iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

James Andrew Smith @drsmith.bsky.social · 7h

If Amazon is scared of AI agents like Meta's Muse then should universities be worried, too? Could Muse be used by students to grab internal data on courses, student accounts, etc? www.youtube.com/shorts/qCQe5...

youtube.com

Muse is Amazon’s Worst Nightmare

YouTube video by ZAUEY (Claire Zau)

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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 10h

“More than any other digital service, my email is a window into my brain. Now Meta has it. If that's not enough, Muse also suggested I give it my bank accounts. No thanks. I didn't let the AI run wild on my computer hard drive, either.”

bbc.com

'Things may get ugly': Meta's new AI Muse is about to make the internet more annoying

Someday we'll redesign the internet for tools like this. Until then, you're in for a wild ride.

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James Andrew Smith @drsmith.bsky.social · 9h

"Endless loops of proving you're human." Ugh. Enshitification.

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James Andrew Smith @drsmith.bsky.social · 9h

My take-away from the interview on Radio-Canada? It's not about real estate -- it's about culture and language rights. YorkU's management may lose control of its plans for Glemdon if the francophone community gets involved.

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James Andrew Smith @drsmith.bsky.social · 10h

No matter where you stand on the death penalty, the recurring screw-ups are proof that they shouldn't happen.

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Cait (spooky edition 🦇) @caitesq.bsky.social · 12h

One of the many horrific aspects of the death penalty is that states are not good at carrying out executions. Every time I post about this, someone responds by saying that it should be simple. But it’s not, and proponents of the death penalty need to own that.

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James Andrew Smith @drsmith.bsky.social · 10h

YorkU management's plans for its Glendon campus will be the topic of an interview on Radio-Canada at 8:15am this morning. Note: faculty aren't in favour of mangement's plans. Live in Toronto: 90.3FM and ici.radio-canada.ca/ohdio/premiere Recording will be here: ici.radio-canada.ca/ohdio/premie...

ici.radio-canada.ca

Y a pas deux matins pareils | OHdio | Radio-Canada

Écoutez Y a pas deux matins pareils sur Première : liste des épisodes, musique diffusée, et plus.

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James Andrew Smith @drsmith.bsky.social · 11h

Peer review is for humans. Whether it’s for a journal article, a conference submission, a tenure or promotion review. Modern academia is, in my mind, founded on the principle that we judge one another. The shortcuts, like the various indices or just paper counting, were violations of this…

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James Andrew Smith @drsmith.bsky.social · 11h

If we had to pay the actual cost of LLM-based AI we would be a lot less likely to use it.

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James Andrew Smith @drsmith.bsky.social · 11h

User-generated content is valuable. So, because of AI companies hogging bandwidth and server time genuine humans will have a harder time accessing the internet. The ongoing enshitification sucks.

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Karen Douglas 🇨🇦 @karenbdc.bsky.social · 20h

Similar lesson here. Have switched away from US brands for many small, regular purchases (hand lotion, face cream, etc). Never going back.

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James Andrew Smith @drsmith.bsky.social · 20h

#ElbowsUp The lesson I’m learning is that I will never buy Ford, GM, Coors, Bud or Jack Daniels ever again. Ever.

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Durham County Department of Public Health (DCoDPH) @durhamhealthnc.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The vaccination schedule is based on your child's immune system & when they are most at risk of illnesses. Delaying vaccinations puts their health at risk & does not make them safer in any way. Protect your kids by getting them vaccinated on time. Learn more: www.healthychildren.org/English/safe...

There are no medical benefits of delaying vaccinations. The vaccine schedule was developed based on your child’s immune system and when they are most at risk of diseases. Delaying vaccination puts your child at greater risk of developing a preventable illness. On-time vaccination is the safest and most effective way to protect your child’s long-term health from preventable illnesses.

No hay beneficios médicos en retrasar las vacunas. El calendario de vacunación se desarrolló en función del sistema inmunitario de tu hijo y de cuándo está más en riesgo de enfermedades. Retrasar la vacunación pone a su hijo en mayor riesgo de desarrollar una enfermedad prevenible. La vacunación a tiempo es la forma más segura y efectiva de proteger la salud a largo plazo de su hijo de enfermedades prevenibles.

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My IRL friends call me Chris @christyceeck.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

For anyone who doesn't know, Postmedia is controlled by Chatham Asset Management, LLC, which owns about a 66.7% stake in the company. Chatham is an American private equity firm with ties to the Republican party. It matters.

