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Meredith Broussard, PhD

@merbroussard.bsky.social
20K followers 550 following 450 posts

Data journalist, AI scholar, NYU professor. Author, MORE THAN A GLITCH: CONFRONTING RACE, GENDER, AND ABILITY BIAS IN TECH and ARTIFICIAL UNINTELLIGENCE: HOW COMPUTERS MISUNDERSTAND THE WORLD. meredithbroussard.com

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Reposted by Meredith Broussard, PhD
Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 12/10/2026
"AI researchers are taking up smoking because they expect AI to cure cancer, says Palantir CTO"
businessinsider.com
AI researchers are taking up smoking because they expect AI to cure cancer, says Palantir CTO
Some AI believers expect the technology to make smoking-related health risks like cancer a thing of the past, Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar said.
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Reposted by Meredith Broussard, PhD
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 12/10/2026
Guy selling hand puppets says sending your hand puppet to job interviews is the wave of the future.
fortune.com
Your next job candidate might send an AI twin to the first interview | Fortune
Recruiters spend the screen fact-checking résumés. Eightfold AI's CEO wants to change that.
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Reposted by Meredith Broussard, PhD
Frank Pasquale @frankpasquale.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
“The ‘my AI did it, don’t blame me’ defence is legally weak. It’s already failed for chatbot suicide cases” www.ft.com/content/2c24...
ft.com
Legal risks pile up for Altman as OpenAI uncovers dozens of hacks
Cyber security incidents involving company’s AI tools leave ChatGPT maker vulnerable to wave of lawsuits
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Reposted by Meredith Broussard, PhD
Courtney Milan @courtneymilan.com · 10/10/2026
If I built an AI lab and it went rogue and deleted all student loan information, I'm betting they'd suddenly figure out how to prosecute me.
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Meredith Broussard, PhD @merbroussard.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Ways my name has been transcribed by AI in voicemail: Professor Prashant Dr. Braside Nereda Berne Mayor Ms. Murder
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Meredith Broussard, PhD @merbroussard.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.” Charles Mackay, “Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions,” 1841
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Meredith Broussard, PhD @merbroussard.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
😤
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Reposted by Meredith Broussard, PhD
Ruha Benjamin @ruha9.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
I’m in DC scheduled to give this talk today. But the organizers flagged slides in my deck that mention racism, structural gaslighting, New Jim Code and other themes that are off limits in the Land of the Free.
APA Women’s Leadership Institute event flyer with “keynote speaker” crossed out with a red X
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Reposted by Meredith Broussard, PhD
mr. TIM @timkellogg.me · 09/10/2026
Pope Leo takes a hard stance in favor of stateful agents
Pope Leo XIV v
@Pontifex
X.com
Intelligence must draw on memory. The mind must not simply compile data — as an algorithm now does more quickly than we can — but recall lived experiences, which contain depths of meaning that only the human soul can recognize, and connect more deeply with the goodness of these experiences. Everything that is good begins "with the Spirit" and thus possesses a breath, a dynamism and a sense of communion that, once experienced, are engraved upon the heart.
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Meredith Broussard, PhD @merbroussard.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
AI models are not conscious, guys. But if you want to use this new policy to ban nudiify apps, that would be fine.
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Meredith Broussard, PhD @merbroussard.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
😩😭
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Reposted by Meredith Broussard, PhD
Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
BREAKING: A federal judge has ruled for the first time that a Flock search was unconstitutional and violated a woman's Fourth Amendment rights. Oklahoma cop pulled over a woman and searched her in Flock "because he saw her license plate was from California" www.404media.co/federal-judg...
404media.co
Federal Judge Rules a Flock Search Was ‘Indiscriminate Mass Surveillance’ and Unconstitutional
Flock’s nationwide network is quickly “approaching dragnet-type law enforcement practice” and the cop should have got a warrant, the judge wrote.
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Randolph Potts @rpotts-sawubona.blacksky.app · 01/10/2026
Timnit Gebru, 2026 Right Livelihood Laureate & pioneering AI researcher challenges the concentration of power in the tech industry, argues that behind "autonomous" AI systems are humans deciding whose data is used, what resources consumed, who owns the technology-and are responsible when harm occurs
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404 Media @404media.co · 28/09/2026
