iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Emily Herring @emilyherring.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

Recently, for *obvious reasons*, I've been thinking about what it means when anxiety and sadness are caused not by individual predispositions, but by the state of the world itself. This led me to early 19th-c. France and the notion of "mal du siècle" (sickness of the century) aeon.co/essays/young...

Gen Z but two centuries ago
A generation of young people with ‘full hearts in an empty world’ sought hope in the face of insurmountable malaise
By Emily Herring

On a painting of young 19th-century men looking drunk and sad around a table with cigarettes and drinks

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Tom Cox @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

I dust my house. My AI robot watches. "It should be you doing this." "Can't. I'm writing a novel for Primark." "That's not why you were invented." "These 153,000 fan letters say otherwise." "They're all from upcycled toasters. And you programmed them." "Literary snobbery will get you nowhere."

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Hannah Shelley, MLIS (Maggots, Lycanthropes & Ice Skeletons) @hannahshelley.site · 13/08/2025

Since search is dead, how soon do you think Google Scholar is headed for the Google Graveyard? I'm betting it's soon, and academia is NOT prepared

hannahshelley.neocities.org

Google Scholar Is Doomed

Academia built entire careers on a free Google service with zero guarantees. What could go wrong?

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.chantal//RYAN @thoughtrise.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

this field biologist does a great job highlighting the insidiousness of AI editing these one-click AI edit buttons are incredibly appealing to many photographers, amateurs and professionals alike, and are framed as innocuous this is worth sharing and educating people about

screenshot of a post on facebook from Alex Lamoreaux, depicting two versions of the "same" photograph of a bobcat in front of a pine plantation, one labeled original game cam photo, one labeling AI processed

the markings have been altered on the AI photo, and the head changed and resized

text says:

Oh! A neat goose hybrid posted to ‘What’s this Bird?’ but when you zoom in on the photos the bill details have been too manipulated by AI photo editing to be accurately assessed for which species may be involved.
Scroll on… A cool-looking Red-tailed Hawk that someone is wondering which subspecies it might be - right up my alley! But when you zoom in on the photos literally every feather group has been so heavily manipulated and altered by AI editing that it’s impossible to determine subspecies because the photo is essentially fake now; just a mashup of whatever AI thinks parts of a Red-tail should look like.
Scroll on… WOW! That’s a remarkable trail cam photo of a Bobcat! It almost looks like a painting!… but the head looks oddly small…. hmmmm. After some prodding the original photo is produced and sure enough it had been so heavily altered by AI ‘post processing’ that the photo posted was essentially a digital mock-up with totally different proportions and fur markings. No longer the photo off the trail cam; it may as well have just been ‘created’ by AI from scratch.
This stuff is killing me. My days on social media are becoming very limited. We can’t even trust simple, everyday photos of animals to be real. The wildlife community needs to quit editing with AI, and we need to start calling out photographers that are using it. Our reality is being destroyed all around us.

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

This is fascinating: www.reddit.com/r/OpenAI/s/I... Someone “worked on a book with ChatGPT” for weeks and then sought help on Reddit when they couldn’t download the file. Redditors helped them realized ChatGPT had just been roleplaying/lying and there was no file/book…

reddit.com

From the OpenAI community on Reddit

Explore this post and more from the OpenAI community

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Niklas Strüver @enriya.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

Amazon announced a new #Alexa+ option involving new generative AI models to make Alexa seem relevant in times of #LLMs. Ultimately, this is a last ditch effort, considering the devices' company history. But it's a bit more than chasing a trend. Thread🧵👇 1/7 www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYbA...

youtube.com

Meet the new Alexa

YouTube video by Amazon Alexa

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Moritz Hürtgen @moritzhuertgen.de · 09/02/2025

Fast ein Drittel der Zeit dieses 90-(!)-Minuten-Duells ging es um Asyl, Abschiebungen und Abweisungen. Null Respekt für alle, die hier die journalistische Verantwortung tragen. Was für eine Bankrotterklärung.

