iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Arrianna Marie Planey, PhD MA @arrianna-planey.bsky.social · 7h

"Magnuson’s doctors asked for approval again after providing more documentation, and then a third time. On each occasion, it was denied. It was on the third denial that Magnuson discovered it wasn’t a person who had made this decision about his treatment. It was AI." #Medicare

sciencefocus.com

AI is now deciding who gets healthcare in 6 US states – and it's already harming patients | BBC Science Focus Magazine

An AI pilot programme is attempting to cut down on ‘wasteful’ medical procedures, and patients are paying the price

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Kevin J. Kircher @kevinjkircher.com · 26/09/2026

Microsoft's data center subcontractor in New Jersey illegally runs a bunch of gas "backup" generators on site, figuring they won't get caught or will just eat the wrist-slap fines if they do. Regulatory enforcement is so bad that a third party had to take drone images to get the state to act.

theguardian.com

New Jersey datacenter fined $1.1m after visual investigation showed dozens of unpermitted generators

State regulator’s record fine for DataOne facility in Vineland follows Floodlight investigation with the Guardian

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Heba Gowayed هبة جويد @hebagowayed.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

What were not talking about is that the Ivy League, by design, with its construction of “status” and “value” is designed to create men for whom there are no consequences & to dehumanize everyone else. This the Cornell 7. Thus the expulsion of anyone who dares protest genocide. This is privilege.

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Julián Posada @posada.website · 28/09/2026

With #PlatformExtractivism out October 20, here’s a preview: two maps of average client and worker web traffic, 2018–2023. Venezuela stands out. The book explores why it became a data work hub, focusing on working conditions, territory, and epistemology. 🔗 More Info: www.ucpress.edu/books/platfo...

Two grayscale world maps show average client and worker web traffic across 20 platforms, 2018–2023. Darker shading indicates higher traffic shares; the lightest shade indicates no data.

Top map, client traffic: United States 34.6%; Netherlands and United Kingdom 9.8% each; Canada 5.2%; Russia and India 4.9% each; Belize 4.1%; Brazil 2.7%; France 2.5%; Philippines 2.4%.

Bottom map, worker traffic: United States 22.9%; India 12%; Brazil 8.6%; Philippines 8.5%; Venezuela and Kenya 6.2% each; Albania 5.8%; Colombia 4.2%; Nigeria 2.6%; Morocco 2.1%.

Source: Julián Posada, Platform Extractivism, University of California Press, 2026.

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Catherine D'Ignazio (she/her/ella) @kanarinka.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

MIT spent $3 million on 500 AI-capable surveillance cameras while laying people off, shutting down libraries, and canceling journal subscriptions. In this article, 4 faculty & I discuss our new arts initiative to celebrate surveillance and repression on college campuses: fnl.mit.edu/how-we-learn...

fnl.mit.edu

How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Campus Surveillance – MIT Faculty Newsletter

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Dan Greene @dmgreene.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Imagine if this was batteries, solar panels, and wind farms. Maybe some hospitals and care homes!

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beth semel @bethmsemel.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

feels like the real story here is insurers admitting that their goal with automated administrative tools, which has now backfired, was to cut healthcare spending i.e. "reduce # of billable conditions identified," a nicer way of saying "expand coverage denials thru more 'precise' risk stratification"

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Miranda Yaver @mirandayaver.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Well we’ve certainly seen how much health insurers love to do the right thing all on their own, left to their own devices. Nothing gives them a greater thrill than approving coverage for prescribed care within the patient’s package of benefits.

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beth semel @bethmsemel.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

and this is why instead of a mean machine god takeover i'm way more concerned about, among other things, companies selling "automated golden thread documentation transcription software" to mental healthcare providers (ie automating pt progress documentation which is reviewed during insurance audits)

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dylan baker @dylnbkr.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Roombas have SUPERHUMAN vacuuming abilities. & I don't want to alarm you, but when we taped a bunch of knives to one and gave it rocket boosters... it displayed emergent living room destroying properties. Please give me $100000000 to ensure rocket-powered knife roombas don't end human civilization 😔

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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

There is a lot of new info in this article, based on documents, Slack chats, instruction guides, and me seeing real ChatGPT user prompts in the review system. Firstly, a worker we spoke to thinks ChatGPT users have no idea their chats may be read by someone else www.404media.co/inside-proje...

“No,” someone who works with the prompts said when asked if they think ChatGPT users know that humans are reading their chats. “I don’t think they would imagine some contractor somewhere [...] is analyzing the conversations.”

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Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Researchers across the country are turning to side hustles to fund their work. Behind the cuts sits a bigger shift: whether American science can still sustain durable research capacity. @lindseydcameron.bsky.social and I examine the stakes in a new piece @science.org: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

science.org

The wrong platform for science

Daniel Blumstein recently sat in a Colorado meadow waiting for yellow-bellied marmots to appear, as the ecologist and evolutionary biologist had done many times before, the New York Times reported. Bu...

