iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 23h

Drives me nuts that this 10% kid from OpenAI now has a slide at every AI conference without any context or qualification. The narrative is repeated without any criticism again and again until it feels like common sense.

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Did I get this right? Last week you were afraid that AI might kill us all by the end of the decade. And this week you give Zuckerberg's AI assistant access to all your data.

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Having grown up in an evangelical church, expecting the end times to hit any moment, has been the best preparation for the current discourse around AGI and the agent apocalypse. The patterns are all too familiar.

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

“Here’s what makes the shared transcript genuinely different from every communication medium that preceded it: it transmits thinking, not thoughts.” – Dave Griffith davegriffith.substack.com/p/brain-dum...

davegriffith.substack.com

Brain Dumps as a Literary Form

What happens when you share your thinking process instead of your conclusions

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Looking at all the weak signals around the AI backlash, my hot take is that AI labs are too afraid of AI and not afraid enough of humans. Here's my growing cluster note on the AI backlash: garden.johanneskleske.com/ai-backlash

garden.johanneskleske.com

AI Backlash

A hub for my notes on the resistance to AI, filling up as I go.

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Of course, Qwen3.8-27B drops on a Friday afternoon. Sorry, MacBook, but you will have to spin up those fans. We're needing some evals to take us into the weekend.

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

If you like to fuel your long runs with rage, may I recommend the audiobook version of Maggie Haberman’s book “Regime Change"? Worked like a charm for me.

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

The permanent underclass is a future narrative that primes expectations, and those primed expectations perform political work in the present. Here's my research about it: garden.johanneskleske.com/permanent-u...

garden.johanneskleske.com

Permanent Underclass

How a shitpost about podcasts became Silicon Valley's expectation of a coming caste system. The sixty-year history of the word, the thin evidence beneath the...

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

the case against the anthropomorphizing language that makes it harder to have clear discussions of what so-called "AI" technologies actually do, and when and whether to use them buttondown.com/maiht3k/arc...

buttondown.com

How to talk about "AI" without adding to the anthropomorphization

Emily M. Bender and Nanna Inie In our op-ed for Tech Policy Press ("We Need to Talk About How We Talk About 'AI'"), we made the case against the...

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

I'm fascinated by the shift from the Californian ideology to the Texan ideology among the tech elites. So I put together a primer in my digital garden to explore it. garden.johanneskleske.com/from-the-ca...

garden.johanneskleske.com

From the Californian Ideology to the Texan Ideology

Californian Ideology vs. Texan Ideology: the networking era's myth gave way to the extraction era's. What Fred Turner's term means and what differs.

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

“Europe 2031 uses science fiction and gripping prose to promote a policy agenda that is defeatist, dystopian, and anti-democratic. While the diagnosis might be compelling, the cure is likely to be worse than the disease.” maxvonthun.substack.com/p/what-euro...

maxvonthun.substack.com

What Europe 2031 gets wrong

A viral new essay is full of vivid warnings about Europe's tech dependencies. But its proposals would only make the problem far worse.

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

“The future isn’t a chrome facade. It is messier, more complex, always dependent on the diverse, local life inhabiting it now. Our task is to stop being background characters in someone else’s spec script, and start writing – and building – our own.” aeon.co/essays/sili...

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

“When Thiel, Musk, Zuckerberg and Andreessen mine science fiction for blueprints, they are not finding the only possible futures. They are selecting the futures that justify their power.” aeon.co/essays/sili...

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

I am a simple man. When Meghan O‘Gieblyn writes, I read. harpers.org/archive/202...

harpers.org

Backsliding, by Meghan O’Gieblyn

On the paradox of willpower

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

The Body Keeps the Score – If you haven’t engaged with the criticism of the book, may I recommend this episode of If Books Could Kill? pod.link/1651876897/...

pod.link

The Body Keeps The Score

Listen to The Body Keeps The Score from If Books Could Kill wherever you get your podcasts!

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

If you haven’t read this one yet, do it. And then look at the comments for even more reflective insights. fugitivemargins.substack.com/p/the-end-o...

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

What if there was never going to be an AGI? What if the finish line doesn't exist, and the sprint was always going to run forever? How would we approach AI then?

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

China is the strange model here. It looked at the American race, declined to call it that, and wrote its own playbook. Europe hasn't done that yet. We're still caught in the American story, measuring our progress against their benchmarks.

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

Who needs this phantom? Tech companies (regulation becomes a “handicap”). Deregulation advocates (China as a bogeyman). Hardliners (it militarizes a civilian tech). In February 2026, even Anthropic dropped its safety pause by reference to the race.

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

So the US is running in a race without a finish line, without an ending, without a clear winner, and without an opponent who believes they're running. The race rhetoric produces its own competitor. Without one, the metaphor loses its function.

