iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

We Are Better Than This @better-than-this.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

At WABTT, we think that there are things that are simply better when done away from a screen — chatting with people is certainly one of them. If you are based in London, join us for our WABTT SOCIAL #02. Same place, same relaxed vibe. We look forward to seeing you there!

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We Are Better Than This @better-than-this.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Some beautiful shots by photographer Nadia ten Wolde, who captured our panel discussion on AI and the creative industries at Playgrounds In Motion London. Thanks to the organisers of this amazing event and to our audience at the Barbican, who brought many brilliant questions to the conversation.

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Ed Newton-Rex @ednewtonrex.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Upending creatives’ rights in the name of national security is a lazy and poorly-thought-through idea that would fail to deliver on its goals but would be sure to harm the world’s creative community. It should be fought at all costs. /end

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Jared Yates Sexton @jysexton.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Just helping with editing here. These bots aren’t sentient. They’re doing what they’re programmed to do. OpenAI, a private company supposedly bound by laws, committed federal crimes.

Screenshot of BBC article: OpenAI bots (struck through) meddled with multiple US government agency sites

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Adam Becker @adambecker.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

@aoc.bsky.social just put out a great statement on AI. Refreshing to see a major politician on the left nail this. "Silicon Valley billionaires want us to believe that Al robots will destroy humanity. But the biggest threat to humanity are the tech oligarchs themselves." 🎯

Charles,

Last weekend, Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, one of the largest Al companies in the world, publicly asked his industry to slow down Al development.

Shortly after, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAl, followed suit. Then Elon Musk.

This all came days after an Anthropic researcher quit, citing his belief that this technology could wipe out humanity and that Al companies are "gambling with our lives."

For years, people have warned that generative Al could slip out of our direct control.

Those safety concerns must be taken seriously.

And this is why I have advocated for strict safety standards on how Al is built and deployed, public oversight over this technology, and using existing laws to hold these companies accountable when they cause harm.

But I want to draw your attention to another reality: Right now, the U.S. economy and our financial futures are riding on Silicon Valley's bet that Al will soon be immensely profitable and pay off. And that bet isn't looking good.

The formula for a profitable business isn't complicated: make more money than you spend. But the biggest Al companies aren't doing that. They are spending hundreds of billions per year on data centers, chips, and other costs while their ability to make revenues that exceed their already-immense sunk costs are unclear. Experts estimate that these Al companies will require another $600 billion of debt just to finance

themselves in 2026 alone. That is more than the entire budgets of the U.S. Departments of Justice, Transportation, & Education combined.
Meanwhile, despite almost every single one of these companies not turning a profit & having sunk billions of investor dollars in development of data centers & other infrastructure, Al companies are also on a spending spree of hundreds of millions of dollars in lobbying & dark money in our elections.
It would be one thing if we were discussing a few private companies with a poor business model. But last year, virtually all stock market gains - 80% - rested entirely on just a handful of Al companies.
That tells us two things:
1. Nearly the entire U.S. economy outside the Al industry is relatively stagnating and faring poorly & the gains from these few companies are disguising it; &
2. Millions of people's retirements - including their pensions, 401ks, & investments - are potentially exposed to this risk.
That's why these Al companies' dubious financial positions matter to working people.
These companies argue that debt is necessary. They'll tell you that building transformative technologies requires upfront capital, & that massive borrowing today will pay off in generating unprecedented prosperity tomorrow.
But this is not the typical debt that startups take on while they build out a company. We are talking about billions going on trillions of dollars leveraged with no indication that these companies will be able to recoup these funds profitably. And they are increasingly looking to the government as their source of cash.
In an effort to hide their debt, tech companies have been relying on "circular financing" where tech giants like Google, Amazon, & Microsoft give billions to Al startups like OpenAl & Anthropic, only for those startups to hand that money right back to buy Al processing power.
In other words, these Al companies are luring in new investors by making it look like their financials are healthier than they really are.

What's even worse is that retirement & pension funds are key to supporting this illusion.
When the Al companies issue bonds to raise more money, your pension funds & retirement accounts are some of the biggest buyers. When Musk's Al business went public, it became part of index funds where millions of Americans invest our savings. Many Americans don't even know that their retirement investments are tied up in these companies at all.
From Big Tech's perspective, that's a feature, not a bug. By tying our futures to their reckless gambling, Al billionaires are trying to make themselves too big to fail. They think they can take such dangerous risks because we will bail them out if things go wrong.
Sound familiar? This scene is dangerously reminiscent of the rampant speculation, corruption, & broken incentives leading up to the 2008 financial crisis that plunged millions of working class Americans into financial chaos that we never fully recovered from.
It is no accident that these warnings from Altman & Amodei come months-if not weeks-before these companies were meant to go public.
When companies go public, they have to be more transparent about how they are doing financially. And after a waiting period, they typically have to let private investors-like their own employees-sell their shares.
The New York Times recently confirmed that OpenAl has postponed going public for this very reason. They are in no rush for the truth about their finances to come out.
But the moment these oligarchs began to seek our public tax dollars & public contracts while exposing their companies to public pension funds & investments, they opened themselves to public accountability & scrutiny.
Silicon Valley billionaires have rigged the game & are attempting to shift their financial risk to working people: If they're right about Al's potential, they reap the profits. If they're wrong & the bubble bursts, they are setting up the American people to pick up the tab.
Heads, they win; tails, we lose.

