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Alondra Nelson

@alondra.bsky.social

44K followers 1.8K following 820 posts

Scholar, author, policy advisor alondranelson.com Science, Technology, and Social Values Lab https://www.ias.edu/stsv-lab

www.ias.edu

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Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social · Sep 11

🧵 The summer of 2025 has been AI's "cruel summer"—wrongful deaths, dangerous therapy chatbots, medical misinformation, facial recognition failures. These aren't isolated glitches but predictable harms from systems deployed without adequate oversight. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

An ELSI for AI: Learning from genetics to govern algorithms

In the United States, the summer of 2025 will be remembered as artificial intelligence’s (AI’s) cruel summer—a season when the unheeded risks and dangers of AI became undeniably clear. Recent months h...

www.science.org

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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 1d

CHICAGO: REBUILD is providing therapy to folks detained by ICE. Please feel free to let people know.

findmeatherapist.org

Find Me A Therapist

findmeatherapist.org

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Carissa Véliz @carissaveliz.bsky.social · 5h

Very nice to see my TEDx Porto talk is out! How #privacy can save your life. For more on privacy, get the #book - Privacy Is Power. #AIEthics

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSPR...

How privacy can save your life | Carissa Véliz | TEDxPorto

YouTube video by TEDx Talks

www.youtube.com

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Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 5h

Two people asked Grok if a particular video is AI. One response says it is AI, another says it isn’t.

Please don’t waste your time asking AI chatbots if something is AI.

Pale Sun @PaleSun • 3h
Is this Al generated?
@grok
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Yes, this video appears to be Al-generated. Visual artifacts, like the dog phasing through the fallen branch, and unnatural physics in the fall suggest it's synthetic, consistent with recent trends in fake CCTV clips.
10:12 AM • 10/11/25 • 2.8K Views

Htrebreh Navy @Harvisnavy • 2h
O Auto-translated by Grok Show original @grok is this video made with Al?
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Grok Y
@grok
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Ø Auto-translated by Grok Show original
No, the video seems to be real. It's a security camera clip that captures a genuine incident where a tree branch falls near a couple walking their dog.
It shows no obvious signs of Al generation, and there are verified reports of similar events. How lucky they were!
Rate this translation:
11:44 AM • 10/11/25 • 5.5K Views

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Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social · 5h

Looking forward to joining Shoshana Zuboff and Cathy O'Neil this week at the Harvard Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights for a conversation on democratic resilience in the age of AI and tech power concentration.

Join us October 16, 5-6pm ET. You can register here: www.hks.harvard.edu/events/surve...

Social card for the event: Surveillance Capitalism, Power, and our Democratic Future

Speakers and Presenters

Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study and architect of the "Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights.";
Cathy O'Neil, Data Scientist and Author of Weapons of Math Destruction;
Mathias Risse, Berthold Beitz Professor in Human Rights, Global Affairs and Philosophy and Director of the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights;
Shoshana Zuboff, Charles Edward Wilson Professor Emeritus and Co-Director of the Human Rights and Technology Fellowship

Date and Location
October 16, 2025
5:00 PM - 6:00 PM ET
Starr Auditorium

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Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social · 5h

On Thursday, I'll join Megan Molteni at the 2025 @statnews.com Summit for a fireside chat on the future of science, technology, and research policy--from AI governance to public trust, from access to human rights. And how to ensure science serves the public good. www.statnews.com/stat-summit-...

Thu Oct 16, 11:50 AM - 12:15 PM EDT (25 min)
Staying Human in the Age of AI

How do we build technologies in ways that expand opportunity, improve human life, and strengthen democracy? A wide-ranging interview that will span genomics, bioinformatics, artificial intelligence, and Silicon Valley’s growing influence on American sociopolitics.
Speakers
Alondra Nelson
Former Deputy Assistant to President Joe Biden & Director
White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
Speaker
Megan Molteni
Science Writer
STAT
Moderator

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Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social · 8h

"the American people continue to be reliant on little more than insurers’ promises that they are not taking potential life-and-death decisions away from doctors and giving them to machines.”

Timothy McBride @mcbridetd.bsky.social · 8h

Top Democrat demands more detail from Medicare insurers about their use of AI www.statnews.com/2025/10/09/b... via @statnews.com

Top Democrat demands more detail from Medicare insurers about their use of AI

A key Democrat is asking top Medicare Advantage insurers about how they use artificial intelligence in decisions about medical care and coverage.

www.statnews.com

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Timothy McBride @mcbridetd.bsky.social · 8h

Biden Is Receiving Radiation Therapy for Cancer

Prayers for President Biden
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/u...

Biden Is Receiving Radiation Therapy for Cancer

www.nytimes.com

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unraveled @unraveledpress.com · 8h

A group of hundreds of faith in coalition who started at a Maywood church just arrived at the detention center for a eucharistic procession.

They want to offer communion to detainees inside, but won't be able to get past the barricades and fence on Beach Street.

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Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social · 8h

Abstracts due December 1

Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social · Aug 28

Call for Papers!

"Technology and Inequality in Culture, Media, and the Arts"-a special issue of Poetics, coedited with @jticona.bsky.social + Angèle Christin

www.ias.edu/stsv-lab/pla...

Technology and Inequality in Culture, Media, and the Arts

Call for Papers Technology and Inequality in Culture, Media, and the ArtsA Special Issue of Poetics: Journal of Empirical Research on Culture, the Media and the Arts

www.ias.edu

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Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social · 9h

Wisdom from the great Saidiya Hartman artreview.com/the-intervie...

