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Neil Turkewitz

@neilturkewitz.bsky.social
2.8K followers 1.1K following 7.4K posts

I write mostly about the intersection of tech & art/culture which these days means I spend nearly all my time trying to address the exploitation underlying current AI models. A secular humanist interrogating modern religions.

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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 7h
What Are the Biggest Questions in Science Today? 100 Scientists Weigh In. “What is curiosity?” @vambros.bsky.social molecular biologist, UMass Chan Medical School I’m sort of interested, but couldn’t bother to read further…
nytimes.com
What Are the Biggest Questions in Science Today? 100 Scientists Weigh In. (Gift Article)
We asked 100 scientists about unsolved problems in their fields. They sent back provocations — on the origins of life, the possibilities for human progress and much more.
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 7h
good morning 🌞
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Flight from Martha’s Vineyard on an 8 seater.
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John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 05/10/2026
This is your occasional reminder that generative "AI" in particular could have been developed on public domain materials and/or licensed and compensated works but the major players intentionally, methodically and systemically chose to steal labor from working creative folks instead
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Martha’s Vineyard this morning.
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Jay Kuo @nycjayjay.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
This is a community note for the ages.
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
“Verifact focuses specifically on scenarios where people disagree on what took place. It lists markets for past events that it considers “disputed” & lets its customers wager ‘true’ or ‘false’ on whether they really happened.” Oh great—crowdsourcing reality. What could go wrong? @knibbs.bsky.social
wired.com
A Prediction Market About the Past? Sure, Why Not!
As prediction markets surge in popularity, a new platform called Verifact Markets is pushing the concept even further, letting users trade on “disputed facts.”
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
A brilliantly astute & terrifying essay: “focusing on gambling alone only tells part of the story of this strange new development in culture. We are living through a kind of postpandemic gamified speculative-trading apocalypse of which traditional gambling is only one horseman.”
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
good morning 🌞
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
good morning 🌞
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
good morning 🌞
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 @meredithmeredith.bsky.social
Poets are dangerous not because the poets are going to raise an army, but because they reveal the cracks beyond the literal semantic systems; they reveal the lies and the jokes behind the pomp and opportunities for other ways of doing it. They are alchemists of transformative potential, refusing to be locked in place by a narrative or an algorithm. So there’s a method behind the attack, there’s a reason. And that reason, turned over, shows us exactly why we need real art and artists now more than ever.
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
OMG, this is amazing. I need to get Z right away. I could have read 15 books in the time it took me to type this! @bencollins.bsky.social
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
This is Trump’s America. Courts need to issue orders protecting Americans from malicious prosecution by their own government. This is an unprecedented tragedy of American scale. @hcrichardson.bsky.social
heathercoxrichardson.substack.com
October 1, 2026
John Hudson of the Washington Post reported this evening that the Trump administration is openly defying Congress, taking $52 million in military assistance lawmakers appropriated for European and Mid...
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Such a disappointing story. @brbarrett.bsky.social writes: “The truth is, no one knows how to solve for AI safety right now.” WTAF? —Talk to cybersecurity experts like @heidykhlaaf.bsky.social. —End the nonconsensual use of creative works & personal data for training. —Establish strict liability.
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Repeat after me… INFORMATION ≠ KNOWLEDGE Thanks for coming to my TED talk
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
“We celebrate the undaunted, undiminished, & unbowed artists, donors, [& others]…& audiences who are ensuring that the arts thrive in DC. More than ever, the country & the city need beauty, wonder, delight, camaraderie, & inspiration to remind us of our shared humanity & values.”
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
open.substack.com
Undaunted Arts in D.C.
🚨32 Days to the Midterms🚨
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
“The misconception about libraries to me is that they feel irrelevant because we’re in a digital information age, but I would say they’re more relevant now than ever before because we’re conflating content with information & information with knowledge.” —Sam Helmick, Iowa City Public Library, Iowa
nytimes.com
Librarians Discuss the Challenges and Triumphs of Running a Library Today (Gift Article)
We asked dozens of them about America’s libraries — what they provide, what they need to survive. Here’s what they told us.
