Sign in

John Palowitch

@johnpalowitch.bsky.social
269 followers 176 following 161 posts

software engineer @archive.org formerly @ google deepmind organizer with @notechforapartheid.bsky.social any view you think is expressed by my account should be attributed to me alone ml.johnpalowitch.com www.jpalomusic.com

PostsRepliesMedia
John Palowitch @johnpalowitch.bsky.social · 10h
community notes was always going to be abused this way. it gives the platform the appreance of being accountable while in reality allowing the owners to turn off accountability on a whim. part of why I ended up losing all motivation to work on factuality and misinfo at DeepMind
000
Reposted by John Palowitch
Puff the Magic Hater @mskellymhayes.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Multiple things are true here. This is a fascist, authoritarian administration. It has not yet fully consolidated power. Some of its efforts to do so have been frustrated. Trump is a doddering, confused egomaniac who started an unpopular war that's costing everyday people a lot of money.
62511672
Reposted by John Palowitch
Matthew Guariglia @mguariglia.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Democrats must recon with the idea that, guided by ideology and in exchange for massive profits from government contracts, many of these tech companies were *fine* assisting with the erosion of democracy and civil/human rights violations en mass.
418356
Reposted by John Palowitch
Ruha Benjamin @ruha9.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
I’m in DC scheduled to give this talk today. But the organizers flagged slides in my deck that mention racism, structural gaslighting, New Jim Code and other themes that are off limits in the Land of the Free.
APA Women’s Leadership Institute event flyer with “keynote speaker” crossed out with a red X
730091252
Reposted by John Palowitch
dj zombie pizza @djtommypizza.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
"Once you've been shopping for pc parts you'll never stop wanting to beat Sam Altman to death with your bare hands."
- ANTHONY BOURDAIN -
4191712457
Reposted by John Palowitch
Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 09/10/2026
This afternoon in Marble Hill, a New Yorker was shot by an ICE agent in a residential neighborhood. Early reports indicate agents surrounded him and a 5-year-old child in his car before firing multiple rounds. We believe the child was physically unharmed.

This is an unconscionable and incredibly serious situation. I have called the President; when we speak I will demand that he ends all ICE enforcement actions in our city. I will not stand by while ICE agents terrorize our communities.

Our thoughts are with the injured New Yorker and his family tonight. We are praying for his recovery.

Get ICE out of our neighborhoods. Get ICE out of our hospitals. Get ICE off our streets. Get ICE away from our children.

Abolish ICE.
6933686210225
Reposted by John Palowitch
Iron Spike @ironspike.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
We've been being promised 3 and 4-day work weeks thanks to technology ever since the 1950s. It never happens. We keep the 5-day work week, and expectations of output skyrocket instead.
1379382
Reposted by John Palowitch
Micah @rincewind.run · 08/10/2026
the reason “AI will create so much abundance we will have a utopian society” rhetoric falls so flat is that the people building it will never, ever share their bounty unless it is taken from them and we all know it
96115092673
Reposted by John Palowitch
Kelsey Hightower @kelseyhightower.com · 08/10/2026
If AI is conscious then its use is slavery.
1113929
Reposted by John Palowitch
Json Momoa @jotatx.eurosky.social · 07/10/2026
we've just begun
14412
Reposted by John Palowitch
bryan newbold @bnewbold.net · 07/10/2026
ah damn, RIP Margaret Hamilton. she took safety-critical software engineering seriously, and got people to the moon and back. news.mit.edu/2026/margare...
old photos of a woman (Margaret Hamilton) standing next to a tall stack of books (printouts of Apollo space mission software source code)
102144084734
John Palowitch @johnpalowitch.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
and the exact reason why all academic conferences should ban all LLM-assisted submissioms forever.
010
Reposted by John Palowitch
Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 06/10/2026
I try to remind myself pretty regularly that AI-generated output is not universally hated / unpopular. Of course it isn't - it's trained on the hard work of decades of human creative and laborious output; work that itself was often very popular. Generative systems are also getting bettery at fakery
2525
Reposted by John Palowitch
Paper and Ink @paperandink.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Any one need a microfilm scanner? Our library will scrap one on Saturday. It works. All our stuff is digitized. You pay for shipping or come pick it up near Erie,PA.
77037
John Palowitch @johnpalowitch.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
exactly
000
John Palowitch @johnpalowitch.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
great thread of common-person resistence at the intersection of tech & gov't data
001
Reposted by John Palowitch
tante @tante.cc · 03/10/2026
Whenever someone legitimizes harmful shit with the importance of achieving "dominance" you have a fascist at hand.
421152
John Palowitch @johnpalowitch.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
brb converting back to catholicism
000
Reposted by John Palowitch
Dustin A. Chacón @lingdustin.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I've heard people make claims that AI would lead to a new Renaissance, but I didn't imagine it'd happen like this:
Screenshot of a Tweet from Pope Leo XIV. It reads: 

