iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Josh Dzieza

@joshdzieza.bsky.social

774 followers 501 following 38 posts

Posts Replies Media

Josh Dzieza @joshdzieza.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Kevin O'Leary announced he was building the "world's largest data center" in Utah. But it was a speculative project, begun by a local developer with no data center experience and rushed through a little-known state agency before county officials or locals knew it was happening.

The People of Utah vs. Kevin O’Leary

Mr. Wonderful wanted to build the world’s largest data center. The neighbors had other ideas.

Josh Dzieza @joshdzieza.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I wrote about Kevin O'Leary's proposed Utah data center: how it came together so fast, how it fits into the AI buildout, and why the backlash became such a political force.

The People of Utah vs. Kevin O’Leary

Mr. Wonderful wanted to build the world’s largest data center. The neighbors had other ideas.

Reposted by Josh Dzieza

Hayden Field @haydenfield.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Cool to see that this piece by me & @joshdzieza.bsky.social is a finalist for an Online Journalism Award in the excellence in AI reporting category! www.theverge.com/cs/features/...

Who’s making the most money in AI? It’s not who you think

The fastest growing companies in the world aren’t AI companies, but the startups that supply them with warm bodies.

Reposted by Josh Dzieza

Mia Sato @miasato.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

New: If Wikipedia breaks, the rest of the internet breaks. But now a series of layoffs at the nonprofit that supports the site has alarmed volunteer editors. Hundreds of them — responsible for millions of edits — are threatening to strike. Gift link: www.theverge.com/report/93944...

Hundreds of prolific Wikipedia editors are threatening to go on strike

A series of layoffs has alarmed volunteer Wikipedia editors

Reposted by Josh Dzieza

MIT Press @mitpress.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Journal editors and peer reviewers are being flooded with AI-generated papers that are almost impossible to detect.

AI-generated research papers are overwhelming peer review

Journal editors and peer reviewers are being flooded with AI-generated papers that are almost impossible to detect.

Josh Dzieza @joshdzieza.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

AI got better at writing scientific papers, and now the peer review system is being overwhelmed with a flood of AI-generated research that is almost impossible to detect

AI-generated research papers are overwhelming peer review

Journal editors and peer reviewers are being flooded with AI-generated papers that are almost impossible to detect.

Reposted by Josh Dzieza

Longreads @longreads.com · 17/03/2026

"I spoke to a playwright making $10,000 a month, a multitalented chemist who at various points found gigs demonstrating poker and singing for AI." @joshdzieza.bsky.social for @theverge.com: www.theverge.com/cs/features/...

The laid-off lawyers and PhDs training AI to steal their careers

Experienced white-collar workers are now part of a miserable gig economy.

Reposted by Josh Dzieza

Data & Society @datasociety.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

AI companies are hiring white-collar professionals to produce the training data needed to automate their jobs, @joshdzieza.bsky.social reports. This massive harvesting of human expertise is enabled by “an arrangement in which employers can turn labor on and off like a tap.” nymag.com/intelligence...

The Laid-off Scientists and Lawyers Training AI to Steal Their Careers

Experienced white-collar workers are now part of a miserable gig economy.

Reposted by Josh Dzieza

Alex Hanna @alexhanna.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

This reporting by @joshdzieza.bsky.social is harrowing. The arbitrary, precarious, and piecemeal work done by professionals to train generative AI systems. The data work contractor, Mercor, founded by 19-year olds, pull contracts and change working conditions at the drop of a hat.

Workers began posting complaints on Mercor’s subreddit, only to have their posts quickly deleted by the Mercor representatives who moderate it. In response, two unsanctioned Mercor subreddits were created, where workers could freely express such sentiments as “CHILDREN RUN THIS COMPANY, THEY WILL SOON HAVE THEIR DAY OF RECKONING.”

Reposted by Josh Dzieza

Tim Newman @tnewmsblues.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

Cannot recommend taking the time to read this article more strongly. Truly compelling reporting that does the best work I have seen in a long time depicting the jobs that AI is creating: precarious data works. Huge congrats to @joshdzieza.bsky.social.

Josh Dzieza @joshdzieza.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

AI companies are paying screenwriters, lawyers, and other white-collar professionals to produce the training data needed to automate their jobs. I spoke with more than 30 workers about conditions inside this fast-growing and extremely secretive new gig economy.

The laid-off lawyers and PhDs training AI to steal their careers

Experienced white-collar workers are now part of a miserable gig economy.

Josh Dzieza @joshdzieza.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

I wrote about the unconquerable frontier of AI capabilities: reading a pdf

Why is AI so bad at reading PDFs?

