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Ric Angius

@storitu.org
365 followers 1.4K following 110 posts

PhD @aial.ie corporate capture / platform accountability social reproduction / computational theory over-reliance on digital tools / participatory organising for justice storitu.org

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Reposted by Ric Angius
Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
So glad that this quote can be added to my forthcoming article on AI and Epistemic Dispossession because I had to say that they will absolutely be using AI to erase science and history but I didn’t yet have the ‘he admit it’ smoking gun
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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Tech industry is laser focused on solving the problem of humans enjoying each other’s company bsky.app/profile/down...
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Also, all this “frontier AI” nomenclature is so laughably colonialist that it has to be on purpose. 🙄
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 21/09/2026
"In a leaked document, the Irish Presidency proposes to EU Member States that the interest of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta and SpaceX to make profits should take precedence over the fundamental right to data protection" noyb.eu/en/ai-eu-mem...
noyb.eu
AI: EU Member States plan “digital expropriation” of Europeans in the interest of AI companies
In a leaked document, the Irish Presidency proposes to EU Member States that the interest of AI companies to make profits should take precedence over the fundamental rights of Europeans.
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Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 19/09/2026
Tallinn, who led Anthropic's series A, funds METR, the "auditing institute" people took seriously 🙄 After criticism that METR was laughably NOT independent, Anthropic announces they'll pay Accenture to "audit" Accenture had acquired Tallinn firm which will be doing the "auditing" Full circle 🙄
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Ric Angius @storitu.org · 17/09/2026
“AI is not a natural phenomenon, conceived by nature; it is a technological phenomenon, conceived by venture capitalists and programmers. As such, it takes no native, intentional action, and any action or motivation is driven directly or indirectly by the entities that have built it for a purpose.”
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Jess Miers 🦝 @jmiers230.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
In recent cases, it's not that AI somehow "escaped containment" or "went rogue." That's anthropomorphizing at best. It's more like if a Boston Dynamics robot dog nudged open an already open door and walked in.
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Jess Miers 🦝 @jmiers230.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Here's what I actually think these incidents reveal (instead of a rogue AI terminator situation): Much of the infra we expect to be hardened is actually being held together by glue and popsicle sticks.
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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
So how about this for a "pause AI" proposal: "pause credulous AI reporting". No more media about "breakthroughs" or "rogue agent swarms" or ... UNLESS and UNTIL that media demands the actual empirical evidence and/or focuses on the motivations of & harms by these companies.
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Ric Angius @storitu.org · 13/09/2026
Why yes, we could use whatever is called AI to globally scale uncertified tunnel vision production of what the capitalist economy values today. The question is about who and how many will be proficient in evaluating both the quality of the product and the social sustainability.
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Ric Angius @storitu.org · 13/09/2026
The result was hectares of land polluted and abandoned as the capitalist economy moved to somewhere where labour was cheaper, leaving behind hundreds of thousands to cope with poisoned land. The issue is not nostalgia, rather acknowledging social reproduction is central, not external, to production.
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Ric Angius @storitu.org · 13/09/2026
Hi, descendant of lead miners here. Nobody argued it was personal expression, rather that the community should have the final say on resource usage and what the economy should model. Factories were implanted based on salary dumping and land grabbing opportunities, much like data centres today.
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Ric Angius @storitu.org · 11/09/2026
Sounds like you never had to worry about training the next generation of people making sure the machines don’t fuck up
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Ric Angius @storitu.org · 11/09/2026
Except we still got that small “semantics don’t reduce to syntax” issue…
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Terence Tao @teorth.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
A group of 25 Fields Medalists, including myself, have made a joint declaration on Math and AI: mathandai.org . We welcome additional signatories. See also this article in the Economist announcing the declaration: www.economist.com/science-and-...
mathandai.org
Declaration — Math and AI
Read the declaration and add your name.
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Ric Angius @storitu.org · 11/09/2026
Thank you for doing this. The statement is a lifeline of fresh air in a sea of press releases and suggestive claims without any rigour. These words reminded me of all the good I learned in the math departments, where I was trained and nourished with passion for robust reasoning.
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Ric Angius @storitu.org · 07/09/2026
The comments by some on the hype train - suggesting that citation issues were solved by Astra once and for all - aged very poorly very quickly. How long will we have to bear ignorance of the fundamental difference between syntax and semantics? And the “2K for inference” discounts training costs.
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Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 07/09/2026
Speaking of plagiarism: www.scientificamerican.com/article/open...
scientificamerican.com
OpenAI’s latest math breakthroughs commit research misconduct, experts say
OpenAI released 10 AI-generated results over the weekend. Some mathematicians are unhappy with their approach
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Ric Angius @storitu.org · 06/09/2026
First-year computer science classes teach computational complexity and how to use resources efficiently
A crop devastated by drought, with caption reading “hey look at what I made with ChatGPT Astra”
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Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Spending my scarce time generously doing unpaid reviews of manuscripts that I discover midway are entirely AI-generated is turning me into the damn Joker. Trying not to take it out on editors, who are victims in this too, and who need our diligent professional service, but I'm about to fully snap
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Ric Angius @storitu.org · 29/08/2026
"For instance, code changes made to the internal software platforms and infrastructure employees use on the job were up 220% year-over-year […] But changes that led to new or upgraded features reaching Meta users were only up 36%." www.reuters.com/investigatio...
reuters.com
Mark Zuckerberg had a bold plan to replace Meta staff with AI. Here’s how it imploded.
