iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Michael Karanicolas

Legal Affairs Canada @lawscribes.bsky.social · 2h

Charter of Rights s7 s15. and trafficking drugs for 'benevolent purpose.' Full decision: R v Kalicum 2026 BCSC 1855 www.bccourts.ca/jdb-txt/sc/2...

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Reposted by Michael Karanicolas

Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 29/09/2026

This open letter is now circulating. Please sign and share through your networks. Thanks. sites.google.com/view/frenk-r...

sites.google.com

We call on Julio Frenk to immediately retract his statements

[Links to several other open letters and faculty statements are below.]

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

It's good Carney has a strong political hand to engage with external challenges, as his popularity gives him an edge dealing with someone like Trump whose numbers are in free-fall. But this aura of invincibility really sucks when trying to contend with problematic aspects of his domestic agenda.

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

In Canada, what made this conversation impossible was that every political party approached it from the perspective of trying to juice their representation (obviously). Which led to everyone accusing each other of trying to steal the next election. Interested to see if this ends differently.

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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Losers.

Republican Men Are More Likely To Blame Women For Their Problems chart
• Democrat
• Republican
26
24
18 to 29
30 to 49
Source: Civility and Morality Survey, 2025.
50 to 64
65 and older
Survey Center
on American Life

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Colin @colin-fraser.net · 29/09/2026

Another day working in AI Safety at a frontier lab. Everyone asks me if they can use the model without it hacking into the UN. Buddy, they won’t even let me use the model without it hacking into the UN.

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evacide @evacide.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Meta Muse appears to read your Apple messages and upload them to the cloud even if you explicitly tell it not to: appleinsider.com/articles/26/...

appleinsider.com

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Add that to the list of reasons not to go to a Florida public university, in addition to the state's ideological takeover of these institutions.

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Right. Lesson #1 from the below thread is that these companies need to be regulated, and need to be held liable for the harms their products create. But lesson #2 is for the love of god stop trusting these products to act on your behalf at least until the companies find a way to stop this behavior.

So uhhhhhh… Apparently meta's muse "AI" is just straight up doxxing people to strangers on FB marketplace??? This has the potential to hurt so so many people, and I genuinely wonder how long before they roll out a fix for it.

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Reposted by Michael Karanicolas

Scott Lincicome @scottlincicome.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

"Canadian crude shipments are bypassing a pit stop off the California coast and heading straight to Asia as skyrocketing shipping rates make the detour less economical and the nation’s oil producers look to reduce dependence on the US" www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

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Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

A great illustration of the way social media has essentially shredded society’s informational immune system: The USSR spent a fortune trying to spread conspiracy theories, without success because they couldn’t crack newsrooms. Today, you can reach the globe with a post that costs $20 to make.

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Agree, but the thing to bear in mind is we absolutely still have gatekeepers today as the online discourse has recentralized: social media platforms, influential accounts that pick who to boost, and now LLMs. But they lack any of the professional codes that guided, say, newspapers or broadcasters.

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The framing for this article is insane, but it actually tells a really valuable story about how the modern information environment continues to drive radicalization and misinformation, in this case towards panic over imminent societal collapse.

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

This really illustrates the disconnect in AI safety/governance conversations with regard to existential risk. The most powerful militaries in the world are using these technologies to cause mass civilian casualties as part of conventional conflicts, and people are still focused on SkyNet.

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Mel Buer @melbuer.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I want to make another point here, that I think Faine does an excellent job of highlighting: there isn't anything particularly wrong with putting on sex parties with consenting adults A big issue here is that women are being pressured to attend in order to network *professionally*

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

This strikes me is a common misunderstanding of the argument for humanities education, which is not that it serves as some sort of individual inoculation, but rather than it produces a citizenry more capable of self-governance when distributed widely, especially for decision-makers of every kind.

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

A few months ago we saw 120 children killed in an AI targeting mistake in Iran and prior to that an unprecedented scale of civilian deaths from AI targeting in Gaza. These systems desperately need better oversight and it's deeply disturbing to see leading militaries moving in the opposite direction.

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Boycotts aside, this kind of thing seems like a pretty good reason to avoid American products at least for the foreseeable.

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Reposted by Michael Karanicolas

Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 26/09/2026

the Eliezer Yudkowsky superhero origin story is truly so intensely dorky as to defy all attempts at parody. you could not waterboard any of this out of me web.archive.org/web/20010309...

His autobiography even opens with a parable: as a small child he threw his favorite squirtgun off a third-floor balcony rather than accept that his mother could lend out what was his, and felt complete when he heard it hit the pavement. He goes on to describes himself as a specialist in the technological transformation of the human species, one of the few people alive with the standing to steer it. He identifies with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the one person who sees the danger clearly and has to act while everyone else gets on with ordinary life.

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I know there’s zero chance of it happening but I really wish we could stop referring to frats as Greek organizations of worse, “Greek society”.

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Concentrations of wealth are not exacerbating the problem, concentrations of wealth are the problem.

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

A defining characteristic of speech rights, as compared with say the right to worship or due process, is they very often intersect and compete with the speech rights of others. When an outlet focuses on one side of this equation, and not the other, it’s usually because they’ve chosen a side.