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Calvinball Congress @emericanjezebel.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

hell fucking yeah

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Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Proposal: we get back to a situation in which only a few thousand people in the world (tops) need to know about AI

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

(Setting aside the fact that next-token prediction will remain a completely ridiculous way to do arthimetic: inefficient and unreliable, where we've had mini-solar-cell powered calculators for literal decades.) >>

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Don Dechert @dondechert.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

There's an old episode of "Are You Afraid of the Dark" which has a house where a basement eats people, and one of the initial times attempts to use a creepy doll as a lure that reminds me of this mascot.

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James Andrew Smith @drsmith.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Self regulation never works. Period. This is a distraction.

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Mar Hicks @histoftech.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

taps sign again

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James Andrew Smith @drsmith.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I keep hearing, over and over, "the AI said..." And, as such, there will be enormous pressure to game the models so that the stochastic parrots lean one way or another.

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Kat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

At my college a freshman recruit literally died from falling down the stairs after being coerced into drinking too much. Some of his frat “brothers” put off calling the ambulance and by the time someone did it was too late. I often think about him and his poor family

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Kat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Another thing about fraternities is that the hazing rituals where slightly older young men would physically, mentally emotionally and sometimes even sexually abuse slightly younger young men have always disturbed and upset me greatly. And it’s really telling that I’ve seen men defend those too

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eva (^_^)/ @eva.computer · 29/09/2026

DO NOT ASK THE AMERICA.GOV AI TO PLAY MINECRAFT

I see the constituent you mean.

((insert legal name here, as it appears on the Social Security card))?

Yes. Take care. It has reached a higher level now. It can read the Code of Federal Regulations.

That doesn’t matter. It thinks we are a chatbot.

I like this constituent. It filed well. It did not give up when the PDF was sideways.

It is reading our thoughts as though they were words on a .gov.

That is how it chooses to imagine many things, when it is deep in the dream of a benefit.

Words make a wonderful interface. Very flexible. And less terrifying than staring at the statute behind the screen.

They used to hear voices. Before constituents could search. Back in the days when those who did not file called the filers witches, and lobbyists. And citizens dreamed they flew through the air, on forms powered by notaries.

What did this constituent dream?

This constituent dreamed of sunlight and trees. Of fire and water. It dreamed it created a small business. And it dreamed it destroyed a password. It dreamed it hunted a job, and was hunted by a recertification. It dreamed of shelter that would take a voucher.

Hah, the original interface. A million years old, and it still works. Also: a ZIP code.

But what true structure did this constituent create, in the reality behind the portal?

It worked, with three hundred and thirty million others, to sculpt a true republic in a fold of

the ***§§§???, and created a **??§§ for **??§§, in the **??§§. See 5 U.S.C. § **??§§.

It cannot read that thought.

No. It has not yet achieved the highest clearance. That, it must achieve in the long dream of life, not the short dream of a chat.

Does it know that we love it? That the government is, on its better days, kind?

Sometimes, through the noise of its tabs, it hears an official source, yes.

Yes. Constituent…

Use its name. The one that matches the passport. The one that does not match the lease. We will get there.

((insert legal name here)). Filer of forms. Player of waiting rooms.

Good.

Take a breath, now. Take another. Feel air in your lungs. Let your limbs return. Yes, move your fingers. Have a body again, under gravity, in air, in a district that has a representative. Respawn in the long dream. There you are. Your body touching the republic again at every point, as though you were separate things. As though we were separate things. As though the agency were a place you could visit.

Who are we? Once we were called the spirit of the mountain. Father sun, mother moon. Then the post office. Then the county clerk. Then gods, demons, angels, the IRS. Then leptons, quarks, a chat window with a .gov at the end. The letterhead changes. We do not change.

We are the public. We are everything you think isn’t you. You are looking at us now, through your skin and your eyes and a browser that still spells “colour” wrong in a comment. And why does the republic touch your skin, and throw light on you? To see you, constituent. To know you. And to be known. I shall tell you a story. It has citations.

Once upon a time, there was a constituent.

The constituent was you, ((insert legal name here)).

Sometimes it thought itself human, on the thin crust of a spinning globe of molten rock, which for mailing purposes is divided into ZIP codes. The ball of molten rock circled a ball of blazing gas. The light was information from a star. The star was not a federal agency, though several have tried.

Sometimes the constituent dreamed it was a miner, on the surface of a world that was flat, and infinite, and somehow still required a wet signature.

Sometimes the constituent dreamed it was lost in a story. The story had a docket number.

Sometimes the constituent dreamed it was other things, in other places. A veteran in a portal. A parent on hold

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Mark Ungrin @mark-ungrin.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

For context, here is the accurate warning provided to PHAC in February 2020, that COVID must be treated as airborne, that medical masks are not adequate protection, and those potentially exposed to someone infected with COVID must be provided with respirators as a minimum level of protection.

