joanne mcneil @jomc.bsky.social · 02/10/2026losing it that Shivon felt the need to set the record straight whether Elon had plus one invite to dinner with Xi or not like he’s a shitty dj bf who left her off the guest list 040
joanne mcneil @jomc.bsky.social · 20/09/2026a bale of harps, a pride of harps, a congregation, a blessing jomc.substack.com/p/a-bale-of-...jomc.substack.coma bale of harps, a pride of harps, a congregation, a blessingA few weeks ago, I went to help out a friend with a work assignment at a space on the west side I was unfamiliar with called “The Harp Center.” 131
joanne mcneil @jomc.bsky.social · 03/09/2026recording here. Thanks everyone for coming! m.soundcloud.com/losangelesco...m.soundcloud.comAmazon, Destroyer of Books - town hall (09.02.26)Stream Amazon, Destroyer of Books - town hall (09.02.26) by Los Angeles Community Radio on desktop and mobile. Play over 320 million tracks for free on SoundCloud. 051
joanne mcneil @jomc.bsky.social · 23/08/2026saving the blanks jomc.substack.com/p/saving-the...jomc.substack.comsaving the blanksIt’s been a while since I’ve searched for lyrics to a song half-remembered or plot elements of TV episode from decades ago (eg “murder mystery woman cat purple dress locked out of apartment”) without ... 042
joanne mcneil @jomc.bsky.social · 20/08/2026A town hall-styled discussion on the destruction of rare books by AI corporations. Booksellers, authors, archivists, librarians, readers and everyone else concerned about the future of physical media are invited to join us at The Loved One on Sept 2 at 7:00pm. 010
joanne mcneil @jomc.bsky.social · 20/08/2026AMAZON, DESTROYER OF BOOKS. A panel and discussion at The Loved One Sept 2nd in Los Angeles. Free event, all are welcome to come and participate. www.eventbrite.com/e/amazon-des...eventbrite.comAmazon, Destroyer of BooksA town hall-styled discussion on the destruction of rare books by AI corporations. 273
joanne mcneil @jomc.bsky.social · 17/08/2026what else could Amazon‘s endgame be but destroyer of books. 0143
joanne mcneil @jomc.bsky.social · 17/08/2026i wrote this a couple years ago about why these kinds of books matter jomc.substack.com/p/where-do-m...jomc.substack.comwhere do my legs goI’m lucky to have a number of good readers in my life: those driven with curiosity for the esoteric and generosity of spirit who scan dollar carts outside used bookstores and dusty thrift store boxes ... 132
joanne mcneil @jomc.bsky.social · 17/08/2026My entire life is built by the random rare books I order from alibis at 3am. Novels & histories no one else has looked at in years, work published with the hope that someone one day might care. absolutely soul crushing to learn why these books are getting rarer still www.404media.co/we-tracked-a...404media.coWe Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training FacilityWe placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books. 1245
joanne mcneil @jomc.bsky.social · 12/05/2026genuinely charmed by the thermal printer photobooth boxes popping up around town. guess its been long enough for nyu itp circa 2011 geolocation/physical computing nostalgia. 2180
Reposted by joanne mcneilBumblefudge @bumblefudge.com · 12/05/2026i am once again asking everyone to please read @jomc.bsky.social 's prophetic WRONG WAY (2023). (CC @faineg.bsky.social ) 0205
Reposted by joanne mcneilAdam Becker @adambecker.bsky.social · 15/04/2026And speaking of @doctorow.pluralistic.net, I'll be speaking on a panel with him, @jomc.bsky.social, and Lucas Cantor Santiago at the LA Times Festival of Books THIS SUNDAY! Come see us talk about AI, creativity, and the future of art. www.latimes.com/events/festi... 1236
joanne mcneil @jomc.bsky.social · 13/04/2026and somehow its website is even worse than the waiting room. why is it creating an *email address* for me that I can only access through the web portal lmao 040
joanne mcneil @jomc.bsky.social · 05/04/2026never not blown away (almost to tears) by the creativity, vulnerability, openness, humor, and searching kindness that you can find trawling deep in old usenet archives. people really used to bare their souls through networked machines 0252
joanne mcneil @jomc.bsky.social · 21/03/2026Quest Diagnostics is now such a living nightmare that if investors gave Elizabeth Holmes a second shot I might not even mind 2130
Reposted by joanne mcneilBrian Merchant @bcmerchant.bsky.social · 17/03/2026Three years into the AI era, educators say they face a major crisis. Bosses and clients replacing tutoring jobs with AI. Replacing *athletic coaching* with AI. Many students now cannot grasp why they would *not* use AI for schoolwork. And worse. The 5th installment of AI Killed My Job—educators:bloodinthemachine.com"If AI is writing the work and AI is reading the work, do we even need to be there at all?" Education workers reveal a growing crisis on campus and offAI Killed My Job: Educators. 20590261