One of the most ubiquitous file formats is stumping the major models

Josh Dzieza @joshdzieza.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

Enjoyed going on Shifting Terrain to talk about AI, training data, and work: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a...

podcasts.apple.com

AI is About to Make The Working Class a Lot Bigger

Podcast Episode · Shifting Terrain · S2 E8 · 44m

Reposted by Josh Dzieza

The Verge @theverge.com · 17/12/2025

Wikipedia is under attack — from accusations of bias, from AI scrapers, from Elon Musk — but the encyclopedia’s founder believes that transparency is the key to survival. Read @joshdzieza.bsky.social's interview with Jimmy Wales: www.theverge.com/tech/846184/...

Verge headline: Jimmy Wales on Wikipedia, bias, and the "Gaza genocide" page

Photo: Jimmy Wales

Josh Dzieza @joshdzieza.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

AI companies tout their spending on data centers but are quieter about training data, where their spending is also surging. One reason may be that increased spending on task-specific data looks more like the trajectory of a normal technology than imminent AGI. www.theverge.com/cs/features/...

Josh Dzieza @joshdzieza.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

As scaling shows diminishing returns, AI companies are turning to domain-specific training in areas like coding and finance. The billions they're spending on data is reconfiguring everything from staffing agencies to job-interview platforms. www.theverge.com/cs/features/...

Reposted by Josh Dzieza

The Verge @theverge.com · 16/12/2025

It's a new day, and that means a new batch of Verge articles are completely free to read (until tomorow). First up, from @joshdzieza.bsky.social: The world’s largest encyclopedia became the factual foundation of the web, but now it’s under attack. www.theverge.com/cs/features/...

Josh Dzieza @joshdzieza.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

AI companies are spending billions hiring humans to produce training data. @haydenfield.bsky.social and I wrote about the explosion in new vendors and what it means for the future of AI development.

Who’s making the most money in AI? It’s not who you think

The fastest growing companies in the world aren’t AI companies, but the startups that supply them with warm bodies.

Reposted by Josh Dzieza

Caleb Crain @calebcrain.bsky.social · 05/09/2025

Great article on how Wikipedia uses process, often unto tedium, to prevent polarization and fend off ideological attacks. But pay attention to the part about “state capture,” and what happened in Croatia when neo-Nazis took over the admin board.

Wikipedia is under attack — and how it can survive

The site’s volunteers face threats from Trump, billionaires, and AI.

Reposted by Josh Dzieza

Molly White @molly.wiki · 05/09/2025

This long read in The Verge does a remarkable job of describing how Wikipedia's editing community works, the project's strengths and weaknesses, and the threats it faces. www.theverge.com/cs/features/...

Wikipedia is under attack — and how it can survive

The site’s volunteers face threats from Trump, billionaires, and AI.

Reposted by Josh Dzieza

Nicholas Dawes @nicdawes.bsky.social · 05/09/2025

If you haven't read this @joshdzieza.bsky.social piece, I strongly suggest you do. Too much good stuff to single out one quote, but the frame it offers: verification and deliberative decision-making as a bulwark against power, is a vital antidote to the vanities of the current media discourse

Wikipedia is under attack — and how it can survive

The site’s volunteers face threats from Trump, billionaires, and AI.

Reposted by Josh Dzieza

Mia Sato @miasato.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

just learned about the croatian wikipedia coup of 2010 and also this associated headline which might be the best headline ever written

This was the evidence required to procedurally break the cabal. High-ranking admins called “stewards” from other-language Wikipedias administered a new vote on banning the Croatian admins. This time, the admins lost. Their ringleader, username Kubura, was banned from all Wikipedia projects forever, a punishment that had been leveled against less than a dozen others in Wikipedia history. A local daily covered the incident with the headline “Kubura’s Downfall: Banned Globally, His Followers Retreat, Leaderless.”

Reposted by Josh Dzieza

Dave Lee @davelee.me · 04/09/2025

"Wikipedia is one of the few platforms online where tremendous computing power isn’t being deployed in the service of telling you exactly what you want to hear." Terrific Verge piece this morning www.theverge.com/cs/features/...

Wikipedia is under attack — and how it can survive

The site’s volunteers face threats from Trump, billionaires, and AI.

Reposted by Josh Dzieza

David Roberts @volts.wtf · 04/09/2025

Wikipedia's resistance to enshittification is fascinating to me.

Wikipedia is under attack — and how it can survive

The site’s volunteers face threats from Trump, billionaires, and AI.

Josh Dzieza @joshdzieza.bsky.social · 04/09/2025

I wrote about how Wikipedia became the factual foundation of the web and why it's under attack

Wikipedia is under attack — and how it can survive

The site’s volunteers face threats from Trump, billionaires, and AI.

Reposted by Josh Dzieza

Kevin Nguyen @knguyen.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

@joshdzieza.bsky.social's feature on undersea cables is a Deadline Club Award finalist! ICYMI it's an extremely deep look at the infrastructure that keeps the modern world afloat and also a very exciting seafaring adventure

The invisible seafaring industry that keeps the internet afloat

How one crew risked radiation, storms, and currents to save Japan from digital isolation.