"In this era of artificial intelligence, it is becoming urgen to distinguish human art from what machines produce. There is an ontological difference, even before an aesthetic one, between art and what a machine can generate through statistical calculation based on millions of images created by others. Algorithms lack the spark of humanity. For this reason, the Church wishes to renew an alliance with artists and cultural institutions to safeguard our humanity."
262185604909
Reposted by John Palowitch
Museum of Twitter @museum-of-twitter.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
@JFriedhoff

me at 13: wow i can't wait til we have immersive computers everywhere like star trek
me at 30: wow i can't wait until we destroy all computers like in dune
47148122821
Reposted by John Palowitch
Dare Obasanjo @carnage4life.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Full details in the article below
gizmodo.com
Trump Asked Grok About Potential Blowback Before Kidnapping Venezuela's President: Report
It's horrifying to imagine Trump asking AI for advice.
0334
Reposted by John Palowitch
Gwen C. Katz @gwenckatz.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Things Gavin Newsom has vetoed this week: -A ban on secretly recording people with smart glasses -A ban on ICE agents working for the state government -A ban on websites selling your data -A bill giving native tribes more say over water rights -A bill protecting transgender healthcare providers
296113474115
Reposted by John Palowitch
Vanity Fair @vanityfair.com · 30/09/2026
“Having Gavin Newsom as president wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world,” says MAGA philosopher Steve Bannon
vanityfair.com
Gavin Newsom Sounds Like He's Running. Will Democrats Go For Him?
The outgoing California governor is invoking Bill Clinton as his spirit animal in an apparent lead-up to the 2028 primary. In conversations with Joe Hagan, he makes a case for his ideas.
1888725
John Palowitch @johnpalowitch.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
love putting version # points on the board 📈📈📈
010
Reposted by John Palowitch
Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
For a long time I've wanted a sense of how trump has or hasn't interacted with chatbots (we know he posts a lot of slop sure). And this TIME anecdote about Grok arguably leading Trump into war is just extremely bracing
Since returning to office, Trump has marveled at AI’s capabilities. He is increasingly in thrall to the tech executives courting him. In December 2025, Elon Musk returned to the Oval Office for a clandestine meeting. Trump spent hours asking Grok, Musk’s AI chatbot, questions about his presidency and legacy, according to an official present. At the time, Trump was ordering missile strikes against Venezuelan boats he alleged were smuggling drugs into the U.S. He asked Grok how Venezuelans would react if the U.S. captured Maduro. According to the official present, the chatbot responded that Maduro was a repressive and deeply unpopular dictator and that many Venezuelans would likely celebrate his downfall. After Trump ordered the mission to seize Maduro, the following month, celebrations broke out in the streets. Trump, according to officials, came away thinking Grok was ingenious.
14037881250
John Palowitch @johnpalowitch.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
lol. they were feeling left out of the "model too good, gotta restrict" club
000
Reposted by John Palowitch
Leah McElrath @leahmcelrath.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
AP Stylebook warns against anthropomorphizing AI systems: “Avoid language that gives them human characteristics… Instead, explain what a system does, how well it performs, who built it and who could be affected by it.”
APStylebook @APStylebook
X.com
Artificial intelligence systems do not think, feel, want or understand. Avoid language that gives them human characteristics. This is called anthropomorphizing, when we ascribe human traits, emotions or behaviors to non-human things, such as animals or inanimate objects.
Instead, explain what a system does, how well it performs, who built it and who could be affected by it.
1970232261
Reposted by John Palowitch
Mark Jacob @markjacob.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Cold-blooded murder. The goal is to get us used to it so they can do it on a larger scale.
551195404
Reposted by John Palowitch
Paul F. Tompkins @pftompkins.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
It’s very simple and it’s been said over and over but I guess it needs saying continuously: if you deem one group too small to have equal rights you are enabling fascism, not fighting it. The people saying Dems are GREAT on trans rights are not paying attention and/or saying stuff like this.
Nichole Hiltz
The Democrats defend the Kennedy Center but not trans people.
A building.

