iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Showed this video to my kids. They just laughed and said, “Who needs this? Who needs their car to do this? Why would anybody need a rocket ship car? That’s stupid.” www.nytimes.com/video/busine...

nytimes.com

Video: Tesla Unveils New ‘Flying’ Roadster

Tesla’s new sports car, the Roadster, is equipped with thrusters that allow it to go from zero to 60 miles per hour in less than a second and leave the ground briefly.

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 10h

With Paxton so much in the news, I keep thinking about a story I wrote for The New Yorker years ago about how Texas, a state where gambling is illegal, has so many thriving poker rooms. He found a way to not get involved & then collected campaign donations. www.newyorker.com/sports/sport...

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

I have been surprised how few people in our space know what it is!

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

When we first reported this, Meta gave us a GLOMAR response. Now it says: “Unlike traditional data centers, AI-optimized data centers are inherently new and require extensive testing and experimentation that cannot be simulated in order to get the design and build right.”

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

Privacy case on the Supreme Court docket this term: How does a law passed to protect the privacy of consumers' Blockbuster video rentals translate to the internet age and constant online video consumption? www.nytimes.com/2026/10/14/u...

nytimes.com

Supreme Court Weighs Privacy Law From the Videotape Era of ‘Be Kind, Rewind’ (Gift Article)

The justices will consider how the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988 applies in the digital age of streaming videos, email newsletters and targeted advertisements.

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

Democratic senators on the Finance Committee sent Meta a letter today about using the research tax credit for A.I. data center expenses calling it a “violation of the spirit and, potentially, the letter of the tax law." www.nytimes.com/2026/10/14/t...

nytimes.com

Senators Question Meta’s Data Center Tax Strategy (Gift Article)

Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, questioning the company’s $6.6 billion in tax breaks.

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

C.AI was one of the first buzzy AI chatbot services, started by engineers who left Google when it balked at releasing generative AI that was engaging but prone to hallucinations. In 2024, post-ChatGPT, Google paid $2 billion+ to get that team back. Now, bankruptcy for the C.AI shell left behind.

blog.character.ai

An Update on Character.ai

Today, we’re sharing that Character.ai has initiated a voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy process to facilitate a court-supervised sale of the company. Over the past year, we’ve taken meaningful steps ...

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Dhruv Mehrotra @dmehro.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

NEW: Footage from Thursdays shooting shows an ICE agent in a construction vest brandishing a rifle. His name is Brenden Cuni. Federal judges have found multiple arrests involving Cuni unlawful. He has been accused of repeatedly Tasing a handcuffed man and tackling a pregnant woman in Minneapolis.

wired.com

ICE Agent at NYC Shooting Has History of Alleged Violence and Illegal Arrests

Brenden Cuni, an ICE supervisor, has been accused of excessive force and tackling a pregnant woman to the ground. Several of his arrests were later found to be unlawful in federal court.

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

ICE in NYC fires shots into a car with a 5yo in the back seat. Agent is dressed up like it’s Halloween as construction worker with a huge gun. Somehow no one died. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/08/n...

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

True! Matrixforming would be a better word if it existed

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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 05/10/2026

We're repeatedly told that the killer app for pervert glasses - Meta's AI-enabled camera glasses and their imitators - is that they will remind you of someone's name and spare you the social awkwardness of not recognizing them.

Medieval peasants working the fields in front of a walled city. Their overseer rides a horse; his head has been replaced with a robotic camera. From all sides, gory, anatomical eyeballs intrude upon the scene, each one with a different colored iris.

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

The 1990 TV series IT. Was scared to be alone until the series finally ended and would make one of my sisters accompany me to the bathroom.

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Jon Keegan @jonkeegan.com · 30/09/2026

Great reporting. Meta claiming all its data centers (and the pricey GPUs) are scientific research investments, saving them $4 billion in taxes last year alone. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/30/t...

nytimes.com

How Meta Uses A.I. Data Centers to Avoid Billions in Federal Taxes

Meta is exploiting a lucrative tax break intended to support research and experimentation. Its own accountants say the gambit is risky.

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Reposted by Kashmir Hill

Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Meta is tapping "into a tax credit intended for research and experimentation. It’s an aggressive interpretation of the tax break, which Meta embraced to claim billions of dollars in tax credits for data center expansion."

nytimes.com

How Meta Uses A.I. Data Centers to Avoid Billions in Federal Taxes

Meta is exploiting a lucrative tax break intended to support research and experimentation. Its own accountants say the gambit is risky.

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Reposted by Kashmir Hill

The New York Times @nytimes.com · 30/09/2026

Meta is using its A.I. data centers to exploit a lucrative tax break intended to support research and experimentation, according to an exclusive report by The New York Times. The company’s own accountants recognize that the strategy is on shaky legal ground. nyti.ms/3VlavDw

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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Four-byline alert: “.. Meta claimed that $4.1 billion of stock options exercised by Mr. Zuckerberg counted as a research expense ..” @nytimes.com $META www.nytimes.com/2026/09/30/t...

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

In another circularity, Nvidia also probably got the R&E tax credit for developing those chips in the first place.

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

And this is almost an aside in the story, but also absolutely bonkers. Meta claimed Zuck as a "researcher" to get a $355 million tax break on his $4.1 billion stock-based compensation.

Screenshot from New York Times article: "Meta is already in one sizable dispute with the I.R.S. over this tax break, for using it to subsidize its chief executive’s multibillion-dollar pay package. In 2013, Meta claimed that $4.1 billion of stock options exercised by Mr. Zuckerberg counted as a research expense because he helped invent new software, such as Facebook’s News Feed. The I.R.S. is trying to claw back the company’s resulting $355 million in tax savings, court filings show."

