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NickKauf

@nickkauf.bsky.social
657 followers 3.1K following 432 posts

Cities, Music, Experiential/immersive media, UrbanTech, CivicTech. NYC + Maine. Charitable Mechanic. Founding fellow, Temporary Institute

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by NickKauf
Greg Mitchell @gregmitch.bsky.social · 10h
As promised, PBS has just re-posted, streaming for all, my Emmy-nominated film "The First Attack Ads: Hollywood vs. Upton Sinclair" in time for the midterms--and the 2026 efforts to destroy lefty candidates. 26 minutes: www.pbs.org/video/the-fi... www.pbs.org/video/the-fi...
pbs.org
The First Attack Ads: Hollywood vs. Upton Sinclair
The California campaign that gave birth to the political attack ad.
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Lawrence Culver @lawrencecphd.bsky.social · 6h
“What we know as New York sits on stolen, unceded Lenape territory. There are now land acknowledgments posted around the city’s cultural institutions…This gives the impression that the Lenape people’s story ended…a new exhibit aims to correct that assumption.” www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...
theguardian.com
How do you cope when your sacred land becomes Times Square? The art of the first Native New Yorkers
A new exhibit of Lenape paintings, traditional dress and music proves their modern-day culture is vibrant and alive
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Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 18h
If you need to explain to someone why the ‘Rogue AI’ framing is both wrong and harmful, actually blocking our view of what safety and responsibility requires in AI, this will help:
noemamag.com
The AIs Are Not Going Rogue | NOEMA
But they still pose risks.
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Gillian Brockell @gillianbrockell.com · 18h
ICE has expelled people from all over the world to Costa Rica every Thursday or Friday since April. Last week's flight was canceled due to the First Circuit's ruling in DVD vs. DHS. But with SCOTUS's outrageous stay on Tuesday, this week's third-country removal flight appears to be in progress.
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Will Sommer @willsommer.bsky.social · 17h
Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire is quietly shooting a pro-ICE movie that dramatizes the Renee Good killing. We got the script. My latest False Flag for @thebulwark.com www.thebulwark.com/p/daily-wire...
thebulwark.com
The Daily Wire Is Quietly Shooting a Pro-ICE Movie. We Got the Script.
Locals aren’t happy about the film’s take on the ICE shooting of Renée Good.
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Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 17h
Who is this technology "protecting"? Who is surveilling and who is paying the cost? There is still not enough research about refugees and technology. The research is being discussed at conferences, universities etc. "The human touch" is missing. There are human beings on the other side.
Smart Borders. And other text that is not legible.
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Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 17h
Happening now. At our "Lampedusa keeps on happening" event, @meron.bsky.social is telling us the stories of the people who perished. The stories of the human beings behind the statistics. You can still join us by registering at us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
Meron, with a photo of an Eritrean woman and her children. With a caption that says "Helen, who died alongside her youngest three children in Lampedusa."
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The Power of Us @powerofus.skystack.xyz · 30/09/2026
Words Change Behavior More Than We Think • Valerio Capraro on emotions, norms, strategy, and linguistic framing.
powerofusnewsletter.com
Words Change Behavior More Than We Think
Valerio Capraro on emotions, norms, strategy, and linguistic framing.
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Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
See e.g. this piece on open washing: 📝 Andreas Liesenfeld & @markdingemanse.net (2024) Rethinking open source generative AI: open-washing and the EU AI Act. In The 2024 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT '24) doi.org/10.1145/3630...
doi.org
Rethinking open source generative AI: open-washing and the EU AI Act | Proceedings of the 2024 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency
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Aftermath @aftermath.site · 30/09/2026
Twitch is using AI to decide which streamers can make money off ads aftermath.site/twitch-ads-ai-...
the twitch logo surrounded by dollar bills
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The Book of the Void @eddyrobinson.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Super Intelligence
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凸凹 @dougalg.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Can we even know if it’s ai or just a call center anyway? 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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Jaz @jaz.sh · 27/09/2026
Okay so I've built a new Atlas, this time it lets you explore the conversations on Bluesky over the past 7 days graphically. It should update every ~6 hours and help you navigate the information environment that exists on here. I've learned a LOT about what people do here today... atlas.jazco.dev
atlas.jazco.dev
Atlas
A living map of what Bluesky is talking about: the past week's conversations, grouped into topics and regions and rebuilt every six hours.
