iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Dr Zena Assaad

Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Meta is using a radical interpretation of a tax credit for “research and experimentation” to get billions of dollars off GPUs for its A.I. data centers. My latest with Jesse Drucker, @elitan.bsky.social and @mikeisaac.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/09/30/t...

nytimes.com

How Meta Uses A.I. Data Centers to Avoid Billions in Federal Taxes (Gift Article)

Meta is exploiting a lucrative tax break intended to support research and experimentation. Its own accountants say the gambit is risky.

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Eryk Salvaggio @eryk.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Looking for a post doc? Come join us at the Machine Visual Culture Research Group, which “combines digital and computational art history, critical AI studies, and the history of art and visual culture.” www.biblhertz.it/3815269/2909...

biblhertz.it

Call for Postdoctoral Research Fellows in Digital Art History

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Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 30/09/2026

“What is most important, however, is to affirm that AI is different. … It is another form of intelligence with a mindset all its own, and there is zero evidence that it views humanity’s well-being and survival as a priority.” wtf is left media doing echoing this cultist doomerism?

thenation.com

How AI Could Kill Us All

Mapping the pathways to human extinction.

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Dr Zena Assaad @zenaassaad.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

This has been all over my feeds this morning with lots of "AI gone rogue" narratives. This is also appearing in the wake of Mark Zuckerberg telling the UN AI has a chance of destroying humanity and the solution is tech companies self regulating. www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/1...

rnz.co.nz

OpenAI hacked Medicare portal, Australia Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has revealed an AI agent hacked into an Australian Medicare data portal earlier this year.

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Dr Zena Assaad @zenaassaad.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

New #ResponsibleBytesPodcast episode is out now. Featuring @ncrenic.bsky.social chatting about the ethics of war. 🎧 Listen anywhere you get your podcasts. 📹 Full video is also up on our YouTube channel.

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Dr Zena Assaad @zenaassaad.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

The only reason they're doing this is because they're now pushing to self-regulate. It's the compromise no one asked for, that works best for only them. Instead of much needeed third party regulation we Instead have "AI that we develop will end the world and only we can save it!".

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The New Yorker @newyorker.com · 23/09/2026

In this documentary, Israeli military and intelligence sources reveal systems, policies, and practices that have resulted in high numbers of civilian deaths and widespread destruction. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

newyorker.com

“NAZA” Puts Israel Face to Face with the War in Gaza

In this documentary, Israeli military and intelligence sources reveal systems, policies, and practices that have resulted in high numbers of civilian deaths and widespread destruction.

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Dr Heidy Khlaaf (هايدي خلاف) @heidykhlaaf.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

New from me in Nature. I discuss the need to look to regulated industries on how to govern AI, and not give into AI companies' self-regulation. Those actually serious about safety and security would start by applying safety critical techniques and legislation first. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

nature.com

Why AI companies can’t be trusted to self-regulate

From aviation to banking, high-risk industries are subject to independent oversight and meaningful penalties. AI companies should be no exception.

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Nick Feik @nickfeik.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Think it's time for someone to write a dissertation on Harry Frankfurt's "On Bullshit" and its salience to Australian politics.

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Jason Wu @auswu.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

As usual, insightful and hard hitting article by @davemilbo.bsky.social on the cowardice and moral decay of the likes of @senatorwong.bsky.social and Ed Sheeran. #FreePalestine Penny! Are 191.5 tons of nitrocellulose we sent to Israel “nonlethal in nature”? theshot.net.au/uncategorize...

theshot.net.au

Penny! Are 191.5 tons of nitrocellulose we sent to Israel “nonlethal in nature”? - The Shot

Like Macklemore and Ed Sheeran, and Ed Sheeran’s band and Ed Sheeran, relations between Penny Wong and myself are “complicated”....

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Tech Policy Press @techpolicypress.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Open source communities don't have lobbyists. Derek Slater on why that capacity gap will decide whether the next wave of state AI bills protects openness or accidentally kills it.

buff.ly

Supporting Openness & Safety — Lessons From Recent State Laws

Responsible solutions are possible, but achieving them requires technical and legal expertise to engage in the legislative process, writes Derek Slater.