We can stop this, and we shouldn't play their game. Together we can address both the economic and safety threats of unrestricted Al development and prevent financial chaos and stabilize market risk.

We must make it clear now that should the Al bubble pop, Congress should not bail out Big Tech.

And across our federal agencies, we have the authorities and tools to hold Al companies and their leaders accountable for releasing dangerous, unvetted, and defective products. We must not wait.

Silicon Valley billionaires want us to believe that Al robots will destroy humanity.

But the biggest threat to humanity are the tech oligarchs themselves.

It's time we hold them accountable.

Thank you for reading.

In solidarity,

Alexandria

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We Are Better Than This @better-than-this.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Brilliant new interview with @doctorow.pluralistic.net. @politicsjoe.bsky.social's coverage of tech has been outstanding, I hope they’re getting the credit they deserve: no tech-hype propaganda, AI is discussed as a political tool and a tool to discipline workers. www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL4V...

youtube.com

AI isn't Dangerous. America Is. | Cory Doctorow interview

YouTube video by PoliticsJOE

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We Are Better Than This @better-than-this.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

"The material unearthed in discovery […] shows how the two tech titans have built a business model worth billions off the backs of news organizations"

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Writers' Guild of Great Britain @writersguildgb.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

“What would our industry look like if everything was created by machines? Who would tell the stories that reflect your life, tell your stories?” said WGGB General Secretary Ellie Peers, seconding a motion on AI at TUC Congress this week Watch Ellie’s speech 🔽 www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvW4...

youtube.com

Ellie Peers on writers and AI

YouTube video by Writers' Guild of Great Britain

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We Are Better Than This @better-than-this.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

This week We Are Better Than This will be at Playgrounds’ animation festival, In Motion London, to speak about the rise and proliferation of generative AI across the cultural landscape and how we can come together to stand up to Big Tech. weareplaygrounds.nl/slot/in-moti...

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Creators' Rights Alliance @creatorsrights.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Anyone who has loved a film, a book, a portrait or a song knows that if the people working in the creative industries don't earn enough to keep the industry going, the country stands to lose a lot more than income...

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The Society of Authors @societyofauthors.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

We’re asking for your help to get Burnham’s Government to act on AI and copyright. Alongside fellow members of the Creators’ Rights Alliance, we’re sharing the We Are Better Than This video animation which outlines the fears and concerns shared by many creators and society at large. 🧵

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We Are Better Than This @better-than-this.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

"the next five years and the way that government acts or doesn’t act to protect our sector will define what the next hundred years looks like for every writer in this country." "we’re facing our moment of enclosure […] and how we’re supported, is crucial." writersguild.org.uk/jack-thorne-...

writersguild.org.uk

‘Writers are facing our moment of enclosure – we must fight the destruction of our profession’ - The Writers' Guild of Great Britain

Read Jack Thorne’s speech in full here “The Government is staring at AI with eyes wider than Bugs Bunny. It doesn’t know what it is, it doesn’t know whether to …

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We Are Better Than This @better-than-this.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Hey, @bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social, do you mind letting your author and illustrators know how do you plan to use your forthcoming "learning tools”? What do you have in place to safeguard the copyrighted work that is on your systems, which authors haven't licensed for AI?

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We Are Better Than This @better-than-this.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

A “filmmaker" asked Herzog to take part in some AI-generated pastiche derived from his documentaries. Answer: “You will fail. It is such a stupid idea. It’s phenomenally, abysmally stupid. I will not take part in it.” What a legend. www.indiewire.com/features/int...

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Pull The Plug @pulltheplug-ai.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Yet again, Big Tech's demands have been placed atop the pecking order, drowning out the voices of the local communities that this government pretends to serve. This is not democracy, and this is not true representation.

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We Are Better Than This @better-than-this.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Brilliant episode of The Tech Report: "AI Bubble: ‘They did such a good job shooting themselves in the foot’" There’s nothing like an interview with @bcmerchant.bsky.social to rebalance your media diet with an healthy intake of common sense. www.youtube.com/watch?v=XebC...

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We Are Better Than This @better-than-this.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

CALL for EVIDENCE open to all workers in the cultural and creative sectors. Can you please: - contribute to it - share widely through your network

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We Are Better Than This @better-than-this.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Our banner-maker-extraordinaire friend has made a companion for her “AI is the THIEF of EVERYTHING” banner. It’s gorgeous, isn’t it? Perhaps we should take it for a stroll dawn Brick Lane... substack.com/@janeporter/...

substack.com

Jane Porter (@janeporter)

Just finished making a new banner… I hope scraping this will give AI a big dose of indigestion!

