iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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just some Alicia @aliciaaarnio.solar · 04/10/2026

I did a neighborhood art show today. Figured my Dad would’ve been irked if I didn’t, but I couldn’t help but recognize that it was his spinning wheel enabling that helped make me the yarn monster I am today. 😇🥲

The front porch of a craftsman style house. Skeins of yarn are hanging from the siding, and hand knit garments are on every flat surface. A man is sitting on a patio chair, working on his laptop.

The other side of the patio, yarn hanging from the siding. A circular rug is on the concrete, and a set of macrame curtains is on the far end of the porch.

A red lace shawl is hanging from gray macrame ropes. Trees and sunlight are visible through the open parts of the lace.

A small memorial sits on a column of a porch. A photo shows a man and a woman and their daughter, in her PhD regalia. The caption reads, “For my Dad, who bought me my first spinning wheel in 2008.” A tea light is lit to the right of the photo.

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Ron Belmont @ronbelmont.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Sometimes a random encounter with a kind stranger can really fulfill and sustain you. Thank you so much Lisa and Beauregard (who's a very good boy) for a lovely encounter at the local taco shop

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just some Alicia @aliciaaarnio.solar · 28/09/2026

oof. 'wake me up when September ends' hits. sigh. I forgot to include his name- brain has called in sick. James Everett Aarnio, 3/7/1947 - 9/23/2026. Digging through photos-I opened boxes unopened from when she passed in 2015, found my grandma's family homestead in MN! Road trip time..

A photo from the 1980s: a 40-ish man and an elderly couple are standing in front of a white and red Cessna plane. A small boy and girl are standing in front of the man. He is, naturally, wearing aviator sunglasses, and he is my Dad. The elderly couple are his parents, Laila and Elmer, and they are Finnish AF.

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just some Alicia @aliciaaarnio.solar · 27/09/2026

one more favorite, for good measure.. my alibi for march 22, 1987

A man in a trucker hat bigger than his entire head is standing in front of a red and white Cessna airplane. A seven year old boy in a blue and white t-shirt and jeans is standing a few feet behind him, and a 3 year old girl with a glow worm plush and ridiculously wild curly hair is photobombing in the lower right corner of the photo. Because she went on her first flights with her Dad as pilot, she will go on to never be afraid of flying.

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just some Alicia @aliciaaarnio.solar · 27/09/2026

He could be profoundly difficult, but I loved him and will miss him terribly. Rest easy, Dad.

A sepia-toned photo from 1960 of a 13-year old boy with an alto saxophone. He's wearing a white, button-down shirt and tie and smiling.

A black and white photo from 1966 of the 5th US Army Band playing in a grassy field. There are about four rows of about five musicians each playing different instruments, and the front row of saxophone players have solid black music stand fronts. The alto saxophone player in the middle of the front row has very shiny hair and he is my Dad.

A polaroid from the 1980s shows a man with a mustache holding a swaddled newborn baby girl. She is very pink and looks like she is already verbally shitposting this world she was born into.

A photo from the early 2000's of a young white woman with red hair holding a black Fender Stratocaster guitar with a clear pick guard. She is looking at the camera skeptically, while her Dad is sitting next to her with an alto saxophone in his hands and smiling at the camera. The mouthpiece is partially blocking his face because he's a pain in the ass in photos.

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 26/09/2026

Does my Speak-n-Spell feel pain when I type O-U-C-H? The jury is out. Philosophers and neuroscientists say that's fucking stupid, but I called a guy from the Center for Pretending that Household Electronics Are Sentient and he said there's no way to know for sure.

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Erin J. Wamsley 🧠📈😴 @wamsleylab.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Yeah, that's a problem www.chronicle.com/article/high... #academicsky #edusky

A line graph demonstrating the nonacademic spending has outpaced academic spending, from 2010 to 2024. The note indicates this is for 146 R1 institutions. Source: NCES, Created with Datawrapper

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

It seems to me that a solution to encouraging AI 'alignment' would be to hold AI companies and their executives legally liable - criminally, if relevant - for what their AI agents do.

