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Asvatha

@asvatha.bsky.social
1K followers 725 following 100 posts

PhD (Communication Studies). Interested in researching media, emerging technologies, and governance. Currently looking at algorithmic state surveillance. Trying something new: medium.com/@fireflyclass

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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
"the AI bubble is based on the whims of maybe a few hundred companies spending money on two companies to justify five companies spending money with one company." www.wheresyoured.at/concentratio...
wheresyoured.at
Concentration Risk
If you liked this piece, you should subscribe to my premium newsletter, and you can subscribe on the following links: $70 a year, $18 a quarter, or $7 a month. In return you get a weekly newsletter t...
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
trying to find a really really good blog post on the humans holding up the AI machine that I read a WHILE ago.. it included bits about the chess automaton, referred to ghost work (i think), and was just really well written.. help!
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 09/09/2026
I’m old enough to remember people calling them the ethical ai company.
prospect.org
Anthropic Is Building a Predictive Surveillance System to Monitor Activists - The American Prospect
New hires and comments in interviews show that the AI giant is using its capabilities against dissenters.
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Incredible investigation into some of the consequences of India's techno-solutionism in governance and welfare delivery. www.decodeinternet.in/decode/india...
decodeinternet.in
India’s Facial Recognition Drive On Hungry Children Is Erasing Them
A Decode investigation finds that India’s use of facial recognition tech in its 50-year-old nutrition welfare programme is now extending to young children, creating new layers of exclusion.
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
change my mind: written consent forms are not conducive to truly participatory research, especially in non-western contexts
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
is there a website or something that gives you context on all these newly sprouted tech related think-tanks/labs/institutes or do you just have to be in the know? someone needs build a tea repository: what is the end-game here? what are the backend politics at play? who's paying the salaries?
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
While this is still a BIG win, there is a difference between saying no to AI and saying not yet (as @saifshahin.bsky.social and I show in our paper examining the CA moratorium on police use of body cams). Imp that we don't let the AI bros take over the narrative during the "not yet" period.
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MIT Press @mitpress.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
"Smart, extremely well-informed, and highly recommended." — @couldrynick.bsky.social @aramsinn.bsky.social and Jesse Gilbert's "The Secret Life of Data," the 2025 Nancy Baym Book Award winner, is now available in paperback: mitpress.mit.edu/978026204881... @aoir.bsky.social
A paperback copy of "The Secret Life of Data: Navigating Hype and Uncertainty in the Age of Algorithmic Surveillance" by Aram Sinnreich and Jesse Gilbert on a plain background. The cover features an illustration of various smart objects on a bookshelf.
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Incredible read www.decodeinternet.in/labour/the-w...
decodeinternet.in
The Women Training Humanoid Robots From Their Kitchens In Rajasthan
Thousands of workers, many of them women working from home, are filming everyday tasks to train humanoid robots—for a fraction of what the companies building them earn.
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Interesting take on the US data center backlash from @gvrkiran.bsky.social . The one thing that is maybe perceptibly different in India is the broad support for data centers from decision makers, policy actors, and a (too) large section of the public. kirangarimella.substack.com/p/some-thoug...
kirangarimella.substack.com
Some thoughts on the AI data center backlash
TL;DR The data center backlash isn’t NIMBY, isn’t misinformation, and isn’t Chinese bots.
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Stoked to be temporarily wading back into academia with this lecture on surveillance and state power at Stella Maris College in Chennai. (Mostly looking forward to speaking to a group of smart politically aware young women about this topic that's increasingly significant in their/our lives)
Poster for a guest lecture at Stella maris college on AI Surveillance and Expansion of State Power by Dr Asvatha Babu on 28 August at 3:30 pm.
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Tech Policy Press @techpolicypress.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Petra Molnar, a fellow at Tech Policy Press, argues that migrant deaths at automated borders "are not malfunctions or byproducts, but rather the system actually working as designed." This perspective is drawn from her new open-access book.
techpolicy.press
The Racial Necrotechnics That Lead to Death By Design at Automated Borders
Modern borders preserve a racial distribution of wealth and mobility that was built through centuries of imperialism and colonialism, writes Petra Molnar.
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Tech Policy Press @techpolicypress.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Subhashis Banerjee from Ashoka University examines the evidence behind Aadhaar's core technical and fiscal claims and finds it weaker than its reputation suggests — from self-reported deduplication accuracy to widely cited savings figures.
techpolicy.press
Aadhaar's Success Story Deserves a Closer Look
Remarkably little of the domestic critique appears to have shaped how the system is described to the rest of the world, writes Subhashis Banerjee.
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Interesting series of posts unpacking the idea of digital sovereignty and arguing for a "polycentric model" as an alternative to state-centric ones (reminded me a bit of the idealism that went into the early push for multi-stakeholder internet governance) datalawpolicy.com/the-policy-p...
datalawpolicy.com
The Digital Sovereignty Bandwagon (Part 1)
Authors: Kriti Trehan, Siddharth Aiyar
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
the visceral anxiety of being kept in the dark and having the rug pulled out from under your feet by a government that's supposed to serve you behanbox.com/2026/08/20/t...
behanbox.com
‘The Data Center Has Taken Everything: Our Lands, Future, Happiness’
In this instalment of BehanBox Talkies, two Dalit women from Andhra Pradesh speak about their fight for their rights even as multinational tech-giants power a global AI boom
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
It's always "the tech can't even do the thing you're afraid of" until it's "we did it and here's why that's a good thing"
