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Shakeel

@shakeelhashim.com
3.6K followers 2.7K following 249 posts

Writing about AI policy at Transformer. Supporting AI journalism with grants at Tarbell. Prev: AI safety and EA comms; journalist at The Economist, Protocol, Finimize. London. transformernews.ai

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Reposted by Shakeel
Veronica 💫 @vronirwin.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
SCOOP: AI safety group Public First spent in the Manny Rutinel race. It just wasn’t disclosed to voters ahead of election day. Transformer has learned $2m was transferred from Public First Action to Latino Victory Fund, which says it exists to mobilize Latino voters and elect Latinos to office.
transformernews.ai
An AI safety group hid its election spending through a Latino-focused PAC
Public First Action routed $2m to support Colorado House candidate Manny Rutinel through Latino Victory Fund — and didn’t publicly announce it ahead of Rutinel’s victory
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Reposted by Shakeel
Veronica 💫 @vronirwin.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
OpenAI has been shifting its messaging in light of employee pushback on some of LTF and OpenAI’s own political tactics. More details in Transformer: www.transformernews.ai/p/openai-leh...
transformernews.ai
OpenAI isn’t being consistently candid about Leading the Future
OpenAI insists it doesn’t fund or direct LTF — but one of the super PAC’s operatives describes it as a “corporate funder” with “a say”
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Reposted by Shakeel
James Ball @jamesrball.com · 06/05/2026
"Palantir’s market capitalization was 103x its revenues, and 205x its profits. Compare that to Tesla, another much-hyped stock: even its market cap is “only” 15x its revenues and around 100x its operating profits." …is Palantir overvalued?
open.substack.com
Palantir’s controversy is the product
Palantir’s fiery rhetoric helps mystify its mostly mundane tech — propping up its share price and preserving its national security contracts
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 18/02/2026
Happily, you don’t need to do much to trace any of this as we’re extremely transparent about it! www.transformernews.ai/p/standards-...
transformernews.ai
Editorial standards and ethics
This document outlines Transformer’s aims, funding, ethics policies, and editorial standards.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 17/02/2026
AI discourse on Bluesky is abysmal. But it's not just here — the left writ large has failed to grapple with what's coming. In an excellent new essay for @transformernews.ai, Dan Kagan-Kans diagnoses the issue with the Cory Doctorow/Emily Bender worldview — and explains why it's so harmful.
transformernews.ai
The left is missing out on AI
As a movement, it has largely refused to engage seriously with AI, ceding debate about a threat and opportunity to the right
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 26/01/2026
AI workers are speaking out about the Minnesota shooting — even while their bosses remain silent. www.transformernews.ai/p/ai-workers...
transformernews.ai
AI workers are speaking out about the Minnesota killing
Employees of Google DeepMind, OpenAI and Anthropic are publicly criticizing the Trump administration after Saturday’s shooting — but their bosses are staying quiet.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 14/01/2026
@nabeelqu.bsky.social nails it.
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Reposted by Shakeel
Jasper Jackson @jasperjackson.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
So much interesting in this (and good work on @caseynewton.bsky.social documenting it). One thing to note though, Google's watermarking identified the image of the badge as created by its AI tool. Other image generators haven't bothered implementing anything similar, why? (Looking at you, Sora.)
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‏ deepfates @deepfates.com.deepfates.com.deepfates.com.deepfates.com.deepfates.com · 28/12/2025
Rob, is it true you created an early language model trained on scraped data? "Mark V Shaney"? Is it also true that it pretended to be a human, sending unsolicited messages on Usenet forums for lonely singles? That's just what I'm seeing here on Wikipedia...
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Transformer @transformernews.ai · 20/11/2025
A leaked Trump executive order would create an "AI Litigation Task Force" to fight state AI regulations. Read the full EO here:
transformernews.ai
Exclusive: Here's the draft Trump executive order on AI preemption
The EO would establish an “AI Litigation Task Force" to challenge state AI laws
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Reposted by Shakeel
Nathan Lambert @natolambert.bsky.social · 15/10/2025
I got the AI writing homies together to launch SAIL (readsail on socials): A team bundle to get access to the best content in AI all in one subscription. Otherwise, nothing in my mission is changing. Get the best content written to inform the public and shape the trajectory of AI. readsail.com
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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
🗞️ 🤖 Weekend reading anyone? For the launch of @transformernews.ai as a standalone publication, they invited me to contribute a piece on what persuasive AI might mean for democracy and elections. Here’s the result… buff.ly/OJsNmpK
transformernews.ai
AI is persuasive, but that’s not the real problem for democracy
Opinion: Felix M Simon argues that AI is unlikely to significantly shape election results in the near future, but warns that it could damage democracy through a steady erosion of institutional trust.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 02/10/2025
Read our full (very good) profile on Transformer: www.transformernews.ai/p/kanishka-n...