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Dwayne Monroe @cloudquistador.eurosky.social · 13/09/2026
Marx's work is so rich that such application is always rewarding.
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 28/09/2026
Even Navatek’s executives were surprised at how far their money went in D.C. “It was eye-opening for me, frankly. ‘Oh my God, all of it is for sale. It’s all for sale,’” said one.
propublica.org
The FBI Anti-Corruption Squad Was Circling Susan Collins — Until Trump Got in the Way
After the FBI caught a defense contractor’s CEO making illegal campaign contributions, it sought to launch a sweeping political bribery probe involving Collins and others. Then the second Trump admini...
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Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa @benjaminschultzfig.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I've seen some debate about whether using the language of interiority for AI is just semantics or not. Again, I think Skinner is informative. He argued that one consequence of this language was to posit a subject as a moral actor who should be punished or rewarded for their actions. So he waged...
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Mike Eliason @holz-bau.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
chat is this good?
all construction dropping massively.
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Larry Glickman @larryglickman.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
The story of the unlucky Ebenezer Withington offers another example of how the patriots were more focused on consumption as use than as purchase.
Even those who came upon tea that had washed ashore weeks later faced severe consequences. One such unluckily person was Ebenezer Withington, who, in January of 1774, came upon “half a chest” of tea the marshes of his hometown of Dorchester. The Sons of Library caught wind of Withington’s scheme to see the tea. Ultimately, patriots took Withington’s stolen tea and brought it to Boston Common, where they “committed it to flames.” The patriots consumed it in the old sense, rather than consuming it in the emerging sense of the world. For this group, consumption meant use or destruction.
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Atomic Bum @atomicbum4real.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I'm seeing a huge opportunity waiting for those who get in and out of the zombie data center housing conversion bubble at just the right time.
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Philip Oldfield @sustainabletall.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The architects removed the parking ramps, and created lightwells that make the conversion possible (ie this means all habitable rooms get Before After
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Philip Oldfield @sustainabletall.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Adaptive reuse of a parking garage originally built in 1957, into 63 new apartments in Paris Includes three new storeys built of lightweight timber and steel added on top of the existing building. A thread 🧵 Before After
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kat @katbamkapow.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
running this the same DAY they run this is telling on itself www.wired.com/story/paulin...
wired.com
Who Killed Paulina Borsook’s Career?
A quarter-century ago, Borsook published a wildly prophetic, penetrating book about Silicon Valley called Cyberselfish. Then she disappeared.
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Unicorns Happen @silvy777.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Dr Alondra Nelson on how AI companies use agnotology, strategic production of ignorance, to avoid accountability. They legitimize ignorance via design opacity; generation of uncertainty; claims of unknowability of AI. Move fast, break things. Cast themselves as both the problem creators & solvers.
youtu.be
Algorithmic Agnotology: On AI, Ignorance, and Power – Alondra Nelson | IASEAI '26
YouTube video by International Association for Safe & Ethical AI
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Tech Policy Press @techpolicypress.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Trump says data center opposition is a Chinese psy-op. Chinese state media says US AI safety calls are a psy-op. Oxford China Policy Lab's Elisabeth Siegel says both accusations point to the same problem: no one can independently verify what AI companies claim.
buff.ly
US, China Psy-Op Accusations Signal Deep Distrust on AI Regulation
Without more checks and balances on AI companies, allegations of “psy-ops” in both the US and China will continue to cloud the waters, writes Elisabeth Siegel.
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 26/09/2026
This is another great, approachable explainer on “the rationalist wackos who have managed to take over much of the AI industry, and who now have tons of money and political power.” www.iankduncan.com/personal/202...
iankduncan.com
Sex, AI, and the Apocalypse - Ian Duncan
How a community devoted to thinking clearly incubated salvation stories, abusive experiments, race science, and an affection for autocracy, and why that history matters now that its alumni are asking ...