Reposted by joanne mcneilJason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 12/03/2026I met with AI data labelers in Kenya who are organizing their colleagues to fight the brutal working conditions and horrible pay given to the workers at the "bottom of the AI supply chain." They believe the NDAs they've signed are unenforceable so are speaking out: www.404media.co/ai-is-africa...404media.co'AI Is African Intelligence': The Workers Who Train AI Are Fighting BackKenyan workers are still the underpaid labor behind AI training, moderation, and sex chatbots. The Data Labelers Association is fighting back. 3563193015
Reposted by joanne mcneilBrendan C. Byrne @brendancbyrne.bsky.social · 04/03/2026Remembering @jomc.bsky.social's line about how social media pushes users to issue a press release every time anything happens, ChatGPT3 allows everyone to have their own personal PR rep massaging everything they say into formless cud 063
Reposted by joanne mcneile.w. niedermeyer @niedermeyer.online · 06/02/2026a fantastic book, and an actual example of a "mechanical turk" 0236
Reposted by joanne mcneilFarrah Bostic @farrahbostic.bsky.social · 06/02/2026Once again I’d like to recommend @jomc.bsky.social’s novel Wrong Way: us.macmillan.com/books/978037...us.macmillan.comWrong WayNamed a Best Book of 2023 by the New Yorker and one of the Top 20 Best Books of 2023 by Esquire magazine.For years, Teresa has passed from one job to the nex... 1107
Reposted by joanne mcneilMatt Pearce @mattdpearce.com · 06/02/2026Read @jomc.bsky.social’s novel “Wrong Way”: www.mcdbooks.com/books/wrong-... 1295
joanne mcneil @jomc.bsky.social · 05/02/2026Waymo money, Waymo problems… nyra.nyc/articles/way... 1101
Reposted by joanne mcneilCarolina A. Miranda @cmonstah.bsky.social · 05/02/2026For this week's @kcrw.com Art Insider, @jomc.bsky.social writes about a seven hour video game/performance about donkeys that fuses "rhythm game challenges to retro arcade shooters, suggesting a history of the Luddite movement as told by Donkey Kong." Sold. email.kcrw.com/asses-masses... 094
Reposted by joanne mcneilAaron Stewart-Ahn @badideas.bsky.social · 25/01/2026A video of Alex Pretti reading out the final salute of an unnamed veteran he cared for until the end of his life in the ICU, posted to Facebook by his son. 10054689718036
joanne mcneil @jomc.bsky.social · 20/01/2026surreal and infuriating to encounter my Grokipedia bio. Feels like a personal brand was forced upon me by generative AI, eg “low profile” as lifestyle trend rather than an inclination 4160
joanne mcneil @jomc.bsky.social · 04/01/2026hi! he was going to Tulum on vacation and rented his room out on Airbnb. I didn’t realize that’s the word for partying in Bosnian/etc! thanks for reading so closely!! love this kind of question xx 030
Reposted by joanne mcneilJohn Berry @aniccia.bsky.social · 21/12/2025PG&E is having a massive outage in San Francisco. Waymo robots aren't handling the traffic light outages well. Cell service is also out is some places. No surprise as Waymo robots & cell have repeatedly failed during power outages. CPUC regulates both Waymo and PG&E (Profit Greed & Explosions). 11395134
Reposted by joanne mcneile.w. niedermeyer @niedermeyer.online · 16/12/2025Everyone treats "autonomy" as a singular technological problem, that once "solved" will simply create a profit-generating machine, but the hard reality is that this technology is a constant negotiation between profits on one hand and the level of safety and behavior society will tolerate on the road 0606
Reposted by joanne mcneilthe Mountain Goats @themountaingoats.bsky.social · 16/12/2025Primary them all and block anybody who comes with the “at this crucial juncture the most important thing is that we win.” if they believed that they wouldn’t do this and with friends like them nobody needs enemies 393467977
Reposted by joanne mcneilBrian Merchant @bcmerchant.bsky.social · 12/12/2025When the AI boom began, copywriters were singled out as one of the jobs most vulnerable to AI. Now, three years later, I wanted to hear from workers on the frontlines of the industry, to hear what had actually taken place on the ground. For many, it was even worse than they'd feared.bloodinthemachine.com"I was forced to use AI until the day I was laid off." Copywriters reveal how AI has decimated their industryCopywriters were one of the first to have their jobs targeted by AI firms. These are their stories, three years into the AI era. 201340653
joanne mcneil @jomc.bsky.social · 08/12/2025by now, there must be more stories about people who fell in love with chatbots than actual people who fell in love with chatbots 3336
joanne mcneil @jomc.bsky.social · 08/12/2025and no, you won't going to get away with a New Directions book in translation or NYRB reissue (both of which sold 10k copies already) on your best of list as a wildcard anymore 250