To make its workforce “AI native,” Meta explored slashing the size of many teams across the company by as much as 60% in two waves, internal documents show. Staff revolted - and hours before a big lay...
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 27/08/2026
Did I miss the big open letter signed by a hundred academics opposing this?
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Ric Angius @storitu.org · 27/08/2026
A sincere fuck you to all those who have pushed to replace customer service reps with chatbots. This is a prime example of people having to put up with an unappealable faulty GPS system: the app will only allow parking in the wrong area, blocking reduced mobility and disabled access to the pavement.
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bisaknosp @bisaknosp.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
"how can we harness「machine that takes power from people and gives it to right-wing oligarchs」 to support democracy?"
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 24/08/2026
what does @tonychemero.bsky.social's new book 'Intertwined Creatures' have to offer to the “AI consciousness” debate? here is my take on it www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Can AI ever be conscious? The question stems from a misconception
A book outlines how the fields of artificial intelligence, psychology and philosophy have neglected a key aspect of consciousness: the body.
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Ric Angius @storitu.org · 23/08/2026
And so well written! I long to write like Angela Saini does
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Ric Angius @storitu.org · 23/08/2026
That open letter is just more evidence of how many people got into social science bc they look at society like a vivarium of rats to be measured and dissected for the glory of their intellectual curiosity. Mengele would be proud
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Ric Angius @storitu.org · 19/08/2026
I did not just receive a course invitation for AI ethics featuring an all-male list of speakers 🤦🏼 We have to do so much better.
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Ric Angius @storitu.org · 17/08/2026
Definitely agree. The notion of illegality refers back to law of the EU or of any State member. The devil is in the details, i.e. how the content should be qualified in terms of incitement (as opposed to mere glorification) as well as part of posting patterns.
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Ric Angius @storitu.org · 15/08/2026
What’s really on trial is the colour of your skin and any daring attempt to challenge white supremacy and its low standards.
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Ric Angius @storitu.org · 15/08/2026
At worst, Jason Arday only did what white academia taught him. His disproportionate hounding and sentence only reflect the whiteness we still have to face every damned day of our lives. The truth is that the sentence is the same, whether you do everything wrong or you do everything right.
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Ric Angius @storitu.org · 15/08/2026
I’ve had other superiors call my homeland ‘cognitively depressing’, when I refused work that I deemed ill-conditioned. I’ve sacrificed my health and lots of other things to always do the exact opposite of all this and still have the opportunity to work in academia.
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Ric Angius @storitu.org · 15/08/2026
After a full professor tried to publicly bully me for my research questions, calling them ridiculous, it only took him less than two years to publish on the same. I’ve had my data published against my advice and without as much of a mention in the ackowledgement section.
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ana valdivia @anavaldi.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
This study is particularly relevant for those who believe that AI for sustainability will mitigate climate change. It will not: "Parallel adoption of AI across fossil fuel and renewable energy pathways increases net global annual emissions by 0.47–1.8 Gt CO₂." www.nature.com/articles/s44...
nature.com
AI-driven productivity gains enable more CO₂ emissions than they avoid in a global energy–economy model - npj Climate Action
npj Climate Action - AI-driven productivity gains enable more CO₂ emissions than they avoid in a global energy–economy model
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Ric Angius @storitu.org · 08/08/2026
Col Anna Maxwell Martin is so good! I love that all Russian characters have a Brit accent, it’s somewhat funny yet adds to the plausibility. It did get me thinking how many ex-USSR citizens were actually involved. Still, miles above whatever For All Mankind has become.
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Ric Angius @storitu.org · 04/08/2026
“Fossil fuels are not inherently good or bad, it depends on how you use them.” (this post is not about fossil fuels)
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Eryk Salvaggio @eryk.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
When you say “AI models went rogue,” you manage to skip the part where OpenAI manually removed its cybersecurity blocks and ran tests on a machine with a live network connection. Remember that when they insist they’re the “AI safety” people.
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Ric Angius @storitu.org · 21/07/2026
Such refreshing critical introspection into the discipline 👏👏 I wish IR had been taught to me this way back in the day!
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Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 15/07/2026
It's incredibly clear that Rowling is going to lead with this org because it's a rape shelter. It'll be a media circus. The UK press will attack Amnesty as defaming a rape crisis center. Nevermind that Rowling and her ilk incited threats to Edinburgh Rape Crisis center b/c a trans woman worked there
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Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 15/07/2026
JK Rowling through her TERF organization, Beira's Place have sent Amnesty International a demand letter seeking a full retraction of their report, a public apology, and a bar to future criticism of gender critical groups as anti rights orgs. If they don't comply, they'll commence legal action.