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Ranjit Mathew @rmathew4bs.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
A long must-read 😰: “Sex, AI, And The Apocalypse”, Ian K. Duncan (iankduncan.com/personal/202...). Via HN: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4974... #AI #Rationality #EA #EffectiveAltruism #SiliconValley #BayArea #Cult
iankduncan.com
Sex, AI, and the Apocalypse - Ian Duncan
How a community devoted to thinking clearly incubated salvation stories, abusive experiments, race science, and an affection for autocracy, and why that history matters now that its alumni are asking ...
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Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Builds on stodgier academic work here - www.science.org/stoken/autho... - this, by Roberts et al, is also very interesting on language and LLMs albeit much more political www.nature.com/articles/s41...
science.org
Large AI models are cultural and social technologies
Implications draw on the history of transformative information systems from the past
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Matthew Kirschenbaum @mkirschenbaum.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
The one piece I find missing here is the throughline to authoritarianism, not just in the alignment of Silicon Valley rationalists and the right, but in the discursive terrain itself: “machine god” seems to me a direct progression of the “god emperor” mantle for Trump, which is itself derived from +
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NickKauf @nickkauf.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
"Computers are currently over-sized in our imaginations. A lot of what we’re told about computers – and the role they could play in our futures, either isn’t true, or isn’t what many of us want."
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bianca wylie @biancawylie.com · 17/09/2026
lesscomputer.ca
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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
When Coxon was suddenly ALL OVER the media, it felt to many like that was because his story deserved that much interest i.e. that the media was doing its job informing the public of an important threat. The wall-to-wall media coverage wasn't organic though, it was orchestrated: >>
piratewires.com
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Bob ArdKor @bob.ardkor.com · 26/09/2026
a character is shown telling his computer to say "I am alive," the computer says the line, and he responds, "Oh my god," as if shocked that the computer just admitted to being sentient
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Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
ICE has abducted Senegalese WBB player Aminata Seck and won't release her. DHS 'policy' is to provide medical care to prisoners at intake, yet they admit to denying her care for an ACL injury for 1.5 months. The NCAA is letting it happen, despite its predatory recruitment of ICAs. We explain.
theguardian.com
ICE has abducted a college athlete. What are the NCAA and universities going to do about it?
Aminata Seck’s detention shows the bargain facing international college athletes: universities eagerly recruit them, but support can disappear when their immigration status becomes precarious.
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Data & Society @datasociety.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
📣 New! While AI boosters are selling their vision of PA as an “AI factory,” our research shows that local communities are drawing very different lessons from their state’s industrial past, and have their own visions for its future. 1/5 datasociety.net/research-lib...
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Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 22/09/2026
Ridiculous we have to argue about basic things like what the language modeling task consists of and what our paper on LLMs actually says. We're definitely in a "post truth" society where "thousands of lessworng posts" are advising policy makers.
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Sarah Emily Duff @sarahemilyduff.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
‘Claims of incipient, dangerous superintelligence are not based in good scientific or engineering practice. …they are narratives based in ideologies of transhumanism, eugenics, and wishful thinking about imagined future digital humans.’ By @emilymbender.bsky.social and @timnitgebru.blacksky.app
technologyreview.com
Don’t be fooled by this summer of AI hype
Breathless claims about AGI and new capabilities fall apart pretty quickly under scrutiny.
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Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 24/09/2026
🔇🔇🔇 I want to announce a @dairinstitute.bsky.social virtual event concerning the ***REAL**** impacts of "AI" on the most vulnerable of populations, refugees. Everything you see is first experimented on them.🧵 ⏰ October 1 at 6-8pm CET/9am PDT on Zoom. ✴️ Register at us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
flyer for DAIR virtual event on October 1, 2026 from 6-8PM CET. Join DAIR as we commemorate the 2013 Lampedusa tragedy and ask, "What would it take for technology to protect people on the move, rather than deepen the risks they already face?


Meron Estefanos, Dr. Selam Kidane, Dr. Omer Shatz, Dr. Hyab Yoahnnes

Register at https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/5517888860006/WN_u2VZxx2RSciVPe2wu039wA#/registration
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Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 24/09/2026
Democracy Now! has now gone from constantly inviting Max Tegmark to platforming people from none other than MIRI. That's right MIRI. Y'all know how bad that is? Do you understand the level to which they are doubling down on the eugenicists?