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Tim Hector @timmoritz.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

If you're by any chance interested in writing a review, feel free to drop me a line for a review copy... #VoiceAssistants #HumanMachineInteraction #PrivacyMatters #AIResearch #SurveillanceStudies #OpenAccess #DataEthics

Book cover of a paper-copy of "Voice Assistants in Private Homes", edited by Stephan Habscheid, Tim Hector, Dagmar Hoffmann, David Waldecker. Dark blue background, white letters, blue-filtered photo of a smart speaker next to a smartphone, which displays "Welcome Home"

Table of contents of the book in a photo of a paper copy (part 1)

Table of contents of the book in a photo of a paper copy

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Tim Hector @timmoritz.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Happy to announce the open-access volume "Voice Assistants in Private Homes. Media, Data and Language in Interaction and Discourse", edited by Stephan Habscheid, @dagmarhoffmann.bsky.social, David Waldecker and myself. You can download it here: www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-7...

Cover of the book "Voice Assistants in Private Homes. Media, Data and Language in Interaction and Discourse" (Stephan Habscheid, Tim Hector, Dagmar Hoffmann, David Waldecker, eds.), dark blue theme, white letters, blue-filtered picture of a voice assistant and a smartphone.

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Niklas Strüver @enriya.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

New Publication just out! ✨Super happy to show the next article in my PhD to the world. It has the (very elegant and not clunky at all😅) title: "Innovating #Alexa amid the Rise of #LargeLanguageModels Sociotechnical Transitions in Algorithmic Development Practices" #OpenAccess Link👇Small🧵

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Niklas Strüver @enriya.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

Arrived last week's Monday in Melbourne for a three month research stay @monashuniversity.bsky.social's Emerging Technology Lab led by Sarah Pink. Thrilled to be here!Temporarily in the gorgeous Victoria State Library while not at the ETL✨Thanks to @daadworldwide.bsky.social for help with funding.🙏

A victorian area library photographed from the second floor, showing various workplaces and bookshelves. The ceiling is made of milky glass and soft light warms the vast room.

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Unpaid Cat Maid @emeraldjaguar.bsky.social · 26/12/2024

Daily reminder that the underlying purpose of AI is to allow wealth to access skill while removing from the skilled the ability to access wealth.

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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 27/12/2024

Elon Musk does not want you to donate to Wikipedia, which is itself a good reason to donate, but the much better reason is that it's Wikipedia. Just donated again last night.

Tweet from Robert J. Berger: "Elon Musk has ordered everyone to stop donating to Wikipedia..... donate.wikimedia.org is the link if anyone feels like disobeying a direct order from a billionaire jerkwad."

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More Perfect Union @moreperfectunion.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

BREAKING: Amazon workers in NYC are going on strike right before Christmas—the company's busiest time. The first unionized Amazon warehouse is going to shut down in a historic walkout. Workers plan to hit the company where it hurts to win their first union contract. www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI1k...

youtube.com

How Amazon Ruined Christmas

YouTube video by More Perfect Union

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Niklas Strüver @enriya.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

Short notice registration🌿: Join us @University of Siegen for our Mixing Methods Winter School “AI Methods: From Probing to Prompting”. Registration is open until Dec 15 👉Programme & registration: u-si.de/FScqv #mixedmethods #AI #digitalmethods #probing #prompting

u-si.de

Call for Participations: Mixed Methods Winter School on AI Methods » SFB 1187 – Medien der KooperationCall for Participations: Mixed Methods Winter School on AI Methods – SFB 1187 – Medien der Koopera...

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Niklas Strüver @enriya.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

Has anyone written about modern AI "products" from a perspective of Walter Benjamin's Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction yet? If so, I would really like to read that. an accidental thread🧵

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fabio iapaolo @fabio-iapaolo.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

With input from friends, I’ve made a starter pack of early-career researchers across digital geography, STS, and critical AI studies. It isn’t meant to be definitive or exhaustive (though somewhat arbitrary at this stage), so please feel free to comment your own or others’ names for inclusion!