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
good morning 🌞
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
True, the AI industry does indeed hate the myth-popping words—stochastic parrots, but I’d submit that the two words they truly hate—that rock them to their core, are the words “May we?” Silicon Valley runs on lack of consent. From their POV, it’s sand in the gears of progress & kills their freedom.
open.substack.com
The two words the AI industry hates more than anything
I talk with computational linguist Emily M. Bender, co-author of the influential 2021 “stochastic parrots” paper, about why AI industry leaders can’t stop seething over the term.
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Let’s not let this pass quietly in the dark.
nbcnews.com
Judge bars U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro from charging ex-Olympian in Reflecting Pool case
The judge dismissed the case against David Hearn with prejudice, citing “exceptional circumstances” that included President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign on Pirro’s office.
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
And we’re supposed to believe that people who will cast their votes for Husted were truly offended by Clinton’s comment about “a basket of deplorables!” Husted says that people living in poverty are inexperienced in navigating the real world. I think he’s actually talking about tech billionaires!
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
“The important engineering achievement will not be releasing increasingly autonomous artificial coworkers into organizations & hoping they’ve been sufficiently ‘aligned.’ It will be transforming general AI capabilities into controllable & observable workflows.” 👀 @heidykhlaaf.bsky.social
noemamag.com
The AIs Are Not Going Rogue | NOEMA
But they still pose risks.
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I love this: “LLM’s do not merely predict the next word; they narrate structured trajectories of sedimented meaning already set in motion by prior context.” A bit too long for a t-shirt or bumper sticker, but brilliantly pithy! @noemamag.com
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
“LLM’s seem unable to surpass a hallmark of general intelligence—the ability to reflectively interrogate one’s plans when the world calls them into question. WHAT LOOKS LIKE AI GOING ROGUE IS THUS NOT ROGUE AT ALL, BUT THE BOUNDARIES OF AI’s GENERALITY.” 👀 @timnitgebru.blacksky.app
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
“From AI scribes…erroneously classifying patients as drug users, to governments killing children after relying on “intelligence analysis” systems which mistake schools for military facilities, we’re seeing the predictable harms that come from misplaced faith in unreliable automated software.”
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
“You have to have some level of audacity to wear one.” I would note, from personal experience as an avid bicyclist prone to wearing biking gear, that it would help to have no spouse, significant other, or children who will endlessly and mercilessly mock you for your Lycra-wear!
wsj.com
Skintight Running Unitards Are Having a Masculine Moment
Amateur male runners are ditching shorts for skintight speedsuits, but not because they make them faster.
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
“We live in an increasingly remote, digitized world…constantly questioning our reality thanks to AI, & where most everyone feels like their brain is a little broken. There are lots of possible solutions to these interconnected crises, but experts agree that most involve being in the physical world.”
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
good morning 🌞
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
“The public is now awake to the reality of AI’s potentially transformational nature. But the most dangerous reaction would be for Washington to panic & hand the steering wheel to the very same co’s & executives whose breakneck pace of development & financial conflicts led us here in the 1st place.”
nytimes.com
Opinion | Trump Wants A.I. Companies to Police Themselves. What Can Go Wrong? (Gift Article)
Government enforcers have the laws and the experience to control A.I.
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
We’re in the Super Bowl of Gaslighting: “Anything I can do to support AI technology benefiting everyone is a thing that I will do. In this sense, maybe supporting the team is bigger than the people that I happen to be employed with. IT’S REALLY TEAM HUMANITY.” —OpenAI President, Greg Brockman
nytimes.com
OpenAI’s Greg Brockman Backs Out of Second $25 Million Donation to A.I. Super PAC (Gift Article)
Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president and co-founder, said internally that the super PAC, Leading the Future, had become a “distraction” for the A.I. company.