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Electronic Frontier Foundation @eff.org · 18/09/2026

While trusted execution environments in the cloud might be secure enough for many cases, they're fundamentally less secure than end-to-end encryption or local computation. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

eff.org

Secure Messaging and AI Remain In Conflict Despite the Promise of TEEs

Secure messaging platforms, like Signal, WhatsApp, and recently, encrypted RCS, operate on a straightforward assumption: the content at each end of a conversation is private to the participants in

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maddy varner @regret.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Do AI companies need an antitrust exemption to take time to work on safety and address potentially catastrophic risks? As an FTC antitrust attorney put it, “no humanity would result in no competition.” www.wired.com/story/the-ai...

wired.com

The AI ‘Slowdown’ Is an Antitrust Mess

By framing their efforts as a “slowdown” rather than an industry-wide push for better security standards, AI labs may have set themselves up for years of regulatory headaches.

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Dave Karpf @davekarpf.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

New, at @techpolicypress.bsky.social, I discuss the problems with Dario Amodei's "We Must Pace the Frontier" proposal. (TL;DR version: The better angels of the AI industry's nature are never going to prevent the AI industry's worst potential harms.) www.techpolicy.press/who-should-p...

techpolicy.press

Who Should Pace the Frontier? Not Dario Amodei

We should take Dario Amodei’s writing just seriously enough to stop entrusting him with so much power, writes Dave Karpf.

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The New Yorker @newyorker.com · 17/09/2026

Natasha Singer’s book “Coding Kids” tracks how public schools were bewitched by private corporations, setting the stage for the ed-tech backlash of today. www.newyorker.com/culture/prog...

newyorker.com

What We Lost When Big Tech Took Over the Classroom

Natasha Singer’s book “Coding Kids” tracks how public schools were bewitched by private corporations, setting the stage for the ed-tech backlash of today.

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The Flytrap @theflytrapmedia.com · 15/09/2026

Of course Ed Sheeran's Irish band, Beoga, quit on him after he dropped Macklemore for saying "Free Palestine"! Irish musicians are at the forefront of speaking out against the genocide of Palestine. We covered this here: www.theflytrapmedia.com/censorship-o...

theflytrapmedia.com

Censorship of Pro-Palestine Speech in the Music Industry Shows the Power of Demands for Decolonization

The liberation of Palestine is a threat to how we live today—that’s precisely why we should keep calling for it.

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Eryk Salvaggio @eryk.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

The way we talk about tech is increasingly dominated by a radical intentionalist position: one that insists we can *only* observe the system by reference to its internal “beliefs,” “thoughts,” and “wants.” That’s a trap — and it must not be enshrined into policy. www.techpolicy.press/to-make-ai-r...

techpolicy.press

To Make AI Rules, Policymakers Must Resist the Influence of ‘Radical Intentionalists’

In industry rhetoric, a radical intentionalist stance dominates any interpretation of model behavior, writes Eryk Salvaggio.

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Zeteo @zeteo.com · 15/09/2026

Removing Macklemore from his tour for saying, ‘Free Palestine,’ is taking a side, whether Ed Sheeran wants to admit it or not. Read the latest from @KaivanShroff zeteo.com/p/ed-sheeran...

zeteo.com

Ed Sheeran Isn’t Staying Out of Politics – He Is Letting a Pro-Israel Billionaire Choose His Politics for Him

Removing Macklemore from his tour for saying, ‘Free Palestine,’ is taking a side, whether Sheeran wants to admit it or not.

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Dr Zena Assaad @zenaassaad.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Global Innovation Fellowship applications are now open for UK-based early & mid career researchers across the humanities & social sciences working in Security, Defence, & Resilience, Indo-European Relations, Technology & AI or Strategy-Making in Europe ➡️ www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/sche...

thebritishacademy.ac.uk

Global Innovation Fellowships: The German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) 2026-27

Global Innovation Fellowships provide opportunities to UK-based early- and mid-career researchers from across the humanities and social sciences to develop their skills, networks and careers in the cr...