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We Are Better Than This @better-than-this.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

"To the AI billionaires, the issue isn’t that AI is making everybody’s life worse for the benefit of a few ultra-powerful corporations[…]. Rather, it’s an issue of “trust,” an entirely subjective concept that can be easily overcome with a little razzle-dazzle.' futurism.com/artificial-i...

futurism.com

Clueless AI CEOs Still Baffled Why Everybody’s So Mad About AI All the Time

Tech executives are convinced that the public's hatred of AI can be solved with a little feel-good razzle-dazzle.

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We Are Better Than This @better-than-this.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

"It’s easy to feel helpless when pushing back against the whims of giant, well-funded tech companies, but the recent rollbacks of some AI features stand as a reminder about the power of collective action." “Remind people that public pressure works.”

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We Are Better Than This @better-than-this.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

One of the most recognisable and consistently reliable sources of information on AI, copyright and the creative industries has organised a second Creators Emergency Summit. The event is open to all those who create for a living and want to know how to protect their work from AI exploitation.

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We Are Better Than This @better-than-this.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

@glovelace.bsky.social at Charting Gen AI covers the hack of image-sharing platform Cara, which was scraped twice in a week. We Are Better Than This was asked to comment on this latest casualty of lack of regulation and political will to protect artists. grahamlovelace.substack.com/p/what-the-h...

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We Are Better Than This @better-than-this.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

"AI's assault on our ability to know isn't a new battle – rather, it's the latest barrage in a war that's been waged for years, as corporations grew larger and more powerful, capturing their regulators, who let them lie to us and abuse us with impunity." AI isn’t a technological issue.

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Private Eye Magazine @privateeyenews.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

With more rivers running dry and reservoirs getting dangerously empty as Britain sweltered in another heatwave, there was an urgent call today for people to stop using water for unnecessary purposes. From the new Private Eye, out now.

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Fiorella @fiorella.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

AI is not inevitable.

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Brian Merchant @bcmerchant.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

A wild story that sums up so much about this moment. Rare books bought up by a hyperscaler, driven across the country by truck, scanned and fed into the woodchipper by low wage workers so the rich can build and own systems that squeeze, surveil, and automate labor and control knowledge generation.

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We Are Better Than This @better-than-this.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

A new investigation by Emanuel Maiberg reveals that Amazon is scanning and destroying books, many of them rare. Never buy books there. The outcome of the Anthropic lawsuit was a disgrace. bsky.app/profile/404m...

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We Are Better Than This @better-than-this.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Charting explains why the label that identifies a so called “AI artist,”is not good enough: it is the music track themselves that need labelling, otherwise "the actual volume problem, AI-generated tracks displacing royalty pools at scale, isn’t addressed at all.” AI output outcompetes people’s work

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The Society of Authors @societyofauthors.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

You did it! 10,000 of you have signed the petition calling on Government to protect creators from the existential threat of GenAI. This means the Government will be required to respond. Next target is 100,000 signatures, when it will be considered for a debate in Parliament.

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We Are Better Than This @better-than-this.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Are you going to be in London on Wednesday evening? Take a break from your devices and join us for a drink! Let's chat about AI, its myth and its realities. We look forward to meeting you IRL :-) WABTT

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We Are Better Than This @better-than-this.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Whether the last government did this out of naivety, ignorance or an unwarranted hope that this would get them a favourable trade deal with the US, Andy Burnham’s government needs to apologise for this and commit to enforcing UK copyright law.

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Ed Newton-Rex @ednewtonrex.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

AI companies like to argue in court that their models don’t financially harm the people whose work they train on. They think this strengthens their claims of fair use. That argument is surely now well and truly dead. /end

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We Are Better Than This @better-than-this.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

We Are Better Than This at the @societyofauthors.bsky.social's headquarter earlier this week to talk about artists’ rights, upcoming campaigns and meet other creative rights organisations. So much energy in the room, we can’t wait to work together! (Featuring Jane Porter’s iconic banner, of course)

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Ed Newton-Rex @ednewtonrex.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

The UK government refuses to release the register of interests of the Prime Minister's main adviser on AI, depsite her being an ex-OpenAI exec. There is obviously a possibility she owns OpenAI shares, and it is vital the public knows whether or not she does. Why will they not release it?

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We Are Better Than This @better-than-this.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Yesterday we took a break from the Illustrators’ Fair and took our friend Jane’s iconic banner for a walk around London’s King’s Cross. Some businesses in the neighbourhood seemed like a nice backdrop for some commemorative photo.

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We Are Better Than This @better-than-this.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

An open petition asks the Government to introduce a statutory duty requiring AI developers to disclose the copyrighted works used to train generative AI in enough detail for creators to identify use of their work and enforce their rights. Please sign and share petition.parliament.uk/petitions/76...

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We Are Better Than This @better-than-this.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Artists’ work has been stolen and our future earnings risk being undercut by mediocre surrogates generated with bots. This Saturday, 18th July, we’ll be at the Illustrators’ Fair in London to chat about our aims and answer all questions. Join us! Simona, Benji, Ged, Chris, Momoko.

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We Are Better Than This @better-than-this.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Governments around the world are protecting Big Tech’s interests instead of the people. It doesn’t have to be like this. Together we can shape a better future. Join us. www.wearebetterthanthis.co.uk

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