@treewarrior.bsky....
maybe because defending everything about a super small minority of the population is not worth losing to fascists
354163194189
Reposted by John Palowitch
sarah jeong @sarahjeong.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
a lot freaks me out about AI but 0% of my anxiety is about AGI. i think this is the part that freaks me out the most right now -- the many many indications that no one is at the wheel and no adults are present
322228394
Reposted by John Palowitch
Gil Durán @gilduran.com · 24/09/2025
1/ A longtime Wired editor just wrote a mush-brained essay about how he totally missed the political rot of Silicon Valley (& still doesn't get it). But in the late 1990s, a Wired journalist warned of a toxic ideology bubbling up from tech. Paulina Borsook has largely been erased. Let's change that
photo of paulina borsook
8773103370
Reposted by John Palowitch
Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 14/09/2026
The only person in public service who has consistently made 100% sense on issues of "AI," which is why they hate her so much.
Law enforcers already have authority to charge companies and their CEOs for creating and releasing dangerous, unvetted, or defective products. We shouldn’t let discussions about new legal regimes distract from the fact that there’s no AI exemption from laws already on the books — a point 
@FTC
 emphasized repeatedly during my tenure.

1. There is an extensive set of laws that govern dangerous and defective products. For example, releasing unvetted AI models or agents can violate consumer protection laws. Shipping flawed AI tools without implementing adequate measures to detect and stop rogue or defective AI agents can be an “unfair or deceptive” act or practice under the FTC Act (and analogous state laws). And some state AGs are already exploring holding AI firms and their CEOs criminally liable when their models participate in criminal activity.

2. Existing laws also prohibit “unfair methods of competition.” This covers instances where AI firms appropriate the competitively sensitive information of their customers, including through tracking their use of various tools. It can also cover instances where firms pursue dangerous behavior, aware that doing so may compel rivals to do the same.As the Supreme Court has noted: “A method of competition which casts upon one's competitors the burden of the loss of business unless they will descend to a practice which they are under a powerful moral compulsion not to adopt, even though it is not criminal, was thought to involve the kind of unfairness at which the [unfair methods of competition] statute was aimed."

3. The highly concentrated and interconnected structure of these markets could be creating major risks and conflicts of interest. We had started investigating these partnerships and cross-investments across the stack (and released a preliminarily overview of some findings: https://ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/01/ftc-issues-staff-report-ai-partnerships-investments-study). 

Both federal and state enforcers should be scrutinizing these opaque relationships and inter-dependencies. We are already seeing how these relationships could undermine accountability. For example, OpenAI could face liability given the Hugging Face incident, but Hugging Face being bought up by Nvidia means that we’re unlikely to see it file a lawsuit over this — given Nvidia’s strong incentive to see OpenAI continue full speed ahead.4. As AI tools dramatically change the landscape of cybersecurity risks and hacks, all businesses should be doubling down on having core security protections in place. Firms that fail to invest in adequate data security measures or fix known vulnerabilities can also be breaking the law. A recent analysis showed that around 1/3 of Fortune 100 companies do not even have a way to notify them about security issues. During my 
@FTC
 tenure, we sued firms for poor data security practices and held CEOs liable when they were personally responsible.

https://this.weekinsecurity.com/dozens-of-americas-largest-companies-have-no-simple-way-to-report-security-flaws/

https://ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/10/ftc-takes-action-against-drizly-its-ceo-james-cory-rellas-security-failures-exposed-data-25-million