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Pwnallthethings @pwnallthethings.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

This is a good example of how you need quite a lot of detail of how these systems *actually* work to understand what the risks are, and how over-indexing on sci-fi can lead you a bit astray on what the future looks like

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Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 13/09/2026

To ppl suggesting Stanford as an "independent Anthropic & OpenAI auditor" “The membrane between academia and industry...is practically nonexistent at Stanford, a school so entangled with tech that it can be hard to tell where the university ends and the businesses begin” nymag.com/intelligence...

nymag.com

You Are Not a Parrot

And a chatbot is not a human. And a linguist named Emily M. Bender is very worried what will happen when we forget this.

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Asher Wolf @asherwolf.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

It’s been 10 years since Robodebt began and there’s still no government commitment to introduce safeguards for automated decision-making tools in the Australian Public Service www.medicalrepublic.com.au/no-more-robo...

medicalrepublic.com.au

No more Robodebt: new push for guardrails on government algorithms - Medical Republic

A new private member’s bill would impose mandatory transparency, human oversight and review rights as automated decision-making expands across aged care, the NDIS and other Commonwealth services.

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Eryk Salvaggio @eryk.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

“To be gripped by another person’s inner life is old equipment built into us. … AI slop feels like betrayal. There is this haunting feeling when you lean toward a face and then find only a mask, with no person behind it.” www.noemamag.com/a-new-kind-o...

noemamag.com

A New Kind Of Creative Poverty | NOEMA

The Simplified Chinese Internet ran on reward and punishment. LLM training feels uncomfortably familiar.

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Eryk Salvaggio @eryk.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Some people read this as a critique of the stochastic parrot paper or assumed it was no longer relevant. But the piece specifically insists that, when you look at what 🦜 actually said, it's just as important today. And yet, none of what I wrote in this piece is dismissive of what the systems do.

techpolicy.press

Stochastic Flocks and the Critical Problem of 'Useful' AI

Acknowledging that AI systems are advancing does not buy into hype, it sharpens the precision of critical thinking about their impacts, says Eryk Salvaggio.

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Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 10/09/2026

the media’s reaction to this anthropic guy’s tweets are a great demonstration of how they don’t want to inform the public, they’re just happy to go along with a sensationalist narrative handed to them by deluded and self-interested tech people

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Julie Carpenter, PhD @jgcarpenter.com · 09/09/2026

I talked with Charles Hill Jr, LPC, about grief tech on Equilibria podcast: privacy for the dead and the grieving, and what an AI-curated persona of someone lost does to the grieving process. www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXhO...

youtube.com

What You Need to Know About Grief AI

YouTube video by Equilibria Psychological Services

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Dr Zena Assaad @zenaassaad.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Another day, another AI doomsday-er. This time it's an ex-Anthropic employee claiming there is a >10% chance AI could wipe out humanity within a decade. /1 www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09...

abc.net.au

Anthropic researcher says some developers believe AI 'could kill us all'

A researcher for AI developer Anthropic has quit the company and is one of a growing number of AI experts to call on the industry to slow down.

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Pearls and Irritations @johnmenadue.com · 10/09/2026

Australia is promoting transparency in the global arms trade while its own military export system remains opaque. As exports grow, so does the need for public accountability over what is sold, where it goes and how it is used, Jessica Morrison writes. #auspol #ArmsTrade #HumanRights

pearlsandirritations.com

Australia faces international criticism for lack of transparency in military trade

Australia’s military exports are growing, but parliament and the public still lack clear information about what is being exported, where it goes and how it is used.

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

The last few days is like a DDOS attack from these companies 🙄 I just finished drafting an op-ed and then see another OMG Machine god is going to kill everyone 😱 post Ok walk me through the step by step action this super intelligent chatbot takes to render everyone us extinct?

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Dr Heidy Khlaaf (هايدي خلاف) @heidykhlaaf.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

I spoke to the @theintercept.com on how we're entering very dangerous and anti-democratic territory when AI companies, in seeking to deploy their technology in US military, are put in a position to self-report and determine the risks of their very own products.