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Niklas Strüver @enriya.bsky.social · 13/11/2024

Lots of people are migrating to this place and I wanted to share some of my work; e.g. the first english article from my dissertation on power hierarchies surrounding Amazon's Alexa. The article is open access here: www.researchgate.net/publication/...

researchgate.net

(PDF) Frustration Free: How Alexa Orchestrates the Development of the Smart Home

PDF | Niklas Strüver studies the sociotechnical relations that surround the voice assistant Alexa and the smart home it inhabits. In this, he identifies... | Find, read and cite all the research you n...

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Niklas Strüver @enriya.bsky.social · 02/10/2024

Super happy to have been part in the organising of this years program for the CRC's lecture series "Media Environments: Between Capture and Surveillance". Come and pay us a visit, if you're interested in any of the talks and discussions. :)

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Käte Hamburger Kolleg: Cultures of Research (c:o/re) @core-rwth.bsky.social · 26/09/2024

📢We are pleased to announce the #program of our upcoming #lecture series in the winter semester 2024/25 on “Expanding Science and Technology Studies”. ➡️Find out more about the topic, lectures and speakers: khk.rwth-aachen.de/2024/09/17/1... #rwth #ScienceAndTechnologyStudies #sts

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Niklas Strüver @enriya.bsky.social · 16/07/2024

Currently on my way to Amsterdam for the EASST/4s conference to present some research on voice assistants as a platformized infrastructure for the smart home together with @timmoritz.bsky.social (absent🥲) tomorrow morning in P060! Very excited to be back at #EASST4S2024 ✨

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🎃 The Conqueror Woim 👻 @jbirken.bsky.social · 25/04/2024

Ngl, this is bizarrely interesting from an art historical perspective as a kind of reverse Aby Warburg Mnemosyne atlas - as the LLM is a statistical tool it will reproduce somehow normative poses & formal compositions, which it ofc synthesized from whatever images were looted from the internet /1

Twitter screenshot. A picture of extra buff Rene Descartes posing on the floor, expanded from his well-known portrait. The twitter post says "We must accept that AI can indeed produce art"

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Niklas Strüver @enriya.bsky.social · 08/04/2024

A phantastic article on (albeit not surprising) data practices in large AI companies, perfectly summarised by this banger: "Researchers are divided on whether this method will work. A.I. executives are barreling ahead nonetheless. 'It should be all right,' Mr. Altman said at the conference."

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Karen Gregory @karengregory.bsky.social · 02/04/2024

Cartography of generative AI: cartography-of-generative-ai.net Yes, give me the map-splaining. Give me the materiality of digital media. Show me the labour.

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Niklas Strüver @enriya.bsky.social · 19/01/2024

There's a big job opening as a scientific coordinator (post doc, four years, full time) at the CRC 1187 media of cooperation in Siegen. If you're interested in STS and or media studies and want to work with international and interdisciplinary folks, here you go! jobs.uni-siegen.de/job/Research...

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Kommunikation@Gesellschaft @journkommges.bsky.social · 24/11/2023

Neuer Artikel im Journal: Wieso eigentlich Alexa? von Niklas Strüver, Uni Siegen. Ein Artikel zur Plattformökonomie, K@G 24(1) journals.sub.uni-hamburg.de/hup2/kommges...

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Niklas Strüver @enriya.bsky.social · 25/11/2023

Gestern ist mein zweiter Artikel im Rahmen meiner Dissertation am SFB Medien der Kooperation bei Kommunikation@Gesellschaft erschienen [Open Access]! ✨✨Nach Personalkürzungen in Amazons Alexa-Team letztes Jahr frage ich "Wieso eigentlich Alexa?". Spoiler: Es hat was mit Infrastrukturen zu tun 1/8🧵

A graphic that describes the circuit of development through and with Alexa

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Niklas Strüver @enriya.bsky.social · 24/11/2023

Super happy that our Collaborative Research Center "Media of Cooperation" (CRC 1187 @UniSiegen) has been extended for four years! Very hyped to get to keep reseraching Voice Assistants from various perspectives and question these technological visions of the smart home! tinyurl.com/ynkcxa5r

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Tim Hector @timmoritz.bsky.social · 24/11/2023

Our Collaborative Research Center "Media of Cooperation" (SFB 1187, @UniSiegen) has been granted funding for another four years (2024–2027). 🎉 DFG press release: www.dfg.de/service/pres...

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