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

The strangest part: the second runner isn't running. Read Chinese AI sources directly. Xi Jinping speaks of “self-reliance,” “orderly development," and “AI+X integration.” These are not the verbs of a sprint.

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

Under one belief, the race actually fits: the Intelligence Explosion. Whoever builds AGI first triggers runaway self-improvement and locks in permanent advantage. That's the hidden bet inside every casual use of “AI race.”

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

Its function from day one was not description but mobilization. “We want eight and we won't wait” was the boulevard slogan that forced the Asquith government to accelerate dreadnought construction. The metaphor still does today exactly what it did in 1908.

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

The metaphor is older than the Cold War. It first appeared in 1906-1910, in the British press, describing the Anglo-German dreadnought rivalry. The admirals didn't use it. Tirpitz spoke of “risk theory.” It was the newspapers that needed a “race.”

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

A race needs three things: a clear goal, a moment when it's over, and a winner. AGI has no consensus definition. There's no after. AI capabilities are distributed across labs and countries. The race metaphor fits none of the three.

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

We talk about “the AI race” as if it were a description of the world. It isn't. It's a 100-year-old metaphor with a hidden bet, and the runner in the next lane was never actually running.

A lone runner on a track, surrounded by empty stands, symbolizes a metaphorical race devoid of competition in AI development.

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

“Many critical insights about a prototype system will only emerge in the context of a serious creative problem that’s not about the system itself.” – Andy Matuschak Don’t tell the Claude-Code-Influencers …

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

"To him a thinking man’s job was not to deny one reality at the expense of the other, but to include and to connect. It was not an easy job." – Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed

A book cover features green fields and blue sky, with text from Ursula K. Le Guin’s "The Dispossessed" emphasizing connection in thought.

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 05/04/2026

I guess you can call it my Easter sermon: futureslens.substack.com/p/anti-dyst...

A blurred background with white text quoting Johannes Kleske on anti-dystopian action, emphasizing humanity and meaning.

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

“Fads swept the youth of the Sprawl at the speed of light; entire subcultures could rise overnight, thrive for a dozen weeks, and then vanish utterly.” – William Gibson, Neuromancer

A vibrant green background features abstract text, highlighting themes of fleeting youth cultures and trends, reflecting William Gibson's "Neuromancer."

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

With all the hand-wringing about cognitive surrender and brain fry caused by our new tools, I'm sure McLuhan would be having a field day right now.

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

The darkest futures are not the ones where things fall apart. They are the ones where everyone decided in advance that falling apart was inevitable and acted accordingly. futureslens.substack.com/p/doomscrol...

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

I can‘t spend all morning figuring out what I can do now. It‘s exhausting. So, please, for the love of God, take a month off and let us users catch up. Thank you!

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

This is not a suggestion. It's a plea! WOULD YOU ALL PLEASE TAKE A MONTH OFF? SERIOUSLY! Every day I open Claude, and there's a new feature that might change how I work. I have to constantly learn and adapt. You know I have to do actual work, right?

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

I think you all really deserve a vacation. Seriously, you‘ve been working so hard, and it's time to take a break. Chill on a beach somewhere, take a breather, and recharge. You've earned it!

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

Dear people at Anthropic, That was one hell of a first quarter of 2026. You've all been cooking and taking this AI thing to the next level. I've been consistently impressed and excited by the progress you've made. You should be proud of yourselves!

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

I wrote about this in more detail in my latest newsletter: futureslens.substack.com/p/the-futur...

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

Sohail Inayatullah describes the core task of critical futures work as “loosening the future.” Making rigid narratives flexible again. Opening space for alternatives. Reminding us that no single trajectory is inevitable.

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

The problem: most futurists don't treat this as one narrative among many. Instead of making the dominant story visible and opening the conversation to alternatives, they reinforce it. Every keynote, every trend report becomes a feedback loop that tightens the narrative further.

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

These tropes work because they match the anxiety already in the room. Decision-makers cheer loudest when someone channels their frustration at a system they feel powerless to change.

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

Four tropes I keep finding in futures presentations: Determinism: “This is what's coming.” Obsolescence: “Everything you know will be obsolete.” The savior tool: “This framework will protect you.” The laggard warning: “Nobody's coming to save you.”

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

I ran a linguistic analysis of a major futures keynote recently. Language of certainty (“will,” “inevitable,” “always”) outnumbered language of possibility (“could,” “might,” “what if”) at a ratio of 11:1. The word “alternative” never appeared. Not once.

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Johannes Kleske @jkleske.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

If the future is a storm, nobody caused it and nobody controls it. You can prepare for it. You can survive it. You do not shape it. Agency shrinks to a single question: Are you ready?

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