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Dr Zena Assaad @zenaassaad.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Australia is pursuing a "My Feed, My Way" initiative, which forces social media platforms to allow users to opt into having a feed that recommends personalised content by an algorithm or opt out so they can only see content from friends & creators they choose to follow. share.google/YuhP8fQQyUOt...

share.google

Australia targets algorithmic social feeds as it looks to hit Big Tech harder

Australia plans to give social media users the option to switch off algorithm-based feeds in proposed legislation, serving as the latest blow to tech giants.

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Eryk Salvaggio @eryk.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

This is interesting for reasons beyond the typical lack of insight and accountability we see from these companies. It’s also technically peculiar, because it shows that, despite so much pre and post-training to break away from training data patterns, the machines “yearn for the (data) mines…”

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Dr Zena Assaad @zenaassaad.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

The GGE on LAWS has adopted its final draft report which includes a definition of Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems. For those interested, the formal definition is. /1

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Dr Zena Assaad @zenaassaad.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

I've been getting more into substack blogs recently and last week I read this one on the idea of technology being avoidance machines that enable a life without mental friction. It's a very interesting read. artificialbureaucracy.substack.com/p/avoidance-...

artificialbureaucracy.substack.com

Avoidance Machines

Part 1 of a Series

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Dr Zena Assaad @zenaassaad.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

After a year long campaign & 86,000 petition signatures, Coles is ending its 3 year partnership with Palantir over ethics & surveillance concerns. Coles disputed the software is a surveillance tool & claimed it covers rostering, store operations & supply chain planning. share.google/Uyh2rnEAQD5u...

share.google

Coles to end data analytics work with Palantir

Future platform choice unclear.

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Dr Heidy Khlaaf (هايدي خلاف) @heidykhlaaf.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

It was great to join CNN International/PBS on Amanpour and Company to discuss the OpenAI/HF incident, and how this is actually a story about OpenAI’s intent and lack of responsibility in deploying the most rudimentary security practices. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rwv8...

youtube.com

What Really Happened When OpenAI Bots Escaped a Cybersecurity Test? | Amanpour and Company

YouTube video by Amanpour and Company

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Dr Heidy Khlaaf (هايدي خلاف) @heidykhlaaf.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

It was so great to chat to Zena, another systems safety engineer (there really aren't that many of us), and felt cathartic to get into the weeds on all the safety issues that have been compounding with the uses of LLMs within the military.

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Dr Zena Assaad @zenaassaad.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

New #ResponsibleBytesPodcast episode is now live, featuring @heidykhlaaf.bsky.social talking about military AI systems and why human control is not enough. 🎧Listen anywhere you get your podcasts. 📹 Full episode is also up on our YouTube channel.

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Julie Carpenter, PhD @jgcarpenter.com · 01/09/2026

Putting this out to my Bluesky people: I'm looking for UXR work, contract or full-time—my focus is human behavior with AI systems, robots, AR/VR, or web-based. If a lead comes to mind, I'd welcome it. DMs open. 🧵

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Eryk Salvaggio @eryk.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

I wrote about the OpenAI-Hugging Face hack following my conversation with @melhogan.bsky.social on The Data Fix this week - more on how it happened, what it means, and why I still see "stochastic flocks" rather than "artificial hiveminds": mail.cyberneticforests.com/models-dont-...

mail.cyberneticforests.com

Models Don't Go Rogue

Stochastic Flocks & Cybersecurity 'Pandemonium' 💡This essay was drafted from my appearance on Mél Hogan's podcast, The Data Fix, discussing the OpenAI / Hugging Face hack. Embedded below or find it o...

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Dr Zena Assaad @zenaassaad.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

A sneak peak into this week's episode of the #ResponsibleBytesPodcast with @heidykhlaaf.bsky.social , Chief AI Scientist at the AI Now Institute. This episode drops later this week.

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Eryk Salvaggio @eryk.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Google: famous for supporting the hallucinations of its AI summaries and the American president

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Eryk Salvaggio @eryk.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

"The villagers are confronting a standard order of operations: the system arrives first, the problem is expected to arrange itself around the system, and the knowledge needed to define both is settled in another hemisphere." dair-institute.org/blog/whose-c...

dair-institute.org

Whose Categories? Whose AI?

The man from the Ministry of Local Government arrives on a Monday, chisi, the day villagers do not go to the fields.

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