The first page of a formal, typed legal letter dated 14 July 2026. It is addressed to the leadership of Amnesty International UK: Helen Horton (Chair, Amnesty International UK Section), Sandy Ruthven (Chair, Amnesty International UK Charitable Trust), and Kerry Moscogiuri (Chief Executive). The contact information and phone numbers in the top-right corner are redacted with a large black block, and a footer at the bottom is also blacked out.
​The subject line reads: "BEIRA’S PLACE | AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL UK PUBLICATION DATED 8 JULY 2026".
​The body text states that the sender acts on behalf of Beira’s Place, a sexual violence support service for women in Edinburgh and the Lothians. It asserts the legal right under the Equality Act 2010 to provide single-sex services and references the Supreme Court ruling in For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers to define "woman" by biological sex. The letter strongly objects to page 20 of a newly published Amnesty report titled "A growing threat; the anti-rights movement in the UK", which allegedly categorizes Beira's Place as an "anti-rights organization." The letter calls this categorization "grossly offensive and entirely without foundation."The second page of the formal legal letter, maintaining the same clean, typed layout with a heavy black redaction block covering the footer at the bottom.
​Under the heading "Defamation and Malicious Publications (Scotland) Act 2021", the text argues that labeling Beira's Place as "anti-rights" is defamatory and legally actionable. It claims the report has caused severe damage, including threatening correspondence and a 600% spike in hostile website traffic. The text notes that Beira's Place, with the support of its founder J.K. Rowling, will not allow its reputation to be tarnished.
​Under the heading "Remedies", the letter lists legal demands to avoid litigation, including:
​A permanent withdrawal of the Amnesty report and its methodology.
​A public letter of apology on the homepage of Amnesty’s website, apologizing to Beira's Place, its staff, and service users, as well as acknowledging the protected belief that sex is real and immutable.The final page of the typed legal letter, featuring a large black redaction box covering the signature block in the middle and another covering the footer at the bottom.
​The page contains the conclusion of the legal demands, including a third remedy requiring Amnesty to commission an external investigation into how the report was published.
​The letter warns that if Amnesty does not agree to these terms, counsel will be instructed to prepare for court action. It concludes with a note that J.K. Rowling, as founder of Beira's Place, will make a formal complaint to the Charity Commission or other appropriate regulator and supports other listed gender-critical organizations taking their own legal actions. It signs off with "Yours faithfully" before the blacked-out signature block.
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Ric Angius @storitu.org · 14/07/2026
I wish I had a penny for every letter on future ‘superintelligence’ without any mention whatsoever of data centers, of their disastrous environmental and social impact today, or of regulation of natural resources based on the needs of the most. Too many people still living in a fairy tale.
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tante @tante.cc · 10/07/2026
Looked at the UN report on "AI" (written by a bunch of mostly computer scientists who to a large degree have close ties to big tech) and it's really bad. Just "AI" hype based on studies that are long shown to be garbage.
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 09/07/2026
We call on Ireland to recuse itself from digital and fiscal files during its presidency of the European Union due to the State’s ‘questionable track record’ on digital policy and corporate tax www.irishtimes.com/politics/202...
irishtimes.com
Government should not chair EU debates on tech policy, academics say
Open letter criticises State’s ‘questionable track record’ on digital policy and corporate tax
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🌶 David Gray Widder @davidthewid.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
🚨Finally published: How does the US Military enlist AI researchers in war? @siree.sh, Lucy Suchman and I examine 7k US Military grant solicitations for AI research, and show how even "Basic Research" enlists researchers in a warfighting agenda. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com
Basic research, lethal effects: Military artificial intelligence research funding as enlistment - David Gray Widder, Sireesh Gururaja, Lucy Suchman, 2026
In the context of unprecedented U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) budgets, this paper examines the recent history of DoD funding for academic research in algorit...
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The Irish Times @irishtimes.com · 08/07/2026
AI software that generates ‘rage bait’ developed by Germany’s far-right AfD
irishtimes.com
AI software that generates ‘rage bait’ developed by Germany’s far-right AfD
Alternita platform uses Google Gemini, OpenAI and Claude to create provocative social media posts
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M.J. Crockett @mjcrockett.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
Weizenbaum was an MIT computer scientist who built one of the first chatbots, ELIZA. He wrote the book out of a growing sense of horror as he saw how “extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people” ...
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 28/06/2026
we analyse 100 media articles clustered around global significant events (the UK, Korea and French AI Summits) and find both regulatory and narrative capture across the board #FAccT2026
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 28/06/2026
we develop a taxonomy of 27 mechanisms used to capture rule making and public disclosure #FAccT2026
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 28/06/2026
@storitu.org presents the paper now starting with our definition of "Big AI" #FAccT2026
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 28/06/2026
we are presenting our paper "Big AI's Regulatory Capture: Mapping Industry Interference and Government Complicity" shortly in Ballroom Centre. join us #FAccT2026 programs.sigchi.org/facct/2026/p...
programs.sigchi.org
Conference Programs
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