iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jennifer Sano-Franchini @jsanofranchini.bsky.social · 8h

New blog post on refusal.blog: "Shame, Moral Displacement, and Tone Policing in a Time of Sycophantic Chatbots" "often, the same people who complain about ‘shaming’ [AI use] do not hesitate to engage in shaming themselves" refusal.blog/2026/09/29/s... @nobugsnous.bsky.social @rcmeg.bsky.social

refusal.blog

Shame, Moral Displacement, and Tone Policing in a Time of Sycophantic Chatbots

Jennifer Sano-Franchini, West Virginia UniversityMaggie Fernandes, University of ArkansasMegan McIntyre, University of Arkansas Wire Bound by Hanna Barakat & Archival Images of AI + AIxDESIGN /…

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

I was struck by the extent to which this reviewer (and many other people, I'm afraid) have lost sight of the possibility of refusal. And so I want to reaffirm: There is no responsible use without the possibility of refusal. >>

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

This is a thread about erasure of women's expertise and work in this area. As often happens, erasure comes together with overexposure. >>

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The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

They are playing in our faces

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Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 25/09/2026

If you were asked to consider the biggest threat to humanity in the next ten years, you might choose the worsening climate disasters or ever-growing number of wars. But tech oligarchs want us to believe it’s chatbots that can’t even tell truth from bullshit. disconnect.blog/the-media-ha...

For the past several weeks, we’ve been treated to breathless coverage of the supposed major threat presented by artificial intelligence. If we’re to believe the titans of the AI industry and the media reports mindlessly echoing their every utterance, humanity’s years may be numbered.

It’s not because of climate change and how we’re actively making our planet less fit for human habitation. Indeed, many of these prophets of AI doom don’t actually believe climate change is much of a threat at all. It’s also not because increasingly unstable geopolitics is shifting the world toward greater conflict and the risk of global war.

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Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 25/09/2026

An individual in Canada used ChatGPT for eight months to plan one of the country’s worst mass shootings. Yet, if you listen to politicians and media, the real threat of AI is a fantastical scenario where it might wipe out humans in ten years. They need to stop getting fooled by tech deceivers.

disconnect.blog

The media has the AI threat all wrong

Generative AI is harming people today. We don’t need to waste time fantasizing about science fictional scenarios.

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Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

"Just as providers are using sophisticated A.I. tools to say their patients are sicker, insurance companies have been accused of using the tools to delay or deny care.... But as more hospitals and doctors use A.I., costs will continue to rise."

nytimes.com

Battle of Hospital A.I. vs. Insurer A.I. Is Pushing Medical Costs Higher

The use of artificial intelligence by hospitals and health insurers is escalating their longstanding feud over paying for medical care.

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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

DoorDash spent $1.4M trying to stop Zohran Mamdani from becoming mayor. This week's historic $131.5M enforcement action against DoorDash for underpaying NYC delivery workers shows why. Yet another reminder that the only thing that can beat organized money is organized people.

theintercept.com

DoorDash Spent $1.4 Million Trying to Stop Mamdani From Becoming Mayor. Now We Know Why.

In a wage-theft settlement, DoorDash now has to pay its workers around 100 times what it spent trying to beat Zohran Mam

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Pause AI in BC Schools @aicaution.ca · 26/09/2026

A common pattern we see is "sure AI is bad, but it's useful for {field in which the speaker is not an expert}" When you ask experts in that field, you find out how bad AI is.

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Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

It is a profound indictment of most media coverage of Big Tech that your best bet for getting an informed understanding of AI and its dangers is following a decently curated list of Bluesky shitposters

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Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Scoop: Meta's Muse AI can make phone calls. Internally, Meta has told employees that many of these calls will be made by human beings in a call center: www.404media.co/meta-tests-m...

404media.co

Meta Tests Muse AI Agent Calls That Are Actually Made By Humans in a Call Center

"This has potential for so much negative PR. It could portray us as ‘their AI is not good enough so they still need humans’ kind of coverage for this launch."

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David/Trout 2.0 @trout61.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

I have tried not buying snacks. It doesn't work.

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Jennifer Sano-Franchini @jsanofranchini.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Everyone and especially all the academics on AI task forces and initiatives should read this.