transformernews.ai
Britain’s new AI minister actually ‘gets’ AI
Kanishka Narayan is excited about AI opportunities, but takes the risks seriously too
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 02/10/2025
It certainly seems that he'll be able to shape AI policy more than his predecessor, Feryal Clark, did. But he's got an uphill battle ahead, navigating copyright, turf wars with Ed Miliband, and the general complexity of the topic.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 02/10/2025
Kanishka Narayan, the UK's new minister for AI, is a rare example of a politician who actually *gets* his brief. In a new profile for @transformernews.ai, @alys.bsky.social notes that he takes AI risks pretty seriously, too.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 01/10/2025
The Cambridge Analytica panic was basically nonsense. The AI-is-rigging-elections panic might be, too.
transformernews.ai
AI is persuasive, but that’s not the real problem for democracy
Opinion: Felix M Simon argues that AI is unlikely to significantly shape election results in the near future, but warns that it could damage democracy through a steady erosion of institutional trust.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 16/09/2025
Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares' new book — If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies — is out today. I am much more sympathetic to their views than most. Unfortunately, the book is littered with torturous sentence structures and smug, self-satisfied writing. I was not a fan.
transformernews.ai
Book Review: 'If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies'
Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares’ new book should be an AI wakeup call — shame it’s such a chore to read
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 10/09/2025
Thrilled to have @ruchowdh.bsky.social and Mala Kumar in @transformernews.ai today, writing alongside the launch of the new Humane Intelligence PBC. www.transformernews.ai/p/why-ai-eva...
transformernews.ai
Why AI evals need to reflect the real world
Opinion: Rumman Chowdhury and Mala Kumar argue that we need better AI evaluations — and the infrastructure and investment to do them
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Reposted by Shakeel
James Ball @jamesrball.com · 09/09/2025
Data centers use 2% of the world’s electricity. There’s a *huge* push to build more for AI. But even the most optimistic growth paths for AI predict it’ll drive less growth in energy demand than electric cars or aircon. It’s significant, but it’s not the biggest thing going on.
transformernews.ai
We’re getting the argument about AI's environmental impact all wrong
Individual ChatGPT queries are a rounding error — we need to think about the future
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 10/09/2025
Thank you!!
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 09/09/2025
Read our relaunch announcement, all our new pieces, and subscribe at: www.transformernews.ai/p/welcome-to...
transformernews.ai
Welcome to Transformer 2.0
We're now a team of reporters and editors dedicated to covering the power and politics of AI
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 09/09/2025
Our aim is to be the definitive source for coverage of transformative AI — one dedicated to explaining what’s happening in AI and why it matters. We think this is a really important mission. The world needs more journalism that takes AI seriously. We hope to provide it.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 09/09/2025
We're also introducing an external opinion section, which launches tomorrow with some big names. We hope it'll be a forum for incisive debate about transformative AI from a diverse range of expert perspectives.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 09/09/2025
And last week Nikita Ostrovsky explained why a team at the UK AI Security Institute recently criticized the state of AI scheming evaluations.
transformernews.ai
Are AI scheming evaluations broken?
Doubts have been raised about one of the key ways we tell if AI will misbehave. Is it time for a new approach?
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 09/09/2025
Pulitzer Prize-winner @jamesrball.com, meanwhile, has a fantastic piece on the (often misguided) debate about AI’s environmental impact.
transformernews.ai
We’re getting the argument about AI's environmental impact all wrong
Individual ChatGPT queries are a rounding error — we need to think about the future
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 09/09/2025
We're kicking off with Jonathan Stein's timely look at the feasibility of chip location verification as a way of cracking down on chip smuggling.
transformernews.ai
Chip location verification is the new export control battleground
The Chip Security Act proposes a way to tackle chip smuggling. Semiconductor companies don’t seem to like it.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 09/09/2025
@transformernews.ai is now a team of all-star journalists. I'm joined by @jasperjackson.bsky.social as managing editor, @celiaford.bsky.social as AI reporter, and Jamie Condliffe as opinion editor. We'll be publishing features and analysis that dive deep into a wide range of AI topics.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 09/09/2025
When I launched Transformer a year ago, it was with a simple mission: provide decision-makers with the information and analysis needed to anticipate and steer the impacts of transformative AI. Today, we're announcing an exciting new effort to achieve that: Transformer 2.0.
transformernews.ai
Welcome to Transformer 2.0
We're now a team of reporters and editors dedicated to covering the power and politics of AI
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 27/08/2025
Last year, the crypto industry set up a network of super PACs. Its strategy? Throw huge amounts of money at politicians to discourage crypto regulation. Now many of those same people have launched a $100m campaign to do the same thing for AI. Read my full piece on Transformer:
transformernews.ai
AI embraces crypto’s dirty politics
A new super PAC network looks set to spend millions to influence AI regulation
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Reposted by Shakeel
Eugene Vinitsky 🍒 @eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · 21/08/2025
I am genuinely so frustrated with the state of the average journalist. Just nonstop dunking and in a way that makes people less informed. They're being very clear that it's not a calculator and should not be used that way! defector.com/it-took-many...
defector.com
It Took Many Years And Billions Of Dollars, But Microsoft Finally Invented A Calculator That Is Wrong Sometimes | Defector
It’s not AI winter just yet, though there is a distinct chill in the air. Meta is shaking up and downsizing its artificial intelligence division. A new report out of MIT finds that 95 percent of compa...