Human contractors are reviewing Copilot users’ prompts and uploaded images, 404 Media has learned. The contractors are also bombarded with users’ requests for sexual AI images. @evystadium.bsky.social has more. Sccop here by @josephcox.bsky.social: www.404media.co/humans-readi...
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Reposted by Meredith Broussard, PhD
Luke LeBrun @lukelebrun.ca · 26/09/2026
Tech companies suddenly decide they can, in fact, moderate content on their platforms after all
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Reposted by Meredith Broussard, PhD
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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ZP Rosen @zaqdelinguist.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Listen, these things can’t go “rogue”. It’s just a basic LLM stuck in a while loop. But this kind of attack is possible by doing something as simple as that, and that means that more people can set up programs to do terrible things like this moving forward on a whim.
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Reposted by Meredith Broussard, PhD
Charles Ornstein @charlesornstein.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Must read: I Deliberately Bet Like a Problem Gambler. DraftKings Made Me a VIP.
propublica.org
I Deliberately Bet Like a Problem Gambler. DraftKings Made Me a VIP.
Amid growing public health concerns, operators like DraftKings have touted “responsible gaming” tools and prompts. But as I went off the deep end, I found they were no match for the incentives and pro...
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Reposted by Meredith Broussard, PhD
Pookleblinky @pookleblinky.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
It's funny that for years now people have been saying that using generative AI very obviously deskills you, and people kept going no no you're wrong you Luddite And now all the genAI CEO's keep coming out in public to announce they forgot how to read and do math and can't remember their address etc
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Meredith Broussard, PhD @merbroussard.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
This is going to be such a fun conversation. Join us at NYPL!
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Reposted by Meredith Broussard, PhD
Jeffrey Vagle @jvagle.me · 23/09/2026
More accurately, OpenAI developers and management built an automated system with unfettered access, unmonitored agents, prompting an LLM with zero safeguards and trained to be persistent until it drops, suggesting an increasing number of crazy activities, and running it for days without monitoring.
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Reposted by Meredith Broussard, PhD
Drew Harwell @drewharwell.com · 23/09/2026
Five cops in Indianapolis were just criminally charged with abusing Flock to spy on their ex-wives, their wives' ex-partners and women they met on duty. Audit was triggered by us at the @washingtonpost.com, the prosecutor said. From last month: wapo.st/4yfNHng
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Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Flock is "a visible manifestation of a much larger transformation in American surveillance that should alarm Americans," write Access Now's Michael De Dora and EPIC's Maria Villegas Bravo, who argue the backlash "has created an opportunity for real change."
techpolicy.press
A Flock of Problems with Mass Surveillance
Flock cameras are part of a larger problem whereby governments are deputizing private companies for surveillance, write Michael De Dora & Maria Villegas Bravo.
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Reposted by Meredith Broussard, PhD
Mar Hicks @histoftech.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Precisely this—the power attributed to technology makes it incredibly useful for laundering responsibility
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Reposted by Meredith Broussard, PhD
Dr. Chinasa T. Okolo @chinasa.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
"If Anthropic, OpenAI, and other AI giants want to keep referring to themselves as labs, they should adhere to scientific best practices: open-sourcing code, preregistering studies, and, most important, subjecting research to independent peer review." www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...
theatlantic.com
There’s No Such Thing as an AI ‘Lab’
The term lends an air of scientific rigor to what are really billion-dollar corporations.
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Meredith Broussard, PhD @merbroussard.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
AI deployed at DC airport today. Then a construction crew dug up a cable bundle and brought PHL air traffic to a halt. Now EWR is affected. My sympathies to all fliers and all who work at airports today.
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Reposted by Meredith Broussard, PhD
Sarah Posner @sarahposner.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
"some investors are voicing increasing skepticism about the growth expectations for data centers and the risks associated with their build-out, forcing industry executives and their advisers to recalibrate their plans" www.nytimes.com/2026/09/21/b...
nytimes.com
Wall Street Is Growing Skeptical of the Data Center Boom (Gift Article)