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Dan Martin @danmartin7.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Knowing that someone has used ChatGPT to think means I will never ask them about anything. Their ethos is done. People don't talk enough about how using ChatGPT erodes trust and ethos. Professors and students using ChatGPT to outsource thinking are losing their credibility.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Automated grading of student writing should have been a clear no-go from the beginning. I wrote this over three years ago and I can't believe how many faculty have allowed themselves to be seduced by this. Students rightly see this as betrayal. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

insidehighered.com

Do not leave grading to the machines

Some lines we shouldn’t cross. This is one.

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Adolfo Neto @adolfoneto.elixiremfoco.com · 21/09/2026

👇🏻

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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Panic and fury are not the same thing. That’s why I used one word and not the other. this also responds to something that isn’t happening — it’s not that people aren’t furious; it’s that they are. And they are organizing around it. Manufactured panic is an op.

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Greg Pak @gregpak.net · 19/09/2026

this is so fucking racist i could scream

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Donnie Johnson Sackey @donniejsackey.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

CCCC Leadership Response to NCTE’s De-Chartering of CCCC. Please read and sign. theorganizationformerlyknownascccc.com

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Courtney Milan @courtneymilan.com · 19/09/2026

LMAO if it destroys the world why the fuck should it be protected from lawsuits??????

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Adam Becker @adambecker.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

@aoc.bsky.social just put out a great statement on AI. Refreshing to see a major politician on the left nail this. "Silicon Valley billionaires want us to believe that Al robots will destroy humanity. But the biggest threat to humanity are the tech oligarchs themselves." 🎯

Charles,

Last weekend, Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, one of the largest Al companies in the world, publicly asked his industry to slow down Al development.

Shortly after, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAl, followed suit. Then Elon Musk.

This all came days after an Anthropic researcher quit, citing his belief that this technology could wipe out humanity and that Al companies are "gambling with our lives."

For years, people have warned that generative Al could slip out of our direct control.

Those safety concerns must be taken seriously.

And this is why I have advocated for strict safety standards on how Al is built and deployed, public oversight over this technology, and using existing laws to hold these companies accountable when they cause harm.

But I want to draw your attention to another reality: Right now, the U.S. economy and our financial futures are riding on Silicon Valley's bet that Al will soon be immensely profitable and pay off. And that bet isn't looking good.

The formula for a profitable business isn't complicated: make more money than you spend. But the biggest Al companies aren't doing that. They are spending hundreds of billions per year on data centers, chips, and other costs while their ability to make revenues that exceed their already-immense sunk costs are unclear. Experts estimate that these Al companies will require another $600 billion of debt just to finance

themselves in 2026 alone. That is more than the entire budgets of the U.S. Departments of Justice, Transportation, & Education combined.
Meanwhile, despite almost every single one of these companies not turning a profit & having sunk billions of investor dollars in development of data centers & other infrastructure, Al companies are also on a spending spree of hundreds of millions of dollars in lobbying & dark money in our elections.
It would be one thing if we were discussing a few private companies with a poor business model. But last year, virtually all stock market gains - 80% - rested entirely on just a handful of Al companies.
That tells us two things:
1. Nearly the entire U.S. economy outside the Al industry is relatively stagnating and faring poorly & the gains from these few companies are disguising it; &
2. Millions of people's retirements - including their pensions, 401ks, & investments - are potentially exposed to this risk.
That's why these Al companies' dubious financial positions matter to working people.
These companies argue that debt is necessary. They'll tell you that building transformative technologies requires upfront capital, & that massive borrowing today will pay off in generating unprecedented prosperity tomorrow.
But this is not the typical debt that startups take on while they build out a company. We are talking about billions going on trillions of dollars leveraged with no indication that these companies will be able to recoup these funds profitably. And they are increasingly looking to the government as their source of cash.
In an effort to hide their debt, tech companies have been relying on "circular financing" where tech giants like Google, Amazon, & Microsoft give billions to Al startups like OpenAl & Anthropic, only for those startups to hand that money right back to buy Al processing power.
In other words, these Al companies are luring in new investors by making it look like their financials are healthier than they really are.

