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Sam Shorey

@samshorey.bsky.social
236 followers 248 following 48 posts

Asst. Professor of Communication at the University of Pittsburgh • Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute • Researching technology design & innovation labor: robots, hype, AI, trash, DIY, repair • 🤖+🚮

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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
Thank you for sharing this. One of my colleagues teaches about the Black Action Society's sit-in at the Pitt Computer Center and I was wondering about the techno-social aspects! I have this fabulous graphic from the steering committee on my desk right now:
B&W archival image with a pen drawing of large mainframe computers surrounded by collaged photos of the faces of members of the University of Pittsburgh's Black Action Society.
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CASTAC @castac.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
📣 Join us for #CASPR2026 — CASTAC in the Spring! "Labor and Technoscientific Worlds: Historical Encounters and New Directions in the Field" — a roundtable with Kalpana Shankar, David Nemer & Lilly Irani honoring David Hakken. 📅 May 29 | 10:30AM–12:30PM CT 🎟️ Register: caspr2026.eventbrite.com
Promotional graphic for CASPR 2026 — CASTAC in the Spring. The image features a vintage botanical illustration of two platypuses on a branch surrounded by orange and pink flowers on a cream background. Text reads: "Labor and Technoscientific Worlds: Historical Encounters and New Directions in the Field. Friday, May 29, 2026, 10:30 AM – 12:30 PM (Central). Join us for a roundtable presentation and breakout Q&A discussions with panelists Kalpana Shankar (University College Dublin), David Nemer (University of Virginia), and Lilly Irani (UC San Diego) in memory of David Hakken. Register: caspr2026.eventbrite.com.
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Sharita Gruberg @gruberg.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
New from NPWF: While women make up 47%of all workers, they account for 83% of those employed in AI-vulnerable occupations. The report has more on what AI means for women at work and what policymakers need to do. nationalpartnership.org/report/ai-em...
nationalpartnership.org
AI and Emerging Risks for Women Workers | National Partnership for Women & Families
New data on how women workers are overrepresented in occupations where they may be particularly affected by AI in the workplace.
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
👏🏻 "They’ve stolen all the works of humanity, the books, the art, everything we’ve ever put on Reddit. They’ve turned around, tried to monetize and sell it back to us and defund education, libraries, public health institutions. People are not stupid." Safiya Noble www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...
rollingstone.com
The 'Techlash' Against AI Is Here. Have We Hit a Tipping Point?
As backlash against AI increases, it has also turned violent, unveiling a deep mistrust of a system that would benefit from guardrails, say experts.
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Hannah Groch-Begley @grouchybagels.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
Applications OPEN for the Graduate Humanities Internship at the Roosevelt Institute! We teach current humanities grad students how to think and work in public policy spaces. Real-world alt-ac training. Paid, remote, part-time over two-semesters. See more here! rooseveltinstitute.org/roosevelt-so...
rooseveltinstitute.org
Programs - Roosevelt Institute
Ideas alone will not move the needle—people are key to innovation and success. The Roosevelt Society’s mission is to expand the network of those working toward a new vision for our economy and democra...
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
A really cool example of investigative reporting from @businessinsider.com, mapping (the often undisclosed) locations of US data centers by tracking permits for the diesel back-up generators they use: www.businessinsider.com/data-center-...
businessinsider.com
Are you living near a data center? Our interactive map shows where construction is skyrocketing.
Companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Meta are rapidly building data centers amid the AI boom. Our interactive map shows where they are.
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Grace Panetta @gracepanetta.bsky.social · 22/02/2026
Alysa Liu telling 60 Minutes “I love struggling, it makes me feel alive” is a legit revolutionary statement from a Bay Area native in a time when copious amounts of time and resources are being put toward convincing us to opt out of experiencing struggle, friction and self-actualization
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Luke Stark @lukestark.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
Yeah, there's a lot of slippage between "you must pay attention to these technologies" and "you must submit to the current political economy of these technologies," and those are not the same thing at all
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
Once again, it turns out “fully autonomous” means “a guy in the Philippines.”
futurism.com
It Turns Out Waymos Are Being Controlled by Workers in the Philippines
During a Congressional hearing, Waymo's chief safety officer, Mauricio Peña, was grilled over the company's reliance on overseas workers.
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
great news from this semester's monologue assignment: the Fight Club cohort went full-on 1984! The revolution is near.
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Michelle Miller @michelleimiller.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
The real appeal of AI is that it’s a way to make it even harder for people to use basic services that might cost a company some money. None of the people promoting this will ever have to go through an AI agent for anything, especially not healthcare.
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
the Executive Order overriding AI regulations from the states will make Americans vulnerable to technological harm. On Austin's @kvue.bsky.social this week: www.kvue.com/article/tech...
“We don't know about the safety of this technology, especially when it comes to young people interacting with it. We don't know if we can trust this technology to make decisions about our health. We don't know if this technology is going to consolidate data to the point where governments and corporations can surveil American citizens,” Shorey said. “In a lot of ways, the states have been little laboratories for figuring out what this can look like? In what ways do we encourage businesses and encourage development and progress while also protecting basic human rights of the people who live here?”
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
love Jenny Holzer forever! But, Robert Montgomery created "the people you love become ghosts inside you" news.artnet.com/partner-cont...
news.artnet.com
Scottish Artist Robert Montgomery Brings His Concrete Poetry Back to the Canvas In His New Show
Robert Montgomery looks to the birth of the Modernist experiment in his latest artistic experiment.
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Kim Kelly @kimkelly.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
The AFL-CIO should start throwing some money towards labor journalism. If it was done right (i.e. with them accepting that journalists must have full editorial control over what’s published, whether or not union leaders like what they have to say) it could really have such a hugely positive impact
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 03/11/2025
25% of U.S. data workers at AI companies (valued at 5 trillion+ dollars) are paid so little they have to rely on public assistance programs like SNAP. #AICorporateWelfare via the new report from @techequity.bsky.social and CWA: techequity.us/2025/09/30/g...
techequity.us
Ghost Workers in the AI Machine: U.S. Data Workers Speak Out About Big Tech's Exploitation - TechEquity Collaborative
Alphabet Workers Union-CWA and TechEquity interviewed U.S. data workers to shed light on the working conditions of the people powering AI.
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
man, it's not looking good for the billionaires. All the public speaking students who used to recite the Wolf of Wall Street monologue are now picking Fight Club.
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
the conversation between Ta-Nehisi Coates and Ezra Klein, two friends who fundamentally disagree, is a remarkable read. Ta-Nehisi's clarity has been carrying me after weeks of feeling defeated by the techno-political moment. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/28/o...
Screen shot: "I am descended from people who, in their lifetime, fought with all their might for the destruction of chattel slavery in this country. And they never saw it. They never saw it. In my personal belief system, they died in defeat, in darkness.