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North Carolina Conference of the AAUP @ncaaup.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

👇👇👇👇👇👇

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Ron Belmont @ronbelmont.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

"Jensen Huang downplays AI skill loss" Oh really? The guy who's making billions of dollars from you losing your skills thinks that's okay? Well, gosh, who could have seen that coming!

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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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David_j_roth @davidjroth.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

It's too depressing and obnoxious to write about, but virtually all of the doomy/horny AI hyperventilating is transparently displaced anxiety about our fucked climate and political situation. Even rich idiots know it's bad and being permitted to get worse. They're trying to write their own ending.

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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 24/09/2026

In July, one of my mentors and colleagues at UNH passed away. It's taken me this long to feel ready to write about it in any public way. Here is my letter to Siobhan, who changed my life. "You always, always offered to step in, even when it wasn’t your job, even when it wasn’t your department."

news.chanda.science

A Farewell to Siobhan Senier

To my mentor and friend, who walked on in July

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Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

It is a profound indictment of most media coverage of Big Tech that your best bet for getting an informed understanding of AI and its dangers is following a decently curated list of Bluesky shitposters

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

For reasons mysterious to me, Will Stancil is continuing his crash out about language used to describe LLMs, moving on from raning about "stochastic parrots" to picking up on this piece that @nannainie.bsky.social and I published earlier this summer: buttondown.com/maiht3k/arch... >>

buttondown.com

How to talk about "AI" without adding to the anthropomorphization

Emily M. Bender and Nanna Inie In our op-ed for Tech Policy Press ("We Need to Talk About How We Talk About 'AI'"), we made the case against the...

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404 Media @404media.co · 23/09/2026

Citizens showed up to the city council meeting with plans to let city leaders know how they felt about the city’s use of Flock. But Springfield mayor Jeff Schrag moved to prevent public comment on Flock. Then, arrests happened, @mjgault.bsky.social reports. Story: www.404media.co/woman-arrest...

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I, for one, am fed up with "stochastic parrots" being co-opted to erase the work of so many brilliant scholars and activists. Some references in this thread, but there are many, many more that could be added.

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Ron Belmont @ronbelmont.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I was thinking about this just other day. "OpenAI and Microsoft.... came to agree in 2023 that AGI will be achieved once OpenAI has developed an AI system that can generate at least $100 billion in profits."

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Simone de Rochefort @doomquasar.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

lol www.404media.co/meta-tests-m...

“This is absolutely going to create a ton of outcry if we publicly launch this as default-on. It will kill all the goodwill and organic press we’re getting from early adopters,” they wrote. “Please think about how the headlines will scream ‘Meta uses humans behind the scenes to make calls’ or ‘Muse AI is actually independent contractors’ and result in a ton of bad press about the privacy and security of our data handling […] please PLEASE do not release this as-is and at least make this a user preference if we absolutely must launch this. Please.”

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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 22/09/2026

Really excited for this book.

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404 Media @404media.co · 22/09/2026

OpenAI has thousands and thousands of contractors helping improve the company's AI models. Multiple contractors have been fired for using AI to train the AI.

404media.co

People Training OpenAI’s AI Fired for Using AI to Train the AI

OpenAI has thousands and thousands of contractors helping improve the company's AI models. Multiple contractors have been fired for using AI to train the AI.

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Kate Jewell @katejewell.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

My kid has launched a petition to change his high school’s handbook policy on AI use. He’s pissed. (He really hates AI)

4 Search 8:58PM Mon Sep 21
Scanned Document 9-21-26 at 8.51.43PM v
=100% O
This is a petition to change the BHS Al policy from this, which was copy & pasted directly from the student Handbook google document on Monday, September 21st of 2026.
BHS Al Policy
Unauthorized use of generative Al tools to substantially complete an assignment is not permitted.
This petition to change the Al policy would like to change the following:
• Remove the word substantially from the policy all together
a. The usage of the word substantially is ambiguous at best, and disingenuous at worst. For example, who is it that decides when Al was used substantially, who decides what substantially means, and why is any amount permitted
when the use itself is unauthorized?
Require a more descriptive decision on how Al is and is not permitted in assignments and projects
a. If students do not know what is permitted, how do they know what is not
b. If Al is used in 100% of the creation process except for editing, would that count as substantial usage? Most would probably argue yes, but it is possible for an argument to be posed of the opposite, that the baseline was made with Al but the final product was made by humans. That argument could be made,
and could be accepted., even if it goes against what the policy means.
c. If Al is used for the basis of the brainstorming of talking points, but nothing
else, would that count as substantial usage? Most would probably argue no,