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Elizabeth Spiers @espiers.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
One thing that i don’t see people noting about the Cornell Sun’s reporting on the rape case is that everyone who decided to take the risk and made the core decisions about what would be published is a woman
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The Capybaron @thecapybaron.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Again, much of Pete Hegseth’s deal is the only skill his job demanded for a long time was keeping a trim figure to be conventionally pretty for stay-at-home moms watching daytime tv. His job was “be pretty,” but he knows that’s a girl job, so he’s deeply insecure and is trying to make it a boy job.
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BeBetterAmerica @jts1958.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Forget polls. 🔨 Keep hammering them on AI, corruption, costs. 🔨
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I was wondering what pull quote to use, but gave up. Just read the essay. It’s short, and every word is meaningful. @caitoz.bsky.social
caitlinjohnst.one
Saying You Listen To AI Music Is Like Saying You Have An AI Girlfriend
Video reading by Tim Foley:
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Surely everyone is well aware of the fact that chocolate is a gateway drug. You start with Hershey’s, you end up HODLing these…
enjouchocolat.com
Chocolate Bitcoin (8 Coins per bag)
Show off your love of digital currency or give as a gift to a fan.  Enjou's famous foiled chocolate coins with our own Bitcoin imagery embossed is fun and tasty! 8 Coins per bag or order 'per coin'Con...
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Where there’s smoke, there’s usually fire. Do firefighters generally leave it to arsonists to put out the fires that they started? An important discussion between Zephyr Teachout & @garymarcus.bsky.social about the importance of using present legal tools to address Ai-related misconduct.
garymarcus.substack.com
Can companies like OpenAI keep getting away with what they are doing? An interview with Fordham law professor Zephyr Teachout
“The most powerful tool is the power to dissolve corporations that engage in repeat lawbreaking.”
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Anne Lutz Fernandez @lutzfernandez.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Newly updated:
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
the terrible truth from an omniscient observer of our times… @hcrichardson.bsky.social
heathercoxrichardson.substack.com
September 29, 2026
The scene that unfolded today at a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee was a snapshot of politics in the U.S.
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I did love the “not anymore” comment. It quietly responded to the cruelty on display by Senator Kennedy. Could the Easter Bunny really coexist in a world in which someone like Kennedy got elected to the Senate? Could god?
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Jon Cooper @joncooper-us.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I hope this headline haunts Eric Schmitt for the rest of his pathetic political career.
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I love the reference to faux-democratization as “predatory inclusion.” It’s perfect! 👏🏽 Stefan & Leah. “We argue that conceptions that reduce democratization to expanded market access are not merely insufficient but, when applied to speculative capital markets, amount to predatory inclusion.”
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
good morning 🌞
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 29/09/2026
Klobuchar has Schmitt dead to rights: "The game in fact was in Maryland. For a senator to have false information & imply, based on confusion about name of a team, that you were in another city & somehow involved that day in what was happening in Georgia & call you a 'dirtbag' deserves an apology"
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
“One would have to look very hard for First Amendment cases that…address the systematic denial of women’s free speech rights. What one frequently finds instead is Orwellian inversion: silencing is free speech, and the resistance to silencing is censorship.” @maryannefranks.bsky.social
signsjournal.org
Feminist Frictions: Speaking of Women: Feminism and Free Speech
“There is no free speech when women are not heard.” Mary Anne Franks provides a feminist analysis of First Amendment doctrine.
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Mary Anne Franks @maryannefranks.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Thank you, Neil. For those interested, here's a relatively recent and relatively short piece of mine titled "Speaking of Women," which concludes that "there is no free speech where women are not heard." signsjournal.org/franks/
signsjournal.org
Feminist Frictions: Speaking of Women: Feminism and Free Speech
“There is no free speech when women are not heard.” Mary Anne Franks provides a feminist analysis of First Amendment doctrine.
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
🎯 Once it’s invisibly part of the underlying architecture, it becomes a neutral description of the world, not a viewpoint to be debated.
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Sitting in a cafe, right next to two Montgomery County (MD) police officers. They approached a Latina worker whose English was very poor. I was prepared for the worst, but instead one of the officers—in very broken Spanish, chatted with her with great kindness. Cruelty is a choice, not our destiny.🕊️
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Neil Turkewitz @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
good morning 🌞
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