joanne mcneil @jomc.bsky.social · 08/12/2025if you are among the few staff critics reviewing books, films, music, art, &c, it is your professional duty to take a chance on things. Attend a random screening, pick up a self-published book, follow whims and offer full-throated generous praise for anything that makes an impression on a shoestring 1276
Reposted by joanne mcneilJeff Landale @jefflandale.bsky.social · 02/12/2025they did get 6 figure salaries for working part time. presumably their oversight didn't extend to the deplorable conditions of content moderators 021
joanne mcneil @jomc.bsky.social · 02/12/2025And the people who should have been criticizing its formation were instead scheming how to get on that board. where are all those "data ethicists" now? 150
joanne mcneil @jomc.bsky.social · 02/12/2025thinking back to when Facebook launched its Oversight Board in 2020—a transparent move to defuse crises on its own terms, a fig leaf to evade external audits and appeal to the technocrats. "Self-regulating" trillion dollar company is now a model for AI firms to playact as their worst critics. 15011
joanne mcneil @jomc.bsky.social · 02/12/2025I was on @techwontsave.us talking about the human labor Waymo depends on and disavows. And how the charade launders accountability for its mistakes, scapegoating everyone and everything but the machine. www.thenation.com/podcast/arch...thenation.comSilicon Valley Doesn’t Know What Makes a Good CityOn this episode of Tech Won't Save Us: Joanne McNeil unpacks Big Tech’s driverless transport fantasy. 074
joanne mcneil @jomc.bsky.social · 02/12/2025going get wild when Waymo transitions out of the "good to users" stage of the enshittification cycle www.reddit.com/r/waymo/comm... 2171
Reposted by joanne mcneilDave Infante @dinfontay.com · 02/12/2025not to put too fine a point on it but every one of these people—lizza and nuzzi, obviously, but also sundberg herself—are symptoms of the same problem, which is that larping as a journalist is orders of magnitude more lucrative than actually practicing journalism 9769129
Reposted by joanne mcneilTressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 23/11/2025It’s blowing my mind that schools, universities, public services would run headlong into this. We spent 15 years documenting black boxes. This is a black box in a black hole! 113199774
Reposted by joanne mcneiljoanne mcneil @jomc.bsky.social · 28/10/2025This Saturday!! Only a few tickets left www.eventbrite.com/e/what-comes... 031
Reposted by joanne mcneilali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 30/10/2025now listening to this @techwontsave.us episode with @jomc.bsky.social about autonomous vehicles and delivery robots, particularly relevant following the recent tragedy of a waymo taxi killing a locally beloved bodega catovercast.fmSilicon Valley Doesn’t Know What Makes a Good City w/ Joanne McNeil — Tech Won't Save UsParis Marx is joined by Joanne McNeil to discuss the proliferation of delivery bots and robotaxis and how they recycle disproven claims about how technology will improve transportation. Joanne McNeil ... 041
Reposted by joanne mcneilNew York Review of Architecture @nyreviewofarch.bsky.social · 30/10/2025“With machines (however remotely assisted) where essential workers used to be, those who WFH are ever more shielded from strangers beneath their tax bracket.” @jomc.bsky.social isn’t cuckoo for Coco bots in LARA no. 2. nyra.nyc/articles/way... 051
Reposted by joanne mcneilJason Broccardo @zoocoup.bsky.social · 28/10/2025@jomc.bsky.social was just on “Tech Won't Save Us” and part of the discussion was about the behavior of delivery robots like this techwontsave.us/episode/299_...techwontsave.usSilicon Valley Doesn’t Know What Makes a Good City w/ Joanne McNeil - Tech Won’t Save Us 0103
joanne mcneil @jomc.bsky.social · 28/10/2025This Saturday!! Only a few tickets left www.eventbrite.com/e/what-comes... 031
Reposted by joanne mcneilDan Mitchell @dan-mitchell.bsky.social · 23/10/2025One of the take away listening to this is how once again we don't think of people with disabilities, delivery robots tearing down the middle of the sidewalk #disablityawareness #robots #ai 1204
Reposted by joanne mcneilTech Won’t Save Us @techwontsave.us · 23/10/2025Silicon Valley wants to make cities more efficient by taking away anything that makes them enjoyable. This week @jomc.bsky.social joins @parismarx.com to discuss why robotaxis and delivery bots aren’t solving any real problems with transport and cities. Full ep: techwontsave.us/episode/299_... 26014
Reposted by joanne mcneilParis Marx @parismarx.com · 23/10/2025always such a pleasure to chat with @jomc.bsky.social, especially on subject like robotaxis, delivery robots, the labor behind it all, and what they’re doing to neighborhoods. don’t miss our chat! 14519