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Wtaf is this question my university just asked me about my project?
Does the project involve any work that could be interpreted as promoting DEIA, climate change research, or non-compliant to any Presidential Executive Orders?
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David Kaye @davidakaye.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
to be clear, the admin is alleged to have deported AT LEAST 25,447 individuals TO COUNTRIES THAT ARE NOT THEIR OWN with, evidently, ZERO PROTECTIONS. this is a scandal and crime of historic proportions.
forbiddenstories.org
The Deportation Project Map
Between 2025 and August 2026, the Trump administration deported over 25,000 people to countries other than their country of origin. Very few of these removals were publicly announced by the US. The De...
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David @finagle-a-hegel.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
One of the key emphases in this book is how SV is structurally designed to keep fighting for people at younger and younger ages, so I guess pre college was inevitable, along with the terrifying implications for human welfare www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/760317...
penguinrandomhouse.com
How to Rule the World by Theo Baker: 9780593832837 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
The instant New York Times bestseller • A Tom Wolfe Literary Prize finalist • Named a Best Book of the Year (So Far) by New York Times, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and Apple Books “A rigorous,...
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AP Stylebook @apstylebook.com · 23/09/2026
Artificial intelligence systems do not think, feel, want or understand. Avoid language that gives them human characteristics.
apnews.com
https://apnews.com/article/openai-safety-ai-framework-089e75b95bc935af092da7b79d92706d
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404 Media @404media.co · 23/09/2026
Wealthy countries with many daily AI users tended to fear more for the future in what Gallup called the 'Paradox of the Worried West.'
404media.co
Americans Fear AI Will Make the World Worse, Love It Anyway
Wealthy countries with many daily AI users tended to fear more for the future in what Gallup called the 'Paradox of the Worried West.'
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Joe Flynn @chinajoeflynn.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
For the 1039 at Camp As Sayliyah, and the others stuck in Afghanistan who believed the promises made by our government, I'd like you to send your Congressfolk a message that we are still a nation of immigrants. You can message them through this Afghan Evac page.
afghanevac.org
Count Them In — #AfghanEvac
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Joe Flynn @chinajoeflynn.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
These refugees have been stuck on base for 5 years. You may have read that the administration tried to repatriate them to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They've also been facing missile attacks from Iran. Our govt has set a Sept. 30 deadline for dealing with them. afghanevac.org/cas-facts
afghanevac.org
CAS Facts — #AfghanEvac
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Joe Flynn @chinajoeflynn.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I work with Afghan immigrants in Virginia. Thousands were promised visa, vetted, and ready to come to America after our military pulled out and the Taliban retook the country. The Trump administration ended this last year. This includes the 1039 Afghans stuck at Camp As Sayliyah in Qatar.
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Joe Flynn @chinajoeflynn.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Hi folks. If you saw this, you know the administration plans to only accept white South Africans next year. Tomorrow is Congress's formal say before the determination is signed. Please check this brief thread on why I'd like you to speak out for the Afghan people still in limbo...
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The Xylom @thexylom.com · 20/09/2026
NEW: Inadequate recycling facilities push e-waste handling into Manila’s informal sector, exposing entire communities to toxins and serious health problems. This dispatch is published in English by The Xylom and in Spanish by Planeta Futuro, @elpais.com.
thexylom.com
The Toxic Cost of the Philippines’ Growing E-Waste Crisis
Inadequate recycling facilities mean that e-waste handling falls to Manila’s informal sector, exposing entire communities to toxins and serious health problems.
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hilkojj @hilkojj.nl · 22/09/2026
17 days until launch!! Watch the *alternative* trailer, voiced by Not Just Bikes. store.steampowered.com/app/3031880/...
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Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
NYT has now independently corroborated all the major allegations against Susan Collins in the ProPublica report, including that investigators were prepared to move against her and then Trump intervened to shut it down. This put Trump in a position of exceptional and extortionate leverage over her.
nytimes.com
F.B.I. Shut Down Inquiry Into Top Ally of Senator Susan Collins
The inquiry was closed last year because senior bureau officials questioned the veracity of a campaign donor’s account, according to current and former officials.
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