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
somebody tell me how to feel about this kotaku.com/liquid-death...
kotaku.com
Jason Kelce Ad Asks Us To Send Piss To Our Local AI Data Center
The former NFL player suggests you pee in a jar and put it in the mail
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Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
Discriminatory instincts, encoded into flawed databases, handed back to police as algorithmic confirmation. Dr. Asvatha Babu maps the injustice baked into one of the world's most expansive surveillance systems—a system most Indians don't know exists.
techpolicy.press
India is Building Surveillance Infrastructure on Broken Data and Bad Policing
Each layer of the stack amplifies the errors of the layer beneath it, writes Dr. Asvatha Babu.
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Tech Policy Press @techpolicypress.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Discriminatory instincts, encoded into flawed databases, handed back to police as algorithmic confirmation. Dr. Asvatha Babu maps the injustice baked into one of the world's most expansive surveillance systems—a system most Indians don't know exists.
techpolicy.press
India is Building Surveillance Infrastructure on Broken Data and Bad Policing
Each layer of the stack amplifies the errors of the layer beneath it, writes Dr. Asvatha Babu.
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Coming out of hibernation to plug this piece I wrote for @techpolicypress.bsky.social on why we need to pay attention to the steady expansion of surveillance infrastructure in India. www.techpolicy.press/india-is-bui...
techpolicy.press
India is Building Surveillance Infrastructure on Broken Data and Bad Policing
Each layer of the stack amplifies the errors of the layer beneath it, writes Dr. Asvatha Babu.
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
that's what I'm saying! medium.com/@fireflyclas...
medium.com
Stop telling me I don’t know enough about AI.
Okay, this is very India-coded but I’ve had enough of people telling me, despite my 6-yr long PhD where I went pretty deep into…
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Rest of World @restofworld.org · 14/04/2026
While the U.S. currently houses 54% of the world's hyperscale data centers, the infrastructure is expanding into countries like India, where the rush for land is sparking protests restofworld.org/2026/india-data-cen…
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
Don't worry tech cos being chased out of US states, our beloved pm is happy to lend our population dense, resource scarce country for your ugly, energy guzzling, data centers. edition.cnn.com/2026/04/12/c...
edition.cnn.com
Data centers are spreading around the country. Now, data-center bans are, too | CNN
In the coming weeks, Maine could be the first state in the nation to pass a temporary moratorium on new data centers. At least four other states are poised to do the same. Proponents say these bills a...
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
This recent trend of media coverage fawning over "frugal AI" makes me think of the way people love to valorize indian "jugaad" without recognising the serious systemic problems that necessitate such improvisational work.
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
trying to make my way out of post phd disassociation from thinking too deeply and i'm being tested by the cosmos
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
man, i really took my US institutional access to research journals and databases for granted when i was a student
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
Writing on the wall.
Blackboard at a coffee shop in tamil nadu informing customers that they are operating with limited menu due to the cylinder crisis as a result of the war in Iran
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
I'm not saying STEM grads being exposed to humanities/critical studies etc will solve all or even many of the current problems with big tech but I'm having a hard time with the idea that it won't help at all. Who has done research on this? What can I read to understand this better?
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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 30/03/2026
Over at the newsletter I wrote about the unholy scourge that is "CEO said a thing!" journalism:
karlbode.com
"CEO Said A Thing!" Journalism
"CEO said a thing!" journalism involves parroting the claims of a business leader or executive with absolutely no context, correction, or challenge whatsoever, no matter how elaborate the delusion.
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
Happy to announce (belatedly) that I'm #PhDone! I defended my dissertation "Guilty Faces: Localizing Surveillance through the Cultural Construction of Facial Recognition" last month.
Screenshot of Title Slide of dissertation with a photo of the presenter.  Screenshot of the dissertation defense Zoom meeting room with icons of all attendees.
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
I assure you that you do not actually have to contribute to the great American Casteist NRI vs Racist White Person debates of 2024.. You don't have to speak up for your "Indian friends" and definitely don't have to learn and spout half-baked nonsense about the US immigration process.
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 25/12/2024
Petition to ban the word oomf on bsky
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 25/12/2024
Someone smarter than me needs to write a paper calculating the point at which the informational landscape becomes so polluted with garbage that the genAI hallucination problem becomes unsolvable by fact checking mechanisms.
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
Hard relate! This whole PhD has been a process of catching up with "basic" theory and foundational scholarship that everyone else already seems to know and is able to pull out (correctly) at whim.
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
Randomly meeting one of my to-be mentors at a random event and getting a chance to speak with her for 10 mins (which was all the time she needed to convince me that I'm meant to do a PhD instead of job hunting in the DC think tank circuit)
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
American hubris is really a difficult net to avoid huh? However thoughtful their work is & however they're placed in the socio-cultural hierarchy in the US, you eventually get hit with the casual "we're the best/greatest/insert other superlative in the world" when you least expect it
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
Dropped by Twitter after a while to see what I missed and Xed outta there so fast. Indian men having a normal one over there to looks like.. I am not looking forward to the day the hordes get here.
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Chaz Hutton @chazhutton.com · 11/12/2024
Googling Stuff: Then v Now.
This title if the comic is ‘Googling Stuff…’
The comic shows two columns: on the left is “Then” showing search results with one thing listed as “the thing you want”