What's even worse is that retirement & pension funds are key to supporting this illusion.
When the Al companies issue bonds to raise more money, your pension funds & retirement accounts are some of the biggest buyers. When Musk's Al business went public, it became part of index funds where millions of Americans invest our savings. Many Americans don't even know that their retirement investments are tied up in these companies at all.
From Big Tech's perspective, that's a feature, not a bug. By tying our futures to their reckless gambling, Al billionaires are trying to make themselves too big to fail. They think they can take such dangerous risks because we will bail them out if things go wrong.
Sound familiar? This scene is dangerously reminiscent of the rampant speculation, corruption, & broken incentives leading up to the 2008 financial crisis that plunged millions of working class Americans into financial chaos that we never fully recovered from.
It is no accident that these warnings from Altman & Amodei come months-if not weeks-before these companies were meant to go public.
When companies go public, they have to be more transparent about how they are doing financially. And after a waiting period, they typically have to let private investors-like their own employees-sell their shares.
The New York Times recently confirmed that OpenAl has postponed going public for this very reason. They are in no rush for the truth about their finances to come out.
But the moment these oligarchs began to seek our public tax dollars & public contracts while exposing their companies to public pension funds & investments, they opened themselves to public accountability & scrutiny.
Silicon Valley billionaires have rigged the game & are attempting to shift their financial risk to working people: If they're right about Al's potential, they reap the profits. If they're wrong & the bubble bursts, they are setting up the American people to pick up the tab.
Heads, they win; tails, we lose.

We can stop this, and we shouldn't play their game. Together we can address both the economic and safety threats of unrestricted Al development and prevent financial chaos and stabilize market risk.

We must make it clear now that should the Al bubble pop, Congress should not bail out Big Tech.

And across our federal agencies, we have the authorities and tools to hold Al companies and their leaders accountable for releasing dangerous, unvetted, and defective products. We must not wait.

Silicon Valley billionaires want us to believe that Al robots will destroy humanity.

But the biggest threat to humanity are the tech oligarchs themselves.

It's time we hold them accountable.

Thank you for reading.

In solidarity,

Alexandria

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Jennifer Sano-Franchini @jsanofranchini.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

there are people who I truly respect who do pre-prints and I realize the use of them is likely field specific but can I also just say that I AM SO TRULY OVER PREPRINTS. I refuse to read them.

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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 18/09/2026

This is why I hate "just a tool" so so so much. You can make a calculator without access to every calculation. You can make photoshop without access to all photos. Someone show me a genai tool that didn't require all of our labour in its production. It's plagiarism software.

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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I just read, "Meryl Streep cast as Aslan" and I gasped. Aslan. Not "Asian". The difference mattered.

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Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 16/09/2026

Reading proofs from book & remembering what I wrote in 2015: "I am very concerned about the future of AI. Not because of the risk of rogue machines taking over. But because of the homogeneous, one-dimensional group of men who are currently involved in advancing the technology.”

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Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 16/09/2026

Fucking bullshit that this guy is not only doing the press rounds but is the guy politicians on the "left" are taking their cues from.

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Jennifer Sano-Franchini @jsanofranchini.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I made a shitty flyer without using 'AI' (soo 2026-core)

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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I *hate* this "digital divide" framing for AI; even libraries marshal it to justify their "AI literacy classes," ensuring all have "access" for self-actualization and economic opportunity. Maybe instead some folks are sufficiently literate, and they're instead choosing *principled refusal*.

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Greg Pak @gregpak.net · 15/09/2026

you mean he’s gonna inflict surveillance and deskilling on the world’s poorest people?