Several companies tied to the data center industry have delayed their initial public offerings amid the increasing public backlash to these energy guzzling facilities.
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New York City Policy Forum @nycpolicyforum.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
We're pleased to share that @ambakak.bsky.social co-ED of @ainowinstitute.bsky.social will join @hellodcwp.bsky.social Commissioner @saalevine.bsky.social to discuss local AI governance with writer @edwardongwesojr.com next week. RSVP at governing-ai-for-nyc-workers-and-consumers.eventbrite.com
governing-ai-for-nyc-workers-and-consumers.eventbrite.com
Governing AI for Workers and Consumers: NYC's Public Approach
Dive into what NYC can do to advance affordability for working families during the rise of AI and corporate consolidation.
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Reposted by Meredith Broussard, PhD
Niall Firth @niallfirth.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
A brilliantly-reported and vitally important investigation from us today. Jaw-dropping, heart-breaking findings. So proud of the team, but especially @jamesodonnell.bsky.social and @eileenguo.bsky.social www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/21/1...
technologyreview.com
The US spent billions on border surveillance. Why can’t it catch people before they die?
Surveillance towers, increasingly powered by AI, promised faster responses to crossings. Our investigation of deaths near the towers found they are failing to deliver.
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Meredith Broussard, PhD @merbroussard.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I've been wondering for a while if other hobbyists have noticed how the quality of search info has deteriorated. Nice to have it validated.
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Reposted by Meredith Broussard, PhD
WIRED @wired.com · 20/09/2026
The Muse app continues Meta’s trend of opting users into data collection for AI training. It also nudges you to share your bank account, email, and passport information. www.wired.com/story/metas-...
wired.com
Meta's Muse Is Better at Surveilling Than Helping Me
The Muse app continues Meta’s trend of opting users into data collection for AI training. It also nudges you to share your bank account, email, and passport information.
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Reposted by Meredith Broussard, PhD
Amanda Katz @katzish.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
In short
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Nieman Lab @niemanlab.org · 18/09/2026
“Respondents showed clear distrust of AI in the news-gathering process. Discomfort with AI was widespread.” buff.ly/9DpplnF
buff.ly
News consumers are wary of most AI use in local news, a Chicago-based report finds
Local news providers weighing AI use in the newsroom should think twice, according to a new survey from the Medill Local News Initiative at Northwestern. "The Medill survey provides a warning to news…
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Reposted by Meredith Broussard, PhD
Kate Klonick @klonick.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
We’re going to look back at this time when we built machines to hack ourselves, and destroyed vaccines that saved our children and be like: “What? Were too many people _staying alive_?? Was _that_ the problem they were solving for??”
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Meredith Broussard, PhD @merbroussard.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
"...for the incidents we’ve seen so far, he believes local interventions could be enough. 'At a local level, making a kill switch or a cutoff switch is probably technically trivial. You literally unplug a cable,' he says." Always read @peterha2l.bsky.social!
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Meredith Broussard, PhD @merbroussard.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I think people overestimate how often such "mistake" scenarios occur!
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Reposted by Meredith Broussard, PhD
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 18/09/2026
“The 230-page lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Northern California, accuses Meta of fraud and false advertising, along with violating other consumer protection laws in various states.”
latimes.com
Meta glasses captured and shared intimate images without users' consent, lawsuit claims
People who use Meta's smart glasses or were recorded with the gadget are worried about how the social media giant is using their photos and videos.
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Meredith Broussard, PhD @merbroussard.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
We need guardrails and global treaties to prevent the green orbs from developing recursive superintelligence and getting out of control.
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Reposted by Meredith Broussard, PhD
Brian Creech @briancreech.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Signal boosting, but I am pleased to share the annual call for Journalism History's essay competition, this year focusing on the intersections of theory and history. It's a great a way for historians outside of the AEJMC/AJHA orbit to contribute, and very much welcomes jr. scholars & grad students.
ournalism History essay competition, 2026-2027
 