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 21/08/2025
Why assume Meta’s hiring freeze is for financial reasons, rather than logistical ones (which seems much more likely)? It makes a lot of sense to pause hiring shortly after a huge hiring surge and restructuring — you need time to get the new structure working before bringing more people in!
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Reposted by Shakeel
James Ball @jamesrball.com · 19/08/2025
“If Anthropic loses big,” the judge’s order concludes, “it will be because what it did wrong was also big.” www.transformernews.ai/p/anthropic-...
transformernews.ai
Anthropic’s piracy could make its copyright battle existential
Anthropic could have to pay billions in damages — and others may follow
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 25/07/2025
Hugging Face still has a ton of porn hosted on its website which can be accessed without logging in or verifying your age. Not entirely sure how that's compliant with the UK Online Safety Act ... which even 4Chan's taken action to comply with today!
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 24/07/2025
appreciate you engaging!
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Reposted by Shakeel
Jasper Jackson @jasperjackson.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
It's a bit dispiriting to see a company that talks so much about being "ethical" adopt the same old strategy of relying on journalists to find bad stuff on their platforms. I saw this for years covering Meta, and Hugging Face is following exactly the same playbook. bsky.app/profile/shak...
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 24/07/2025
Read the full piece, including today's update, on Transformer: www.transformernews.ai/p/why-ethica...
transformernews.ai
Why is Hugging Face hosting tools to make deepfake porn of teenage celebrities?
The “ethical” AI company is hosting models designed to make nonconsensual sexual content, despite clear breaches of its policies
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 24/07/2025
Hugging Face likes to portray itself as AI's "good guy". Last yr execs incl. @mmitchell.bsky.social & @sashamtl.bsky.social wrote a Teen Vogue piece about stopping deepfake porn. They wrote that “responsibility [for it] lies with society as a whole.” If only the company took responsibility itself
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 24/07/2025
We will send these additional URLs to Hugging Face, and perhaps the company will remove them. But a company worth $4.5bn shouldn’t be relying on journalists to keep its platform free of tools that clearly violate its own policies.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 24/07/2025
Transformer found that many of these models are uploaded by a few prolific users. While Hugging Face removed *some* of those users' uploads, it didn't ban the users' accounts — and today we've found that they're hosting lots of *other* models intended to generate deepfake porn.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 24/07/2025
We sent the list of models we found to Hugging Face. The company removed some, but not all, of the models we shared with them. They left up a video model that references a film released when the actress was 15, for instance.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 24/07/2025
And in a Transformer investigation yesterday, we found that many of those models were still online, including at least one instance where a model was explicitly aimed at creating sexual content featuring a teenage-looking likeness of an actress.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 24/07/2025
Here's a story about Hugging Face, deepfake pornography, and irresponsible content moderation. Last week, 404 Media found that Hugging Face hosted 1000s of nonconsensual AI models of real people, many clearly intended to be used to create sexual content.
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Jasper Jackson @jasperjackson.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
It is pretty shameful that Hugging Face is still hosting these models for making deepfake porn of celebrities (and others), despite @404media.co's reporting a week ago.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 23/07/2025
Last year, company executives wrote a Teen Vogue op-ed decrying the scourge of deepfake porn. Yet the company is failing to tackle it on its own platform. Read the full piece on Transformer here: www.transformernews.ai/p/why-ethica...
transformernews.ai
Why is Hugging Face still hosting tools to make deepfake porn of teenage celebrities?
The “ethical” AI company is hosting models designed to make nonconsensual sexual content, despite clear breaches of its policies
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 23/07/2025
Unlike CivitAI, Hugging Face is a major and "respectable" AI company, and it portrays itself as having better ethical standards than other companies.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 23/07/2025
This was ridiculously easy for us to find. Yet Hugging Face haven't taken it down. When asked for comment, Hugging Face head of comms Brigitte Tousignant just told us to report the content.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 23/07/2025
Elsewhere on Hugging Face are dozens of other models explicitly designed to generate pornographic images of female celebrities. These have explicit filenames, and are stored in a folder that also contains models designed to generate photos of them in different sexual positions.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 23/07/2025
And we found a video model that references a movie where the actress being 15 years old, stored in a folder alongside explicitly pornographic models.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 23/07/2025
We found at least one instance where a model is explicitly aimed at creating sexual content featuring a teenage-looking likeness of an actress.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 23/07/2025
Hugging Face portrays itself as the "ethical" AI company. So why is it hosting tools to make deepfake porn of teenage celebrities? Following on from @404media.co's report last week, Transformer found that the company hosts some *really* shocking stuff.
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