traffic control thing. like forget about generative AI, transformers, neural nets, etc... the one-pager could be a (somewhat) fluffed up description of basic inferential stats.

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Ryan O'Horo @ryanohoro.com · 21/09/2026

et voilà, a portrait of Garrett Langley, CEO of Flock, rendered from leaked Flock license plate camera images. Plates were redacted before rendering.

Bust of a man, outdoors. In the background, sky, telephone pole, Flock safety camera and solar panel. Rendered from a mosaic of smaller images.

Tight zoom of a mosaic of license plate camera images featuring a swath of red vehicles and an empty street in other areas.

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 20/09/2026

thanks for this correction!

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 20/09/2026

@listifications.app is good, but pretty quickly i learned the patterns of the sorts of people who block me, and then it just became somewhat psychologically damaging, like a faucet with a leak that you hear dripping some nights

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