but again, it is possible to argue the opposite. It could be argued that because the baseline of the passage was Al generated, everything else built on that foundation does not count as real work.
Have a more active description of why Al is prohibited
a. Why is Al prohibited? Is it because you just don't like it? Is it because it harms the environment? Is it because it harms the learning capabilities of people no matter the age or gender? Specifics are important.
• Expand restrictions on Al and what possible punishments might be
a. What happens when you break the rules? Nothing? Suspension? A grade drop? Or should it be decided by the teacher?
b. What specifically is not permitted when using Al? Is image generation allowed? Probably not in art. Is source generation allowed? Who knows, not
us.
c. Are teachers allowed to use Al? Why or why not? It sends mixed messages when teachers use Al in their classroom slides and then turn around and say
"No! This technology is really bad and horrible and don't use it?"
• Require a more expansive curriculum on Al and its problems
a. Anything would be helpful. Even an assembly would be helpful because people do not know anything about what Al does to them, or the environment. This is a BARE MINIMUM.
Each request will be signed on individually in this petition. Each change would be requested individually and discussed with those who have the power to change it individually.

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Nick Field @nickfield.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

The State AGs were on pace to kill the Paramount/Warner Bros by litigation and delay until Gavin Newsom stepped in and turned the tide. Now the Trump loyalist Ellisons will control CNN and HBO. Don't ever, ever forget that Newsom stabbed us in the back www.wsj.com/business/med...

wsj.com

Exclusive | Newsom Expresses Concerns About State Antitrust Suit Against Paramount

The California governor has told people involved in the suit that blocking the $81 billion deal could harm Hollywood jobs.

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just some Alicia @aliciaaarnio.solar · 22/09/2026

"this is the same fight, the same ethos, but it’s about data and intelligence.” you know another way to democratize knowledge? free college for all. well-funded public schools. gatekeepers are elected and we have always had power over that. but don't let me stand in the way of a good grifty slogan

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just some Alicia @aliciaaarnio.solar · 21/09/2026

it's true, i was not prepared 😂 i'm also extremely nervous because universities tend to be uni-see uni-do about all the worst tech and policies, and i want to know how to opt out of this kind of thing.

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Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Happy 118th birthday, spacetime. 🧪 🔭 ⚛️ Hermann Minkowski addressed the 80th Assembly of German Natural Scientists and Physicians #OTD in 1908, offering a radical four-dimensional reformulation of Einstein's theory of special relativity. Here is how he opened his address.

"The views of space and time which I wish to lay before you have sprung from the soil of experimental physics, and therein lies their strength. They are radical. Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality."
- Hermann Minkowski, 1908

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e.w. niedermeyer @niedermeyer.online · 21/09/2026

you think it's a coincidence that the most evil and corrupt people alive want you to believe that trans people are the real problem?

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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 21/09/2026

there isn't actually any sort of automatic inexplicable spread of anti-data-centre hate into anti-renewable - but what there is, it's orchestrated by anti-renewable right-wingers:

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Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

“The kind of 'hallucination' that the tool used by the analyst in this case conjured has not been an isolated incident across the intelligence community since these tools began proliferating across government, according to one of the sources.” edition.cnn.com/2026/09/18/p...

edition.cnn.com

Exclusive: US military had close call after using AI for false intelligence report, sources say | CNN Politics

The episode shows the risks of using this new, relatively poorly understood technology in the middle of the Iran war

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Alex Ip 葉清霖 @alexip718.com · 21/09/2026

Every single brand, organization, governmental agency, elected official, public figure, and journalist that is still posting on Twitter is complicit in fascism, the assault on trans rights, and the proliferation child sexual abuse content. It's just so thoroughly revolting. I hate it

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Mark Stout @markstout.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

OK. I'm officially terrified. I'm flying out of DC in the very near future.

