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Jen Raso

@jenraso.bsky.social

1.7K followers 550 following 100 posts

Assistant Prof at McGill's Faculty of Law | McCAIS leadership team | Researching digital government, AI systems, and other socio-legal-technical things | www.jenraso.com

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Jen Raso @jenraso.bsky.social · Mar 26

Thrilled that this piece by @victoriaadamant.bsky.social and I is finally out! Thanks to so many, including my @mcgill.ca law colleagues who generously shared comments early on, and to the @datasociety.bsky.social Keywords of the Digital State collection which planted early seeds for this paper.

Victoria Adelmant @victoriaadamant.bsky.social · Mar 26

How does the design of digital govt infrastructure impact decision-making & accountability? @jenraso.bsky.social & I argue that data-sharing arrangements underlying digital govt programs are dispersing responsibilities within decision-making, generating what we call 'bureaucratic disempowerment' 1/4

Data Entry and Decision Chains: Distributed Responsibility and Bureaucratic Disempowerment in the UK’s Universal Credit Programme

Abstract. Digitalising public programmes creates new accountability challenges, many of which are under-theorised. Using Universal Credit to illustrate its

academic.oup.com

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Jen Raso @jenraso.bsky.social · 21h

I often urge law students to be precise when and where they use passive language, and to notice the work it does when used by others (judges, politicians, reporters, and anyone describing actions being done without actors). This is a great, but awful, example.

Nora Loreto @nolore.bsky.social · 2d

Classic CBC. "Bill could lead to law enforcement acting more freely in Canada"

How does a US bill lead to this, without Canada actively allowing this? Can we use the active voice? Can we actually use words the way that journalists are supposedly able to?

www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

U.S. bill calls for more integration between Canadian, American border agents | CBC News

The U.S. Congress is being asked to adopt legislation that could lead to Canada and the United States further integrating their enforcement of the border — including allowing U.S. officers to more fre...

www.cbc.ca

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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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Toula Drimonis @mtltoula.bsky.social · 2d

As a Montrealer, this makes me so proud! 🙌
“Though other cities offer bike-sharing programs, “Montreal revolutionized the trend,” TIME wrote, calling Bixi’s technology “the backbone” of bike-sharing services in cities including London and New York.”
montrealgazette.com/news/bixi-bi...

Bixi bike-sharing program among the top 25 inventions in 25 years, TIME Magazine declares

The list also includes the iPhone and the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest particle accelerator.

montrealgazette.com

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Jen Raso @jenraso.bsky.social · 1d

This encapsulates how I feel at events on equality, ethics, supporting marginalized communities, etc., now often as the lone masker. Same goes for interactions with folks who see themselves as progressive but for whom indoor masking is an afterthought. These actions speak loudly.

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blair @blairaf.com · 3d

Looks like Canada's approach to "sovereign AI" will involve creating structural dependencies on large US tech companies

Excerpt from an article that reads: Lehane met with AI Minister Evan Solomon on Monday. Solomon told The Logic in June that his mission is to “create sovereign AI.” But “sovereignty is not solitude,” Solomon said, noting that Canada still needs technology and capital from other countries.

OpenAI is participating in similar initiatives in other advanced economies. In May, the firm launched OpenAI for Countries, a new program that localizes ChatGPT and its underlying models for a nation’s particular customs and the requirements of its public sector. It is also offering to build data centres for countries that help pay for the infrastructure.

Countries are turning to OpenAI because of its “cutting-edge technology,” which can be used to build homegrown tools and applications, and because the firm can help stimulate their domestic AI ecosystems by building or buying compute capacity, Lehane said.

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NightMar on Hicks Street, Part 4: The Rabbit’s Revenge @histoftech.bsky.social · 4d

doomscroll break

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Jen Raso @jenraso.bsky.social · 2d

Exactly. Many students would state that they wanted to have the chance to plead their case, so to speak, to an officer pulling them over rather than to have no chance to do so to a speed camera. They wanted a chance to justify their speeding, to ask for leniency.

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Cynthia Khoo @cyn-k.bsky.social · 5d

"Something needs to be done differently. We are stuck in a loop expecting something different. I do not think engaging with a performative, pre-determined public consultation process is it." 💯 That the govt is forcing a "sprint" precisely where there is the greatest need to slow down, says it all.

Ana Brandusescu @anabrandusescu.bsky.social · 9d

I wrote a short essay about refusing to participate in Canada's public consultation on AI.

On refusal and reaching the limits to engage

This is an essay about the importance of refusal. As a researcher, I hardly write anymore this way, but I thought I should, in this moment, where the need to document our descent into fascism is cr…

www.anabrandusescu.com

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Jen Raso @jenraso.bsky.social · 4d

Their effectiveness at equally applying speed limits to all is one of the reasons that speed cameras struck a chord with students in my law and technology class at U of A Law. Nearly all felt the cameras were unfair, though they also acknowledged that speeding was against the law and dangerous.