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Data Workers’ Inquiry @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

What happens to consent in a workplace where refusing a request means losing work? Find out in the new report by James Mojez Oyange, one of the workers whose face, voice and documents were collected by the companies that employed him. data-workers.org/mojez/

data-workers.org

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Emily Lim Rogers @elimrogers.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

yall Am*zon won’t restock my book til it gets more clicks apparently. can everyone click this link but buy from the press lol?? (cheaper). students who banked on Amazon aren’t getting their books on time www.amazon.com/Sick-Work-Ex...

amazon.com

Sick Work: Exhaustion, Labor, and Invisible Illness (ANIMA: Critical Race Studies Otherwise)

In , Emily Lim Rogers shows the unpaid labor it takes to be recognized as sick in the United States. Through a historical and ethnographic account of myalgic encephalomyelitis / chronic fatigue synd...

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Emily Lim Rogers @elimrogers.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

I’m off public-facing social media for the mental health reasons one might expect, but popping back on to say you can use code E26WORK for 30% off the book (now temporarily sold-out on Amazon) on the press website! www.dukeupress.edu/sick-work

dukeupress.edu

Sick Work: Exhaustion, Labor, and Invisible Illness

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beth semel @bethmsemel.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

[bene gesserit voice] burn the equity

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Joshua Foust 🪖🎮 @joshuafoust.com · 11/09/2026

I banned Meta glasses in my classes because students told me they are hesitant to speak up and engage if they think they’re being recorded. Apple releasing this feature is just another tech company setting off yet another bomb on young people trying to learn things and join society. Really gross.

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beth semel @bethmsemel.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

“Enshrining frontier labs in the hardened cloak of national security would not only give [them] even more access to intelligence products…it would also embolden these companies to shape how federal agencies view threats to their bottom line, now transformed as ‘critical infrastructure.’”

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Abstract Tesseract @abstracttesseract.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

politics? in MY artifacts?

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Zack Whittaker @zackwhittaker.com · 09/09/2026

Watching this Apple event tout how iPhones will soon be able to record ambient audio/conversations and transcribe "high level notes" for you. It's billed as private and end-to-end encrypted, but I think the bigger harm is the normalization of always-listening devices. It's creepy and not normal.

a screenshot from an iPhone and Apple Watch showing "recaps" of conversations from ambient audio.

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beth semel @bethmsemel.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

just took my cat to urgent care for a scary medical emergency and they were running some AI transcription software to automatically generate a visit note I fucking hate it here

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Society for Linguistic Anthropology @soclinganth.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

University of Michigan Ann Arbor invite applications for a tenured appointment at the rank of Associate or Full Professor to build and direct a new Mellon-funded interdisciplinary program promoting Environmental Justice and the Humanities, to begin August 25, 2027. apply.interfolio.com/192931

The Departments of Romance Languages and Literatures (RLL) and Anthropology in the College of Literature, Arts, and Science (LSA) at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor invite applications for a tenured appointment at the rank of Associate or Full Professor to build and direct a new Mellon-funded interdisciplinary program promoting Environmental Justice and the Humanities, to begin August 25, 2027.

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ana valdivia @anavaldi.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

🌱 "The Ecologies of Algorithmic Machines" is almost ready. This book draws on over three years of research into the supply chains of AI, offering a historical analysis of its materiality and environmental-making regimes while challenging the dichotomy between nature and algorithmic machines.

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beth semel @bethmsemel.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

prednisone-free since February !! (do not pmo/curse me/get me sick)

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tunes to make you run away @whippoorwont.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

"people are anthropomorphizing LLMs because they are so astonishingly good at processing human thought and language" people will anthropomorphize a chair if you put the stitches in the right place.

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s. e. smith @sesmith.lol · 03/09/2026

Gazans who need access to critical lifesaving care along with management of chronic illnesses are not being allowed to leave to get it while at the same time their medical infrastructure is in shambles. People are dying or experiencing unnecesary complications.

newlinesmag.com

The Patients Israel Won't Let Leave Gaza

For many Palestinians in the territory, survival depends on a chain of administrative decisions over which they have no control

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Tim Newman @tnewmsblues.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Some disturbing details here about how AI is being incorporated in the insurance claims process that can harm both workers and consumers. bsky.app/profile/wire...