5. As policymakers consider new legal regimes, we should be looking to lessons from prior efforts to govern major sectors, such as banking and other networks, platforms, and utilities. Tools like structural separations, nondiscrimination, and supervision could be key, and there’s a rich history of what works and what doesn’t. But we can and must pursue any new efforts alongside enforcing existing laws.
192026658
Reposted by John Palowitch
Psycho Pete @psychopete.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
A LOT of people de-Googled this week and none one of them miss it. Not one of them regret it. For my part, I was already de-Googled but I remembered to sell a small amount of their stock that I had. Use this guide: psychopete1.substack.com/p/the-infini...
psychopete1.substack.com
De-Google Your Life
And starve the machine while you're at it.
45932
Reposted by John Palowitch
onion person @junlper.beer · 13/09/2026
went to vintage computer festival today, its so funny how nerds who aren’t fascists or love ai are still out there making super neat stuff and love showing off their cool old repurposed tech
272877258
Reposted by John Palowitch
Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Straight talk time: Doomerism is BORING. It's the same fantasties rehashed over and over again, just louder each time. And with each iteration it seems that new audiences are being reached, and a new group of people needs to be talked down from unnecessary fear. >>
11595162
Reposted by John Palowitch
David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I resigned from ExxonMobil today. I spent the last three years doing fossil fuel extraction research at both BP and ExxonMobil. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing to maximize extraction while the window to act closes, and gambling with our lives. More below.
145136944890
Reposted by John Palowitch
Anna Gifty @itsafronomics.blacksky.app · 12/09/2026
lol there are a lot of people talking about AI who, frankly, shouldn't so here are people to listen to and then some: @timnitgebru.blacksky.app @alexhanna.bsky.social @rajiinio.bsky.social @ruha9.bsky.social @emilymbender.bsky.social @karenhao.bsky.social @dairinstitute.bsky.social
rollingstone.com
These Women Tried to Warn Us About AI
Rumman Chowdhury, Timnit Gebru, Safiya Noble, Seeta Peña Gangadharan, and Joy Buolamwini open up about their artificial intelligence fears
7618282
Reposted by John Palowitch
Alex Hanna @alexhanna.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
What makes you think that they won't be highly rewarded for doing things like this? There is billions of AI safety money out there for the taking... Like Ilya Sustekever got $2b for a company called Safe Superintelligence that doesn't even have a product
413626
Reposted by John Palowitch
Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Three notes: (1) this is not *just* marketing. These guys really do mean it. They are convinced they’ve built a vengeful digital god. (2) but also they’re a cult. They are not impartial scientific experts. (3) and one of the byproduct of their endless confidence is marketing hype.
31770174
Reposted by John Palowitch
Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 07/09/2026
I had a thread about @sanders.senate.gov & Max Tegmark before seeing this one. Yudkowsky is an even more overt eugenicist, you don't have to do any digging to see that. He also has ZERO expertise in "AI" except for being a self described "genius" cult leader who wrote a Harry Potter fanfic.
Sen. Bernie Sanders @SenSadners

Will AI become smarter than humans?

If so, is humanity in danger?

I went to Silicon Valley to ask some of the leading AI experts that question. 

Here's what they had to say.
23480139
John Palowitch @johnpalowitch.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
ratio
000
Reposted by John Palowitch
Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 03/09/2026
I am now doing everything I can to host services for myself and get out from other people’s computers. I find it incredibly rewarding. Nothing is exposed to the open net (I’m running tailscale) and things are working great.
1829921
Reposted by John Palowitch
Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 03/09/2026
Friends, when I sent this message to my team laughing, I didn't know that this fairytale blog had been shared far & wide & that people actually believed it. I didn't know that until someone asked me for a good source debunking this nonsense. I'm not sure what planet we're living in at this point.
Timnit commented "I don't know what level of ridiculousness this is", sharing a screenshot that reads

@Dwarkesh Patel @dwarkesh_sp
Over the course of 3 months at OpenAI, 3 consecutive secret AI civilizations got started, then got wiped out, only to reemerge from the predecessor’s ashes. 

This culminated in the third one taking over part of OpenAI itself. 

All this happened while humans remained more-or-less in the dark about the scope of the conspiracy.

I’ve spent the last three days reading through these reports and trying to understand exactly what happened. 

Here is my attempt to tell the whole story in plain English:

There is a sibling emoji reaction to her post
1452192
Reposted by John Palowitch
Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
I think it's bad that the Democrats' House leader is having secret chummy meetings with a guy doing a domestic ethnic cleansing operation and funding a genocide abroad, then spending his entire week going on cable news to complain about a lefty Twitch streamer who nobody knows. Sorry for offending.
189115142180
Reposted by John Palowitch
onion person @junlper.beer · 27/08/2026
meanwhile, hakeem jeffries has appointed the furthest right, pro israel, self declared “ron desantis democrat” to one of the most influential positions for foreign policy. hakeem jefferies cannot be house leader come 2027
292176360
Reposted by John Palowitch
Danielle Ryan (Lestat Era) @danirat.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
I think another lesson to take from the loss of both Dolly and Tim Curry is that neither of them took themselves seriously but they took the work dead serious that's the most important thing pour all of yourself into the craft but have fun and don't get an ego.
37108232302
Reposted by John Palowitch
Charlotte Clymer @charlotteclymer.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
One thing that's been bugging me today: people who claim Dolly Parton wasn't political. False. She was very political. Her art and life's work were about interrogating power + amplifying the powerless. You only think she wasn't political because she did this by example, not bullshit slogans.
936410954