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

One time I was interviewing at a law firm and they were running behind so the receptionist kindly asked if I wanted anything and I said I’d love some tea, thanks. She brought it in during my interview with the senior partner and he spent the rest of the time yelling at me for being unprofessional.

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

[Sam Altman walks into OpenAI’s weekly all-hands meeting, pumping his fists] “Crimes! Crimes! Crimes!” Everyone in the room: “Crimes!!!Crimes!!! Crimes!!! Crimes!!! Crimes!!!”

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

This is sort of like when Hunter S Thompson scored an interview with Nixon at the height of Watergate on the condition they only talk about football except in that case the decision-making was obviously fueled by LSD.

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Gotta go pick up the kids from daycare hope my Mad-Max tricked out monster truck has enough guzzoline to get me home safe.

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Hey remember when Canada's government was going to ban TikTok because of concerns about Chinese interference? Can someone remind me again which country controls about 90% of our digital information ecosystem?

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Reposted by Michael Karanicolas

Hannah BW @hbwhbwhbw.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

If ever there were a post to force tenure and hiring committees to confront hard questions this might be it

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

This is obviously an issue that happens, but it's also an incredibly petty and egocentric thing to focus on. Really no hint of any introspection about the broader failures of the media in meeting the current moment.

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

This story is pure rage-bait to anyone under 50. A couple enjoyed a multi-million dollar windfall, essentially through dumb luck as property prices rose, and now get a dedicated CBC story to complain about how that might be slightly dampened due to new affordable housing.

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Reposted by Michael Karanicolas

rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

one thing i have learned from trump is that literally every word procopius and suetonius wrote was literally true

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Lauren Dobson-Hughes @ldobsonhughes.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

One of the areas where support dropped most significantly after deliberation, was the creation of a Canadian human intelligence agency The more people understood the implications of a Canadian MI6, the more they opposed it progressdevelopment.substack.com/p/sovereignt...

progressdevelopment.substack.com

Sovereignty is the means not the end

What can we learn from a unique exercise that listens to Canadians talk about foreign policy?

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Reposted by Michael Karanicolas

Yair Wallach @yairwallach.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

The Knesset barred today the only two Palestinian led parties from running in the coming election. According to an overwhelming majority in the Knesset, the constitutional meaning of a Jewish State is a state where Palestinian citizens cannot run for parliament.

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Danny Blinderman @dannyblinderman.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

"make AI companies financially/criminally liable for what their models do" seems like an underrated way to get them to take safety seriously that doesn't require much regulatory oversight from a shrunken and corrupt US government.

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I say LI, you say ABILITY!!!! LI-ABILITY!!!! LI-ABILITY!!!!

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Sending highly sensitive military components via UPS is one of those things that sounds utterly insane but I'm not sure if it's actually unusual or just one of the insane things that happens on a regular basis.

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Anyone who thinks Canada has "unchecked immigration" should talk to someone who works at a university. I can't get my fellows into the country.

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Reposted by Michael Karanicolas

Max Dubler 🏳️‍🌈 @maxdubler.com · 23/09/2026

Regulators should shut this down before it leads to a wave of predictable, preventable deaths by suicide.

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

ICYMI - I wrote a thing on new ways to fund pro-democracy civil society groups, which Canada should implement through proposed legislation like the Safe Social Media Act.

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Same with the first impeachment! There were all these off-the-record complaints from Senators about his influence, several of whom, like Cornyn, have since been pushed out. They could have been well-rid of him if they just joined hands and jumped, but instead they closed ranks.

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I know it’s not the main point here but I keep seeing mainstream outlets assert as fact that Musk’s cuts to Twitter didn’t impact the website, and it’s a frankly insane assertion given how trust and safety immediately evaporated and the place got overrun with Nazis and abuse.

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Ok fine Trump's unpopular but can we talk about the fact that "Military Coup" has a 59% approval rating among the American public?

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Yeah, far be it from me to question the expertise of my esteemed colleague - but is it possible the President of the United States could be bluffing when it comes to how readily and easily Canadian potash could be replaced?

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Alex Usher @alexusherhesa.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

In which I explain why Canada joining Erasmus properly will a) require a lot of work b) not bring in any money and in the context of institutions being down $10B a year thanks to the feds, there might not be a lot of institutional enthusiasm for it.

higheredstrategy.com

Erasmus for Canada? Not so Fast. | HESA

Everyone seems very excited about the prospect of Canada becoming an associate member of the European Union (even though “associate member” is not an actual thing in any EU statute, but whatever), and...

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Though I may vehemently disagree, I can understand political differences on say climate change or human rights in distant lands. It really blows my mind to see the Trump administration take a bulldozer to America’s biggest competitive advantages. And between 30-40% of the country is fine with that.

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Michael Karanicolas @karanicolas.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

This is an analogy that Jane Bambauer has used, among others, for thinking about liability questions. If a farmer’s sheep break out of their pen and damage a neighbor’s property, it’s pretty clear who is legally responsible for the damage.

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Z.V. Anjali @zvanjali.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

A Dem trifecta appoints judges who commit to holding that Trump as an insurrectionist was ineligible for office in 2024 & was not lawfully president in his 2nd term, and therefore any pardons in that term are a nullity.

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