On the right column is ‘Now’ - also showing search results but in this case it’s a whole bunch of stuff you don’t need:

AI TAKING A WILD STAB AT IT WITH SOME
BLATANT MISINFORMATION

SPONSORED RESULT

SPONSORED RESULT

SPONSORED RESULT

SPONSORED RESULT

PEOPLE ALSO ASK

VIEW PRODUCTS

And then right at the bottom just off screen is ‘the thing you want’
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 11/12/2024
Companies are so surveillance-pilled and data hungry that they are trying to get everyone to believe that one of the worst aspects of modern technology—that you are constantly surveilled—is now a thing you should wholeheartedly embrace and integrate into every aspect of your existence.
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
My biggest problem with gen AI is that by the time the tech "gets better" (whatever that means), AI slop and hallucinations would have already permeated the information ecosystem, and the damage to the verifiability of facts will already be done.
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
Yes and also, just like the earlier form of the question, it's more complicated than have/have not. Case in point: the number of Indian origin bot accounts on Twitter spewing chatgpt slop as engagement bait in replies to viral tweets while being questionably informed.
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 09/12/2024
the feminine urge to repost every #PhDone skeet with the caption me when
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 09/12/2024
Get my family to stop giving their pics to an AI app for fun challenge
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 09/12/2024
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 09/12/2024
I have interacted with precisely ZERO T****r Sw*ft posts in my life and yet both my bluesky and Twitter feeds are saturated with her. Am I just the exact target audience? Is this happening for everyone else? How many accounts do I block before it stops?
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 09/12/2024
Alright cool now that we're all agreed that gen AI is real, dangerous, fake, and sucks, let's not lose sight of the fact that AI is more than LLMs and chatbots.
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 09/12/2024
Brilliant essay (also read all the linked pieces)
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Asvatha @asvatha.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
Incredible geographical diversity on the schedule here
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