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Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social · 9h

"For centuries, we have named the vice in which we are held captive. The ? is whether others are willing to know what we know, whether the formations of knowledge and power that enabled this capture can be expected to produce something else-or whether we must rethink existence, world and Earth."

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Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social · 9h

🆓

Ryan J. Reilly “paints a vivid and urgent portrait of… disarray” @ryanjreilly.com · 10h

PORTLAND, Ore. — A small group of federal agents in camouflage and face masks watched from atop the immigration processing center Thursday night as a unicorn, peacock, dinosaur and raccoon danced to Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time.” www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

Costumed protesters in Portland defy description of the city as a 'war zone'

Dancing frogs, peacocks and unicorns outside the federal immigration building present a joyful contrast to the Trump administration's portrait of the Oregon city, they say.

www.nbcnews.com

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Matterist Books @matteristbooks.bsky.social · 13h

Cool!
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/t...

Zora Neale Hurston’s Play Comes Alive for the First Time

www.nytimes.com

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George Conway 👊🇺🇸🔥 @gtconway.bsky.social · 13h

@sanders.senate.gov: "No, Speaker Johnson, the #NoKings Rally on October 18th is not a 'hate America' rally. ... It’s a rally of millions of people who believe in American freedom and are not going to allow you and President Trump to turn us into an authoritarian country."

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Rich Raho @richraho.bsky.social · 13h

Coalition for Spirituality & Public Life host a Eucharistic Procession from St. Eulalia in Maywood to the ICE Detention Center in Broadview where there will be prayer & Communion. The Coalition will also try to bring Holy Communion to those detained in the facility, which is a right by Illinois law.

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Liz Neeley @lizneeley.bsky.social · 12h

The specifics of the RIFs I’ve seen in group chats have been staggering. Bracing & reminding myself these are specifically intended to cause fear & distress.

Please share URLs for any good trackers you seen as they emerge. (I want more than OMB’s version) fedscoop.com/trump-federa...

Table of how many federal employees have been laid off in the latest RIF (Reduction in Force). This is from an OMB legal filing from Oct 10. For each agency, it lists number of fired employees, RIF notice date, and whether the administrations has recalled any of those employees to do work. Total headcount is 4,100 across 8 agencies. Treasury (1446) and HHS (1200) are the most affected. EPA (30) had the fewest layoffs this time.

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Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 1d

New from me at Cato: I go through the numerous and massive First Amendment and academic-freedom violations of Trump's proffered "compact" with universities and then talk about the mechanism by which it would be enforced, by way of what I describe as a "retroactive push-button guillotine."

Universities Must Defend Their Independence by Rejecting Trump's "Compact"

The Trump administration has proffered a “compact” to universities that would require them to surrender their independence and academic freedom. How many First Amendment violations can we identify in ...

www.cato.org

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Mor Naaman @informor.bsky.social · 1d

💯x💯

by @lkfazio.bsky.social and @brendannyhan.bsky.social

www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

Trump sent a 'compact' to our universities. They should reject this devil's bargain.

Any institution that yields to these broad and intrusive demands would forever be subservient to the whims of the government.

www.msnbc.com

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Reuters @reuters.com · 1d

MIT refuses to accept White House terms for funding, other schools still mulling reut.rs/471tkNZ

MIT refuses to accept White House terms for funding, other schools still mulling

Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth on Friday said she "cannot support" a memo that the White House sent to nine elite U.S. universities last week detailing policies they should follow to get preferential consideration for federal funding.

reut.rs

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Itai Sher @itaisher.bsky.social · 1d

An excellent response by MIT’s President Sally Kornbluf rejecting the Trump compact.

Other universities should do the same.

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Naomi Oreskes @naomioreskes.bsky.social · 1d

People need to read Ruth Schwarz Cowan's classic book:
hss.sas.upenn.edu/content/more...

More Work For Mother: The Ironies Of Household Technology From The Open Hearth To The Microwave | HSS | Arts & Sciences

In this classic work of women’s history (winner of the 1984 Dexter Prize from the Society for the History of Technology), Ruth Schwartz Cowan shows how and why modern women devote as much time to hous...

hss.sas.upenn.edu

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Electronic Frontier Foundation @eff.org · 1d

Protecting your privacy doesn't have to be scary. Check out our Surveillance Self-Defense guides for step-by-step tutorials for keeping your data and devices secure. ssd.eff.org/

Surveillance Self-Defense

We’re the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a member-supported non-profit working to protect online privacy for over thirty-five years. This is Surveillance Self-Defense: our expert guide to protecting you and your friends from online spying. Read the BASICS to find out how online surveillance works. Dive into our TOOL GUIDES for instructions...

ssd.eff.org

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Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social · 1d

“One of his clients is a job recruiting company that uses A.I. to sift through candidates. ‘Which is great, but you can now discriminate at a scale we’ve never seen before,’ Mr. Kvist said. ‘It’s a breeding ground for class-action lawsuits.’”

Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 1d

“In September, scientists at Stanford reported they had used A.I. to design a virus for the first time.”

Opinion | The A.I. Prompt That Could End the World

www.nytimes.com

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Florian Scheuer @florianscheuer.bsky.social · 1d

I am delighted to share that Nobel laureates Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee will join our Department of Economics @econ.uzh.ch at the University of Zurich on July 1, 2026, as Lemann Foundation Professors of Economics.

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Diane Coyle @dianecoyle1859.bsky.social · 1d

High-profile departures from the US - congrats to @econ.uzh.ch

Department of Economics @Universität Zürich 🇨🇭 @econ.uzh.ch · 1d

We are thrilled to welcome Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee as the new Lemann Foundation Professors to our department, beginning in the summer of 2026.

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