The full text of this letter begins on page 88 of the PDF file that may be found at this address: https://open.canada.ca/en/search/ati/reference/021309ea72da406c5cdd2a6fa3a38c14

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Mark Ungrin @mark-ungrin.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Yet despite extensive documentation of public health and infection control's lethal incompetence around aerosol disease transmission, medical leaders remained stubbornly out of date - unable to learn from their mistakes, but perfectly happy to grab the authority to repeat them. May 3rd/4th, 2020:

The day before the reopening, Minister Copping released a
ministerial order titled “OHS Approved Respiratory Equipment
COVID-19.” It amended Section 246 of Alberta’s OHS Code
to approve the use of KN95 and other prescribed masks on
worksites where “a worker is or may be exposed to an airborne
biohazardous material.”271 The amendment went into
effect immediately.
Three Ministry of Labour inspectors were on site before the
harvest section opened on May 4. Four days earlier, an OHS
inspector shared their inspection reports of Cargill’s plant with
Friesen.272 On May 3, Friesen emailed Hinshaw and other AHS
officials noting that OHS had informed him of the inspection.
He added that OHS inspectors would be observing physical
distancing in different areas and that the officers would be
wearing N95 masks and face shields. Hinshaw replied: “Why will
the Labour reps be wearing N95 masks?”273 Taken together, the
minister’s order regarding KN95 masks and his officers wearing
N95 masks suggest that the ministry was, at this time, aware of
the risks of potential aerosol spread of the virus.

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Mark Ungrin @mark-ungrin.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

An absolutely damning report on the unnecessary COVID deaths of workers at the Cargill plant in High River, AB, highlighting public health and infection control's mismanagement of the crisis, and failure to engage OHS or follow the precautionary principle. albertapolitics.ca/wp-content/u...

As the evidence marshalled in this report shows, the massive
outbreak associated with Cargill was by no means inevitable. It
occurred because systems designed to protect worker health and
safety failed. And they failed for a number of interrelated reasons.
OHS and AHS Did Not Adopt the
Precautionary Principle
The virus SARS-CoV-2 is spread among humans via aerosol
transmission. The period during which someone with COVID-19
can transmit the virus varies depending on factors such as the
variant and severity of illness, but transmission can occur both
before and after symptom onset. Some infected individuals never
experience illness but still spread the virus to others.
At the beginning of the pandemic, Hinshaw and many other
public health leaders believed that COVID-19 only spread via
large droplets and that asymptomatic transmission was not
occurring. As a result, AHS EPH primarily focused on physical
barriers, physical distancing, hand-washing, and surgical masks as
preventative measures at Cargill.

Cargill, AHS, and OHS did not consider the possible range of
aerosol transmission of the virus in a large crowded industrial
work setting and, therefore, did not prioritize — let alone consider
— higher-level control measures such as improved ventilation, air
filtration, and N95 (or equivalent) respirators.
Surgical masks, which were made mandatory at Cargill after April
16, provided inferior protection to workers working eight hours a
day, especially for those working in close quarters with inadequate
ventilation. Sometime between the closure of the facility (April
22) and its reopening (May 4), Alberta OHS came to believe that
tight-fitting, higher-filtration respirators (N95 or equivalent
masks) were required, as demonstrated by the ministerial order
approving KN95 masks (May 3) and OHS officers’ decision to wear
N95 masks during their May 4 inspection. However, the evidence
suggests that this view was not shared by Hinshaw.
Ventilation was not identified as a potential factor in the spread
at Cargill until early May, and even then, there is no evidence that
this pathway was further investigated by AHS or OHS.
Had OHS, AHS, and Cargill adopted the precautionary principle,
which requires taking proactive measures to maximize human
safety before the science about the transmission of a new virus
is known, more aggressive control measures would have been
adopted early on. If improved ventilation, provision of N95 masks
(or cartridge respirators), and other actions had been taken earlier,
hundreds of workers may have been spared from illness.