So I guess the privilege that I draw out of this, the honor that I draw out of this, is not that things will necessarily be better in my lifetime, but that I will make the contribution that I am supposed to make."
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
first day of the semester and in the words of Kerri Colby: I'm here to wake it up!
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
thank you so much, Arturo! It's wonderful that it resonated with someone with such a keen eye for change in the creative industries.
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 20/08/2025
*presses play on Phil Collins - In the Air Tonight*
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
"How to live? Be soft, get by, go slow, open up, find others, try to be kind, funny if you have it in you. Get things done, think justly, create, learn your corner as best you can." Lisa Henderson, Every Queer Thing We Know
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Roosevelt Forward @rooseveltforward.org · 07/08/2025
Headlines say AI is replacing workers, but beneath the headlines is a more sinister truth—they're being reorganized, outsourced, and devalued to make automation possible. @samshorey.bsky.social lays it all out in the latest #FiresideStacks 🔥 www.firesidestacks.com/p/patchwork-...
Promotional graphic for fireside stacks
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
Journalists are doing such important work to inform and educate the public about innovation. My co-author (a journalism undergrad at UT!) created "Don't Be A Drone," a 1-sheet that turns our findings into actionable tips for reporting: www.bit.ly/ReportingOnAI
Screen shot of PDF "Don't Be a Drone: Tips for Better Reporting on AI in Essential Work Sectors." Tip 1 is "Don't let executives be the only voice in your story"
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
why does this matter? because execs are predictably pro-tech while on-the-ground workers are the people with the most direct experience with AI technology and its limitations! Without the voice of workers, news stories become another source of technology hype.
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
Out now in the AI Hype special issue in Digital Journalism, "Automating Essential Work:" 📰 10 years of news stories 📈 tech company execs become sources when the industry shifts from traditional automation to robots 👷🏻‍♀️ 0 quotes from on-the-ground workers doi.org/10.1080/2167...
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Meredith Whittaker @meredithmeredith.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
Stand by this: www.politico.com/newsletters/...
What’s a technology that you think is overhyped?