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Ghost in the Machine @ghostdoc2026.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

The wait is finally over! Ghosties get involved @pbs.org Also airing tonight on your local PBS station 7PM PT, 10PM ET! "The one documentary with the power to burst the AI bubble" - The Wrap www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLQz...

youtube.com

Ghost in the Machine | What is Artificial Intelligence? | Full Documentary

YouTube video by PBS Documentaries

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Charles Logan @charleswlogan.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Just one more reason to ❤️ Hacks

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Charles Logan @charleswlogan.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Viewing @ghostdoc2026.bsky.social with students to learn about eugenics, the ideology and political economy of AI, and how we exert our agency to shape the future > More AI literacy that socializes students into GenAI customers. The documentary is now available to watch - and teach! - in full:

youtu.be

Ghost in the Machine | What is Artificial Intelligence? | Full Documentary

YouTube video by PBS Documentaries

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Brandi Buchman @brandibuchman.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

After Pretti was killed, Savageford, who is Asian-American, said she was taken to a warehouse near the Whipple detention center where immigrants were being detained. She was strip-searched, including by male agents who Cook told HuffPost on Friday were “touching her privates.”

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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 12/09/2026

It will be interesting to see how institutions deal with the rising costs of AI to higher ed. At some point will access be just too expensive for them to pay for?

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Dan Rosen @danrosen.xyz · 10/09/2026

The interfaces convince users that they are using judgment and logic to solve problems when in reality they are using probability

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Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 10/09/2026

you're very welcome! you can press on that too from this angle (below) as it's clearly not a tool under some definitions

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Anna Holmes @annabookwriter.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Refusing to use AI isn’t a recalcitrant position. It’s the moral one. There is too much wrong with how this is happening to just “if you can’t beat em join em” this. It’s a lack of consent machine. An environmental destruction machine. An emotional and cognitive numbing machine.

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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 08/09/2026

I think a really really basic amount of solidarity you can show with climate workers, analysts, writers, experts and advocates is not sharing links to posts that are clearly 100% AI generated (ie: based on plagiarism from the work of all of us doing it using our hearts and our heads)

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Gillian Brockell @gillianbrockell.com · 08/09/2026

A new version of ChatGPT is about to drop. Academics like @alexhanna.bsky.social and Emily Bender have been pointing out for literal years that these scare tactics about how powerful and scary AI is actually work as marketing. At this point, being this gullible is a choice.

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Alex Hanna @alexhanna.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

*whispers in analysis of political economy and science and technology studies* Frankly, no. If your technology relies on massive capital consolidation to function at all, then the problem is the technology, not simply who wields it.

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Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 06/09/2026

"So in summary: using AI for coding led to depression, apathy, existential dread, and worse software. Not good. Add on top of that the negative environmental, community, and economic impacts of AI, and it became extremely apparent to me that something's gotta change." brettcodes.com/im-done-usin...

brettcodes.com

I'm done using AI

Why I'm stopping using AI for coding (and anything else) after using it earnestly for a year and coming to understand the harms it causes on personal, societal, and environmental levels.

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Charles Logan @charleswlogan.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Yes, this:

A screenshot of Audrey Watters’ weekly post that reads, “This growing rejection and refusal of technology – inside and outside of schools – is about much much more than the technology itself. It is, in part, about the loss of control; the loss of agency, autonomy, and privacy. It is a response to the oligarchs’ efforts to undermine democracy. It is about these billionaires’ dismal, dystopian vision for the future – a wanton destruction of the planet writ large and local communities writ small; their apparent hatred for home and humanity alike.”

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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

they've been pushing "AI in the classroom" for years now and while the studies of its detrimental effects pile up, and *student* as well as instructor resistance builds, the arguments for it haven't gotten any better or even changed from this tired, greasy attempt at giving orders

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Ebony Elizabeth Thomas @ebonyteach.blacksky.app · 14/02/2026

Just like journalists rarely talk to experts in English ed or children's lit about censorship and book banning, they aren't talking to high school English teachers, college writing program adminstrators, or anyone in rhetcomp about ChatGPT and generative AI. We hate to see it.

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Catherine D'Ignazio (she/her/ella) @kanarinka.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Join our open, free learning community 📣 Technofascism, Feminism and Democracy 📣 to explore: the rise of global authoritarianism; Big Tech, AI, & the billionaire class; how feminist & grassroots movements are proposing alternative democratic futures. technofascism.dataplusfeminism.mit.edu

Image depicts a bundle of cables (referencing the origin of the word "fasces" which means bundle in Italian) along with the head of an ax protruding from them. The text reads Technofascism, Feminism, Democracy and a smaller text invites you to join the open learning community with a QR code.

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