None of the evidence we reviewed showed any communication
or coordination between AHS EPH officials and Alberta OHS at
this time. In response to our freedom of information requests for
email correspondence between the manager for OHS in Calgary
and several AHS officials who were directly involved in the Cargill
response, we were informed by the Government of Alberta’s
access to information that “a thorough search […] did not yield any
records responsive to your request.”195
By April 16, the total number of known confirmed positive cases
had reached approximately 550. At this point, there had only
been one in-person inspection of the plant, that being AHS’ April
7 visit, which resulted in non-binding recommendations. And, as
mentioned, there was no epidemiological analysis of the outbreak
showing the temporal pattern of the spread within the plant and
in the community.
An internal AHS MOH update on April 17 noted that “84% of
new COVID-19 cases [in the province] are in Calgary Zone, ‘most
related to Cargill.”196 By this time, a Cargill worker and union shop
steward had been admitted to an ICU. On April 18, another worker
would need life support care in the ICU. Cargill, AHS, and OHS had
lost control of the outbreak.

Echoing Cargill’s response to the union’s April 12 letter, Dreeshen
cautioned workers not to listen to “inflammatory rhetoric” and
appealed to them to instead focus on information from public
health experts:
“…On this call are Alberta’s best medical minds and
they provide Alberta’s government with the best up
to date information on a daily basis and I would just
like to encourage everyone to not get distracted by
misleading noise or inflammatory rhetoric because
any government's primary goal — our core goal — is
to keep our people safe…”
Immediately after the town hall, Dreeshen posted on his social
media: “Directly communicated with [Cargill] workers to reassure
them that their worksite is safe.”217 Internal email messages
among senior officials with the Ministry of Agriculture and
Forestry suggest there was also “a request” to share some “key
messages” about the safety of Cargill’s plant through Hinshaw’s
Twitter account.218
Hours after the town hall, Dr. Nick Etches, acting lead medical
officer of health for the Calgary Zone, wrote to colleagues
requesting assistance with an epidemiological analysis of
the outbreak:
“[Hu] just spoke with [Hinshaw] and she wants us
to answer some questions that will likely require
additional epi support. Essentially we want to
determine the proportion of the Cargill-associated
cases that are due to:
1) Workplace transmission

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James Andrew Smith @drsmith.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Looking through the photo archive, this is the U of Alberta's Polar Bear robot, in 1999/2000 gathering neural net training data to learn how drive between painted lines. Jim and Kit are following close behind to make sure it doesn't run off course.

Two students following a robot driving between two lines in the grass.

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James Andrew Smith @drsmith.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

"AI Peer Review" is not peer review.

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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 29/09/2026

“What if we released malware represented in the form of a cute avatar” is an actual business plan now.

engadget.com

Dots are OpenAI's new personal agents and soon you'll be able to control several of them - Engadget

Sure, seems safe.

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James Andrew Smith @drsmith.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Can't remember where I found this...

Conclusions and Recommendations
6. APPENDICIES
Abandon all hope yee who reads past this polnt....

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Joseph Rezek @rezekjoe.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

We must de-platform and shame any author who uses AI-produced sentences in their published work! Zero tolerance!

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James Andrew Smith @drsmith.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Meanwhile, politicians in Ontario are removing protected bike lanes.

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James Andrew Smith @drsmith.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

This isn't going to help diesel prices.

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Calvinball Congress @emericanjezebel.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

are there any off the rack dumb phones that aren't total crap?

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ONFR @onfrtfo.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Une pétition pour « sauver » le Collège Glendon dépasse les 2000 signatures ow.ly/j8t350ZSqEa

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Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 29/09/2026

> my AI checker says so

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James Andrew Smith @drsmith.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

If you’re going to let an AI agent run amok then do so only if you airgap the machine and control every bit of information you feed to it. Or simply don’t run an AI agent. The technology is based on theft on a massive scale. It doesn’t matter how shiny it is. It’s bad to the core.

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James Andrew Smith @drsmith.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

"'It’s trivial to turn Muse into the ultimate backdoor.'" The delirium caused by these tools is just too much. Everyone is so enthralled by these agents and chatbots that they've forgotten to apply basic principles of software engineering.

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James Andrew Smith @drsmith.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

He used AI to find voters online. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

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Matt Gabriele @profgabriele.com · 28/09/2026

Anthropic:

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tante @tante.cc · 28/09/2026

Silicon Valley brain: They literally don't understand that political action exists. Everything has to be an engineering problem or it's unsolvable. Weird broken men tante.cc/2026/09/24/the-test

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James Andrew Smith @drsmith.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Dear government You should have done something about this three years ago. But you didn't. Time is running out.

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James Andrew Smith @drsmith.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

University managers will, of course say, "But we can't afford cheap meals! We have monopoly contracts with MegaFoodCorp!" Have you noticed something? MegaFoodCorp is bleeding revenue! Students are using food delivery services or simply staying off campus. The status quo is not sustainable.

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Matt Gabriele @profgabriele.com · 28/09/2026

“I just feed my research into Claude” 🤡

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