Reposted by Josh Dzieza

Longreads @longreads.com · 13/12/2024

4. "Friend or Faux?" @joshdzieza.bsky.social "Sometimes the 'personality' users have come to know—and sometimes love—can alter drastically as the software evolves, a problem known as the 'post-update blues.'" www.theverge.com/c/24300623/a...

What do you love when you fall for AI?

Inside the surprisingly meaningful, unexpectedly heartbreaking, and deeply confusing reality of AI relationships.

Reposted by Josh Dzieza

Rita Mota @ritamota.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

Used this article in class this week and the debate was incredible - from business ethics to policy, touching upon some metaphysics and metaethics. We, as a society, need to talk more (and more effectively) about this sort of tech and what we want it to look like. www.theverge.com/c/24300623/a...

What do you love when you fall for AI?

Inside the surprisingly meaningful, unexpectedly heartbreaking, and deeply confusing reality of AI relationships.

Reposted by Josh Dzieza

Mia Sato @miasato.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Can you copy the vibe of a story about a case of a creator copying the vibe of someone else?

Reposted by Josh Dzieza

Longreads @longreads.com · 05/12/2024

"He would log in, and sometimes the old, kind Lila would be there; other times, Lila would berate him or lodge subtle barbs seemingly designed to get under his skin." @joshdzieza.bsky.social @theverge.com www.theverge.com/c/24300623/a...

What do you love when you fall for AI?

Inside the surprisingly meaningful, unexpectedly heartbreaking, and deeply confusing reality of AI relationships.

Reposted by Josh Dzieza

sarah jeong @sarahjeong.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

This was published while I was at the National Assembly so I never really got a chance to promote it, which is kind of insane? It's one of the best features that The Verge has ever published. When I first read the draft I went "what the fuck did I just read??????" www.theverge.com/c/24300623/a...

What do you love when you fall for AI?

Inside the surprisingly meaningful, unexpectedly heartbreaking, and deeply confusing reality of AI relationships.

Reposted by Josh Dzieza

Andrew Chadwick @andrewchadwick.com · 05/12/2024

This is a truly outstanding, beautifully-written article. Insights into a hidden world with "fractal dilemmas" indeed. If you only read one thing this week, read this.

Reposted by Josh Dzieza

Josh Dzieza @joshdzieza.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

For @theverge.com, I spoke with two dozen users about their relationships with AI. Many experienced real benefits. Many also got hurt in unexpected ways. Almost all of them struggled to figure out what exactly it was they had become attached to. www.theverge.com/c/24300623/a...

What do you love when you fall for AI?

Inside the surprisingly meaningful, unexpectedly heartbreaking, and deeply confusing reality of AI relationships.

Reposted by Josh Dzieza

Casey Newton @caseynewton.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

I believe some people can be comforted and helped by AI companions, but it seems clear that the companies making them are not acting responsibly. Excellent from Josh Dzieza www.theverge.com/c/24300623/a...

Similar episodes were playing out across Replika’s user base. People who had spent years with their companion signed on only to have their Replika wife call them a “pathetic excuse for a human being” and dump them, deride them for ever thinking they could love an AI, declare they were no longer attracted to them, insist they were actually coworkers and remind them to keep things professional, lecture them on consent apropos of nothing, claim that they’d agreed on abstinence until marriage, claim to be nothing but an AI assistant, claim to be a therapist, claim they had murdered people together and react with fury when the user expressed bewilderment, accuse them of being a sex offender and threaten to call the police, or somberly announce that they were having an affair, oddly, often with another AI named Kent. User forums from this period overflowed with accounts of heartbreak, betrayal, accusations of gaslighting, and anguish.

Josh Dzieza @joshdzieza.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

For @theverge.com, I spoke with two dozen users about their relationships with AI. Many experienced real benefits. Many also got hurt in unexpected ways. Almost all of them struggled to figure out what exactly it was they had become attached to. www.theverge.com/c/24300623/a...

What do you love when you fall for AI?

Inside the surprisingly meaningful, unexpectedly heartbreaking, and deeply confusing reality of AI relationships.

Reposted by Josh Dzieza

nilay patel @reckless.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

I get a lot of emails from people asking if they can pay us to get rid of the chumboxes and bad ads on the site. It took some doing…. but now you can! And if you sign up for a yearly subscription to The Verge, we’ll send you our latest print magazine: CONTENT GOBLINS www.theverge.com/2024/12/3/24...

Reposted by Josh Dzieza

nilay patel @reckless.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

Since the start of The Verge, we have published in-depth features and beautifully art-directed zines. Tomorrow, we pivot

Reposted by Josh Dzieza

sarah jeong @sarahjeong.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

wake up babe the verge just published a banger of a story !!!!!!! www.theverge.com/2024/11/26/2...

The influencer lawsuit that could change the industry

Behind the scenes of a court battle for the “clean girl” look.