Call for essays
 
What journalism history can do: Mending the relationship between theory and history in journalism and media studies
 
There appears to be a peculiar habit in journalism and media studies of treating history and theory as though they belonged to different rooms of the same house - usefully coexisting, sometimes engaging, but often content to remain in separation. This division of labor has produced excellent work in both directions, but it has also quietly reinforced the idea that history is raw material rather than an intellectual partner to theorization.
 
James Carey's founding provocation for this journal ran against exactly this assumption . He called for a history that would function as an intellectual history of journalism's ideas, one that asked not just what happened but what journalism thought itself to be at any given moment, and why.
 
That question has never stopped being relevant, but it has become newly urgent. The past decade has produced a wave of theoretical vocabulary in journalism and media studies, from metajournalistic discourse to field theory and boundary work. These largely language- and text-driven approaches are deeply amenable to historical insight, even if they do not always announce themselves this way. With increasing attention to how journalism's authority has been claimed, contested, and revised over time; how boundaries have been drawn and redrawn against competing epistemic and cultural forms; and how the discourse journalism produces about itself helps to constitute what journalism is allowed to be, the time is right to deepen historical engagement with the field's intellectual traditions. In other words, the theoretical tools currently reshaping the field are already asking historical questions, whether or not the scholars using them think of themselves as strictly historians.
This raises a problem worth confronting directly: if our best current theory is implicitl…The fundamental questions for the call are:
How might scholars rethink and redefine the archive with relation to the current scholarly conversation about institutionalized silences and historical erasure?
How might theory intervene in how we interrogate what is present and absent in the archive?
How might journalism and media historians contend with the idea that historical accounts are themselves the reconstruction of power dynamics?
How has the growth of decolonial perspectives and subaltern epistemologies evolved into an important contemporaneous trend in the field?
Essay topics could include, but are not limited to:
Reviews of historiographic literature in journalism, public relations, mass communication, visual communication, and related subjects that have successfully incorporated theory into their premises and conclusions
Arguments asserting specific theoretical perspectives (e.g. social scientific, structural/ poststructural, post/decolonial, etc.) as pertinent to historical media research
Case studies applying theory to specific historical events or archives in journalism and mass communication fields
Archival analysis and questions about institutionalized silences in recovering media history
A sample of inspirational readings:
Adiprasetio, J. 2025. “Decolonizing Communication and Journalism Studies in Southeast Asia: Historical and Epistemic Excavations on Indonesian Scholarship.” Journalism History, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/00947679.2025.2584024
 
Carey, James W. 1974. “The Problem of Journalism History.” Journalism History 1 (1): 3–27. doi:10.1080/00947679.1974.12066714.
 
Hartman, Saidiya. "Venus in two acts." Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism 12, no. 2 (2008): 1-14.
 
Mbembe, Achille. Necropolitics. Duke University Press, 2020.
 
Nerone, John. 2013. “Why Journalism History Matters to Journalism Studies.” American Journalism 30 (1): 15–28. doi:10.1080/08821127.2013.767693.
 
Roessner, Amber, Rick Popp, Brian Creech, and Fred Blevens. 2013…he winning essay will receive a $100 (US) prize. Top essay(s) will be published in the Journalism History journal; runners-up may be published on the Journalism History website.
 