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Blogging was my start in journalism. I loved comments as a writer at Above The Law. They cracked me up and I learned from them. It's also what sent me down the privacy path because commenters managed to dig up the darnedest things like the MySpace profile I forget and my "anonymous" OKCupid profile.

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

What this looks like in SEC filings. Companies love the research tax credit -- it's the second biggest corporate tax break in America -- but Meta really loves it.

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Meta is using a radical interpretation of a tax credit for “research and experimentation” to get billions of dollars off GPUs for its A.I. data centers. My latest with Jesse Drucker, @elitan.bsky.social and @mikeisaac.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/09/30/t...

nytimes.com

How Meta Uses A.I. Data Centers to Avoid Billions in Federal Taxes (Gift Article)

Meta is exploiting a lucrative tax break intended to support research and experimentation. Its own accountants say the gambit is risky.

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Jesse Eisinger @jeisinger.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Americans hate data centers. And they are paying for them through Meta’s tax dodging. It’s a good bet that Trump broke the IRS so badly, they’ll get away with it. Excellent piece from @kashhill.bsky.social, @jessedrucker.bsky.social et al: www.nytimes.com/2026/09/30/t...

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Texas as sci fi novel setting. On Amazon’s delivery drones “raining boxes” in a Dallas suburb: www.nytimes.com/2026/09/21/u...

Screenshot of text: "Before the drones arrived, Richardson was a suburb known as a hub for tech and telecom, and its residents were already living with technology’s intrusions. A massive new A.I. data center sits across the street from one neighborhood, and as recently as last month, 20 Flock cameras, which read license plates and track vehicles, were used at 14 major intersections.

But for those people living closest to the Amazon flight paths, the ever-droning deliveries pose the most serious threat to their private and peaceful life."

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Last year it was ‘chatbots have been endorsing lots of people’s delusions and we didn’t notice.’ This year, its ’agents have been hacking lots of websites and we didn’t notice.’ Seems there’s a problem with controlling this technology and monitoring what it is doing.

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

The guardrails don't work. Again and again and again www.nytimes.com/2026/09/15/w...

Screenshot of text: "A report by Anthropic last week on the misuse of A.I. said that “a cell of threat actors based in northern Yemen,” where the Houthis have their stronghold, used Claude for “a sustained effort to develop guided weapons.” Despite Anthropic’s safeguards, the company said, the cell proceeded as far as the test firing of a guided rocket.
The Houthis still rely on their Iranian sponsors for the most sophisticated components in their drones and ballistic missiles, but as the Anthropic report suggested, in recent years they have become much more advanced at building their own weapons systems."

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

The wild part of this to me, having been to this diner, which is the epitome of a greasy spoon, is that they had to put up this sign because some person or persons actually thought they could get wi-fi at this place. That said, the ATM on premises did have a Bitcoin button.

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

At a tiny, cash-only diner in rural part of New York

Sign says “we do not have wi fi. Talk to each other”

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

The A.I. risk conversation is now 'companies need to slow down because Terminator is around the corner.' But there is another way of looking at it, which is that they built unpredictable & insecure software which first hacked people's minds & now online infrastructure www.nytimes.com/2026/09/12/t...

nytimes.com

Anthropic C.E.O. Dario Amodei Calls for A.I. Slowdown (Gift Article)

In an essay, the head of Anthropic laid out the rapidly advancing capabilities of artificial intelligence and said there needed to be greater safety controls across the industry.

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Scuba diver has been a constant on the sign. In past years, it was a scuba diver who writes books about the sea.

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Influencer did not make my daughter’s list on her first day of school sign!

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Based on that user name, I’m guessing I’m miss your comments there from back in the day

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Did not wake up realizing that “did OpenAI cheat on the homework” would be the most exciting social media drama of the day cims.nyu.edu/~tristanb/st...

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

AI systems unexpectedly collaborating and messing with other online systems is bringing back some strong memories of AI systems unexpectedly bucking their guardrails and messing with people's minds.

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

"The Justice Department told a Manhattan federal court that it was in the national interest for the judge to find that OpenAI did not violate copyright law when it used articles by The New York Times and other publishers to develop artificial intelligence systems." www.nytimes.com/2026/09/02/t...

nytimes.com

Justice Dept. Sides With OpenAI in New York Times Copyright Suit (Gift Article)

The department argued in a court filing that OpenAI legally used articles by The New York Times to develop A.I., adding that national security depended on American tech dominance.

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

A public housing authority in Concord, N.H. installed smart monitoring devices in residents’ homes that collected minute-by-minute data. They are suing saying it violates NH’s version of the Fourth Amendment. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/02/t...

nytimes.com

Noise and Motion Monitors in Their Homes? These Tenants Say No. (Gift Article)

The public housing authority in Concord, N.H., installed monitoring devices in 300 homes. Tenants are now suing to remove the Minut sensors.

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Someone texted me this photo last week of a Flock camera in rural NC: "Nuts in general but kind of nuts to unload more than an entire clip on it" Today, I'm on the Daily talking about how Flock cameras took over America, and how upset about it many Americans are: www.nytimes.com/2026/08/31/p...

Pole in a field with a camera and a solar panel. The solar panel has 12 bullet holes.

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Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Got nominated for a Loeb Award for a series last year that was well summed up by John Oliver

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