I’m going to give a sideways answer to this, which is that the venture capital business model needs to be understood as requiring hype. You can go back to the Netscape IPO, and that was the proof point that made venture capital the financial lifeblood of the tech industry.

Venture capital looks at valuations and growth, not necessarily at profit or revenue. So you don’t actually have to invest in technology that works, or that even makes a profit, you simply have to have a narrative that is compelling enough to float those valuations. So you see this repetitive and exhausting hype cycle as a feature in this industry. A couple of years ago, you would have been asking me about the metaverse, then last year, you would have asked me about Web3 and crypto, and for each of these inflection points there’s an Andreessen Horowitz manifesto.

It’s not simply that one piece of technology is overhyped, it’s that hype is a necessary ingredient of the current business ecosystem of the tech industry. We should examine how often the financial incentive for hype is rewarded without any real social returns, without any meaningful progress in technology, without these tools and services and worlds ever actually manifesting. That’s key to understanding the growing chasm between the narrative of techno-optimists and the reality of our tech-encumbered world.
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Roosevelt Institute @rooseveltinstitute.org · 15/07/2025
NEW 📰: AI automation is making government jobs more stressful & error-prone, hurting workers & constituents. @samshorey.bsky.social offers a scan of the existing landscape of AI implementation from across the country & the true impact on workers & efficiency. rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...
[T]he public sector should not be a testing ground for tools that haven’t been evaluated, tested, and established as truly beneficial.
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
I was reminded this week that (alongside the agonies of the OBBB) the almost unanimous decision to remove the preemptive ban on AI regulation was the result of real mobilization — and is a clear sign to lawmakers that the American public doesn't want to give a blank check to big tech.
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Chuck A @candersonjax.bsky.social · 28/06/2025
This hands unchecked power to tech firms aligned with Trump, silencing local oversight and boosting political manipulation. This will impact our elections and explode the amount of misinformation reaching Americans.
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 28/06/2025
This could include common-sense protections like: ❌ the recently-passed Texas law that forbids the use of AI as the sole decision-maker in healthcare determinations. ❌ the proposed California law that requires the state to clearly identify when AI is being used to interact with constituents.
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 28/06/2025
The state-level has been the most important place for prototyping laws that aim to ensure that AI is actually used to make the lives of Americans better—not just make tech companies richer.
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 28/06/2025
Why does this matter? Because, even though there have been multiple executive orders on AI from the last three presidential administrations, there is no comprehensive federal law governing how AI can be used on Americans.
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 28/06/2025
The current version of the One Big Beautiful Bill still includes a provision that prohibits any state from regulating AI for the next ten years if they want access to the $500 million allocated for AI infrastructure.
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 11/06/2025
every one of us is all we need 💛
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 12/05/2025
this interview with Ocean Vuong pulled and pulled at my heart-strings. And the comments section too (a rarity) sharing in the loneliness and grief of class mobility. whew. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/03/m...
 don’t fetishize an identity of “writer.” To me, what you and I are doing is the same work. My teaching is the same work. When I give a talk at a university, it’s the same thing.