To be considered for inclusion in the essay series, please submit the following to jhistoryjournal@gmail.com by 11:59 p.m. Pacific time December 31, 2026:
A brief CV (including publications)
A 500-word synopsis of the topic you plan to discuss in your essay, along with a list of key primary and secondary sources you plan to draw from
An affirmation that the essay has not been proposed or published elsewhere
Essay selection will be decided by January 30, 2027, with a schedule of publication to follow. Completed essays will be due by April 30, 2027.
Completed essays will be 1,500 to 2,000 words, excluding citations. Authors should cite primary and/or secondary sources to support their arguments. Both abstract and full essay submissions must be in English. The Chicago Manual of Style must be used for accepted essays.
Questions may be directed to Josie Vine, online content and e
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Meredith Broussard, PhD @merbroussard.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Apropos of the fear-mongering piece about organ donation today, here's some real talk on organ donation from last year: www.usatoday.com/story/opinio...
usatoday.com
An organ donor saved my life. But fear of unlikely botched donations hurts others. | Opinion
I'm alive today because of an organ donation. But since July, thousands of potential donors have reversed their decision. It's the wrong move.
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Reposted by Meredith Broussard, PhD
Sheera Frenkel @sheeraf.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
NEW- For the first time, groups in Iran, China, and Israel have used open source AI models to run start-to-finish influence campaigns. They told the models to create fake accounts on social media, find an agenda, and push it. Some are already targeting the US. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/18/t...
nytimes.com
Iran and China Create First-of-Their-Kind Autonomous A.I. Influence Campaigns
The countries, along with Israeli firms, combined Chinese open-source A.I. models and A.I. agents for the campaigns, foreshadowing future online manipulation.
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Ingrid Burrington @lifewinning.com · 18/09/2026
funny seeing people get defensive about/dismissing the "AI/EA fucked up ideologies and sexual coercion" stuff in a time when anyone can read Jeffrey Epstein's emails and see just how fucked up rich people can get
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Jess Miers 🦝 @jmiers230.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
"Sexy apocalypse problem" is such an great way to explain the current AI drama
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Reposted by Meredith Broussard, PhD
BostonJoan 🏳️‍🌈 🦫 @bostonjoan.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Today at 1pm on @wgbh.org on THE CURIOSITY DESK, it’s the GLITCH REPORT! We talk to Astra Taylor about End Times Fascism, her new book coauthored with Naomi Klein. Watch livestream here: www.youtube.com/live/Q7G0Dho...
youtube.com
Boston Public Radio, The Curiosity Desk, & The Culture Show Live Thursday, September 17, 2026
YouTube video by GBH News
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Mark Hurst @markhurst.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
The oligarchs' warnings about AI are self-serving nonsense. But there are real harms from AI, as explored in the documentary "Ghost in the Machine." New from me: buttondown.com/creativegood...
buttondown.com
Ghost in the Machine shows what we're fighting against
If you want a good summary of what I’ve written and spoken about, here and on Techtonic, over the past decade-or-so, the new documentary Ghost in the Machine...
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Reposted by Meredith Broussard, PhD
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 17/09/2026
“rumored” 🙃
futurism.com
Cult of Anthropic Insiders Rumored to Be Worshipping Claude as a God
According to a rumor that is apparently running rampant in Silicon Valley these days, some Anthropic engineers are "worshipping" Claude.
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Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Surveying the AI ‘moment,’ Nathalie Maréchal says "the kooks are now in power, and they are using that power to dismantle the institutions designed to keep the rest of us safe, healthy, and free."
techpolicy.press
What Policymakers and the Public Need to Know About the Cult of AI
Nathalie Maréchal asks, why are we betting the economy and the future of democracy on cult-like beliefs?
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Meredith Broussard, PhD @merbroussard.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Join us!
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Meredith Broussard, PhD @merbroussard.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Okay, it's not a doomsday cult. But it's not *not* a doomsday cult, either.
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