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

according to the article, it took hours after the personal intervention of the mayor for his family to even get basic information about him. that information included that he had been transferred to ICE custody hours after being shot. no amnesty

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Higher Education is not just about training workers, but also about training citizen leaders and good citizenship in part means thinking that the details matter, that getting them right matters, because it impacts some of your fellow citizens. "It only matters if job" is poison to citizenship.

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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

If you're a Dem who thinks you'll gain something by going anti-trans, look at Gallup's "most important problem" and Fox News' "most important issue" polling and see where trans issues rank. Whoever told you going anti-trans is a savvy or necessary move spends too much time on X and should be fired.

Gallup polling. "LGBTQ rights" moves between 0 and 1%.

Fox news polling. Wokeness/transgender issues at 0%.

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Alex Hanna @alexhanna.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Clark retrofitting Musk's "woke mind virus" to any concept that doesn't fit his mental model of AI research is a good example of the way that "AI" functions as a political project with bizarre ideological component.

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Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 20/09/2026

I swear we need an institute for TESCREAL studies because there is too much work to be done and they're spraying us with DDOS hype attacks

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Greg Pak @gregpak.net · 20/09/2026

"My opponent wants to hire creeps to inspect your daughter's genitals if she wants to play soccer. I wouldn't trust him or any hired weirdo from his pedophile-protecting party alone in a room with any kid." Go on the offensive, you cowards! It's not that hard!

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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

"This election is about the threat of trans kids" is the worst possible messaging for Dems yet so many candidates are leaning into it. No voter will flip R->D over it. Low-info voters read this as "you're focused on bullshit that doesn't affect me" while the base reads this as "you're an asshole."

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 20/09/2026

And Now for Something Completely Different: A perspective on AI swarms from someone who actually knows something about collective behavior.

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North Carolina Conference of the AAUP @ncaaup.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

New office door sign just dropped

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Adam Becker @adambecker.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Speaking as a journalist: I would really like to see more of my colleagues asking this question. If we take money from tech companies we can't report on them, and if somehow we do we have to disclose it. Yet when we interview academics about AI, I almost never see disclosures of their funding.

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

"I belong to a cult. Someone did some research that undermines the core tenets of my cult and came up with a catchy phrase that makes it harder to recruit more people to my cult. This makes me sad."

Screencap of tweet on X from @jackclarkSF (Jack Clark):

"stochastic parrot" was a mimetically-fit cognitive virus that spread from 2021-2025; it temporarily blinded many gifted people to the nature of AI progress, burning up crucial years in which they could have helped think through the response to the situation.
7:34 AM · Sep 20, 2026
·
115.1K
Views

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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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Thomas Lecaque @tlecaque.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I want the name of every consultant who convinces a Democrat to run an ad ceding ground to trans hatred, and I want them blacklisted by the party and noted so I can never give a cent to anyone who hires them ever again.

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Smooth Dunk @smoothdunk2.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

when ai leaves u behind

7 panel comic.

Panel 1:
A Red Guy with AI across his chest looks like he’s about to run away. A Yellow Guy stands next to him. Red Guy says “I’m the future, buddy. You comin’?”
Yellow Guy replies “Nah”

Panel 2:
Red Guy is almost out of the panel. He leans in and says “Enjoy getting left behind, pal”
Yellow Guy replies “ok”

Panel 3:
Yellow Guy stands alone.

Panel 4:
Close up on Yellow Guy, there is a quiet “huff-huff-huff” noise coming from behind him

Panel 5:
Yellow Guy turns to look behind him

Panel 6:
Close up on Yellow Guy’s face as if from the point of view of an attacker.
Yellow Guy yells “Jesus Christ”

Panel 7:
AI Red Guy is now chasing the Yellow Guy.
Red Guy: “Use me”
Yellow Guy “No”
Red Guy “USE ME”

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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Software developers think "if AI automates coding, I will be able to spend less time on producing widgets, and more time on strategy and architecture." Bosses think "if AI automates coding, I can get my devs to produce 100x more widgets."

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