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beth semel @bethmsemel.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

the thing about having done most of my ethnographic research during the last, pre-genAI "AI revolution" (2015-2017) and watched the rise and fucked up fall of too many "digital psychiatry" startups is that i feel like i already know how the "new and improved" genAI versions of these startups will do

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beth semel @bethmsemel.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

i don't need a AI model to understand this i need a HASTS MIT PhD student in the middle of their qualifying exams

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jon ben-menachem @jbenmenachem.com · 28/08/2026

sleeper sociology of science article here

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Anna Weichselbraun @annaw.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

@mcastelle.bsky.social offers a brief intellectual history of how a widespread disinterest for language as social action in STS and sociological theory has been challenged by the rise of LLMs. sociologica.unibo.it/article/view...

sociologica.unibo.it

Is Language Social Action? A Commentary on Language Agents | Sociologica

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Lilly Irani @gleemie.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Mechanical Turk may be shutting down, but AI will always depend on data workers whose knowledge trains and tunes models. AI runs on extracted cultural skills and knowledge, and culture is always changing. Less the end of an era, but the end of an early prototype.

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W.E.D.em Boyz @leftistwonk.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

ICE has fallen out of the headlines but July marked the largest number of migrant detentions ever on record. Five migrants have died in ICE custody in the last two months. It's also currently impossible to legally migrate to this country, as 100% of visa applications have been paused.

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ertruitt.bsky.social @ertruitt.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

🚨🚨🚨JOB ALERT: The HSS Department at Penn is hiring a tenure-track or tenured professor in the history of data/info science, computing, or AI. Please share widely! apply.interfolio.com/192132

apply.interfolio.com

Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio

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Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 21/08/2026

Well, well, well, I KNEW that the hounding of Arday was gonna get connected back to the TESCREAL bozos somehow. See this "paper" by the guy who hired Cofnas at Ghent University. Reminder "dysgenic" is the opposite of "eugenic," they mean Black people and other undesirables reproducing too much.

The dysgenics objection to longtermism
Bouke de Vries a,b,1
a Department of Philosophy, Ghent University, Belgium
b Department of Philosophy, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

A B S T R A C T
Strong longtermism maintains that how we should act morally is determined almost entirely by
the expected effects on the welfare of our descendants existing thousands if not millions of years
into the future, who might include both other humans and any artificial agents with a comparable
or higher moral status that we end up creating. It is based on three key assumptions: (i) that our
descendants will have a moral status that is at least as high as ours and therefore should not have
their welfare discounted by us; (ii) that there is a good chance that these individuals will vastly
outnumber us; and (iii) that we can do things here and now that can be expected to positively
shape the long-term trajectory of humanity. The aim of this contribution is to suggest that authors
such as Will MacAskill and Hilary Greaves have been too optimistic about all these assumptions as
a result of having ignored evidence that the populations of post-industrial countries are becoming
less intelligent due mostly to the negative relationship that has emerged within these societies
between intelligence and fertility and to the proclivity of intelligent people to delay parenthood.

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Tim Newman @tnewmsblues.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

If you would like to learn more about the role of Objectways and Labellerr in the global AI data work supply chain, check out DataWorkLandscape.org to learn more about their customers, business partners and investors.

A network graph from DataWorkLandscape.org showing some of Labellerr’s business relationships.

A network graph from DataWorkLandscape.org showing some of Objectways’ business relationships.

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beth semel @bethmsemel.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

this is hilarious[ly sad] to me, someone who has their blood drawn WAY TOO OFTEN, because i always use blood draws as an example of a banal but significant medical practice that requires deep tacit/tactical/relational knowledge to perform w/o tormenting the person on the other end of the needle

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beth semel @bethmsemel.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

absolute favorite song of all time, play it at my funeral

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Julián Posada @posada.website · 31/07/2026

We’re hiring at @yale.edu! The American Studies Program seeks an open-rank faculty member in U.S. Cultural History and Cultural Studies, starting July 1, 2027. Apply by Oct. 15, 2026 for full consideration: apply.interfolio.com/188467

apply.interfolio.com

Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio

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beth semel @bethmsemel.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

excited to see my article on "talking lures" in mental healthcare AI officially out in print in this issue!

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Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 13/08/2026

🔇 🔇 🔇 My book, Deep Unlearning, is now available for preorders! I don't know how people write so many books because this one took a lot out of me. It turns out, I had a lot to say 😂, with editors cutting out 50k of my words 🫣 ✴️ You can now preorder it at www.simonandschuster.com/books/Deep-U....

Cover of my new book, Deep Unlearning: The Rise of AI and The Radicalization of a Tech Idealist.

There are two concentric circles in the book, the left being circuits in black an white, and the right being a bunch of dots with orange accents. The cover background is cream. And the words are written in black except for "Un" which is in orange.

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Henry Suárez 😷💚🇻🇪 @sciedhenry.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Aw man my colleagues @saraevogel.bsky.social @bethmsemel.bsky.social Chris Proctor and I spent so much time on our upcoming book dissecting Amira, the language and tech ideologies it embodies, and its (v likely) deleterious effect in schools, especially for emergent bi/multilingual students. Uugghh

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