How do you characterize that work? A kind of sincerity, of figuring this out. I think that’s it. A Buddhist sutra says to engage the phenomena of the world with earnestness. I’ve always valued that.
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 12/05/2025
same! "In some ways, I have over shot my mark in life in spades."
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Will Oremus @willoremus.com · 08/05/2025
Sen. Schatz (D-Hawaii) is the first senator to go hard on AI training data and intellectual property, saying what we're really talking about is training AIs on all of human achievement up to now — spitting out "what appears to be knowledge" without compensation for the humans who generated it.
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
My students taking the final exam after enduring a semester of in-class critical engagement activities:
theonion.com
Students Thankful Standardized Curriculum Sparing Them From Free-Spirited Teacher’s Antics
HAVERHILL, MA—Conveying their eagerness to dodge the possibility of any classroom role-playing exercises or featured guest speakers, 10th-grade students at East High School told reporters Thursday the...
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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
Imagine if projector salespeople told you projectors were great in the classroom not because they let everybody see an image better but rather because now every course could be about projectors, because projectors are the future and the time to opt out of talking about projectors all day has passed.
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
me too! I was surprised by the way this question revealed (and spoke directly to) the students' most pressing concerns.
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
I do this every year and their answers are great (and really different than what they write on teaching evals). Here is an example PDF: bit.ly/AdviceFromStudentsWhoTookThisClass My fav this semester said "Prepare to have some of your assumptions challenged by new viewpoints backed up with studies."
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
📑 teaching tip: On the final exam, include a question that asks "What is one piece of advice you would give a future student about how to succeed in this class?" (All answers get full credit, unless they're rude). Then compile the most actionable responses into a doc for students next semester.
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Roosevelt Institute @rooseveltinstitute.org · 02/05/2025
The future of AI shouldn’t be left in the hands of tech billionaires and corporations. Workers must have a real voice in how AI is deployed. Explore more on why we need a pro-worker agenda for AI that includes real safeguards and worker-centered policies. #restoringdemocracy
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Jonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · 13/04/2025
The bipartisan belief that America would be a better place if *other people* worked in a factory. www.ft.com/content/8459...
80+% of both Democrats and Republicans believe America would be better off if more Americans worked in manufacturing, but < 30% say that about themselves.
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
As Kevin G. from Mean Girls once said "don't let the haters stop you from doing your thing."
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
AI technologies like these only gain financial investment through the belief that the human labor they rely upon is a temporary part the system. We discuss the myth of "stop gap labor" in our new article, awarded 🏆 Best Paper at the conference on Human-Robot Interaction! dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/...
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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
No matter how cool the videos look, the important thing about this robot "poised to move into our homes so it can help with the daily chores" is actually 10+ paragraphs into the article: It is controlled by a Norwegian guy in the basement!
nytimes.com
Invasion of the Home Humanoid Robots
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Dr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave @wolven.blacksky.app · 04/04/2025
I spend so much time trying to get people riled up about terrible "AI" so we can work on different, non-terrible ways to build "AI," & also be informed enough about "AI" to be able to call our reps or stand up in town halls & council meetings & talk about why shitty "AI" shouldn't be woven into govt
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AFL-CIO @aflcio.org · 13/03/2025
The labor movement will not stand by and let Elon Musk and DOGE gut the essential services that working people rely on without a fight. Join AFL-CIO President @lizshuler.bsky.social, labor leaders, and allies TONIGHT for a webinar on how we stop their power grab: actionnetwork.org/events/mar13...
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Arvind Narayanan @randomwalker.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
Years of constant AI hype + deliberate use of the umbrella term AI to refer to wholly unrelated applications such as text generation and values-based decision making (the main point of "AI Snake Oil") has confused the public enough that replacing civil servants with AI seems at least plausible. 1/2
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