Jen Raso @jenraso.bsky.social · 4d

Speed cameras are a revenue source, sure. But they're also pretty effective at enforcing speed limits via fines, which is why drivers who feel entitled to speed hate them. In some cities, like Edmonton, they've even inspired creative counter-strategies, detailed here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

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Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 9d

Don’t know who needs to hear this but…an increase in class enrollment caps without an increase in teaching staff is an increase in production without commensurate pay.

I.e. it’s a pay cut.

Pass it on.

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Not (A.) I. @aerialeverything.cryptoanarchy.network · 12d

Something not discussed enough is the demoralization experienced by profs who dedicate yrs of study to obtain a PhD only to read automated essays that the uni in its embrace of AI expects them to accept as actual knowledge production.

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Jen Raso @jenraso.bsky.social · 11d

It may be that the future isn't jobless, but it's worth asking which jobs persist, who performs them, where, under what conditions. And importantly which types of *labour* are maintained, intensified, devalued, etc. Often, AI/tech create more labour, but not necessarily in the form of paid jobs.

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Jen Raso @jenraso.bsky.social · 11d

Great resource @eidlin.bsky.social . I would add that "tech" changes not just paid jobs but labour too. AI and other tech may eliminate some paid work. But they also push labour elsewhere: to unpaid system maintainers, to low-paid data and algorithm refiners in the majority world/global south, etc.

Barry Eidlin @eidlin.bsky.social · 11d

This book was published in 1985. Forty years later, you’d only need to update the cover art and change a few words on the back, but the basic themes and concerns would be the same. A useful reminder amidst all the AI hype and fears of a jobless future. 1/

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Pam Belluck @pambelluck.bsky.social · 11d

NEW: Long Covid risk for children doubles after a second infection, study finds www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/h...

Long Covid Risk for Children Doubles After a Second Infection, Study Finds

www.nytimes.com

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Toula Drimonis @mtltoula.bsky.social · 16d

“Thúy has been a Quebecer longer than Bock-Côté has been alive. Why is she being treated by him as a foreigner, branded as ungrateful the minute she criticizes policies & rhetoric that deeply impact Quebec’s reputation and many Quebecers’ sense of belonging?”
www.montrealgazette.com/opinion/colu...

Drimonis: I’m not a guest here. This is my home. It’s Kim Thúy’s home too

We all have the right to both love and criticize Quebec.

www.montrealgazette.com

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Elise Cutts @elisecutts.bsky.social · 18d

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin ✨ figured out what stars are made of ✨ when she was just 25. 🔭🧪

Her PhD thesis basically established the Harvard astro department — at a time when Harvard didn't officially allow woman students.

I wrote this little profile to mark the 100th anniversary of her thesis:

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ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 13d

hey, i'm gonna say more tomorrow, but i'm starting a reading group for "AI skeptics" - it's called "AI Skeptics Reading Group"

i am not great at names; please suggest alternatives if you're creative.

i'll be sending an email tomorrow, but here are a few things to get you started

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Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 15d

If it wasn’t already clear the direction AI policy was going under Mark Carney and Evan Solomon, this task force makes it clear.

The inclusion of the chair of Build Canada, whose members openly pushed for a Canadian DOGE and Poilievre government earlier this year, is just one of many examples.

Ana Brandusescu @anabrandusescu.bsky.social · 15d

If there was truly any conviction for the public interest, members of the AI Strategy Task Force would resign in protest for the configuration of their group.

Government of Canada launches AI Strategy Task Force and public engagement on the development of the next AI strategy - Canada.ca

Public feedback and stakeholder engagement will inform strategy for Canada to be an AI leader

www.canada.ca

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The Kimono Gallery @roger1952.bsky.social · 16d

Shiro Kasamatsu (1898-1991) was a prominent Japanese woodblock print artist

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divine beastmode @gunstreet.bsky.social · 16d

the post office is a public service. it doesn’t need to make money. public transit doesn’t need to make money. the library doesn’t need to make money. some things exist for the public good and we desperately need lawmakers to stop thinking about them in terms of capitalism. these are not businesses.

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Léa Stréliski 🇨🇦‬ @leastreliski.bsky.social · 15d

Imagine comprendre ça.

Phil Caron 🍉 @caronphil.bsky.social · 16d

*taps sign*

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Jen Raso @jenraso.bsky.social · 16d

So much this 👇👇👇. It should not be that only the most privileged families can find appropriate and supportive schools for their neurodivergent kids. I would add, this is why so many parents are in burnout too.

Erin Blondeau | writer & dreamer @erinblondeau.bsky.social · 19d

The real way to help children with autism and neurodivergence is to FUND SCHOOLS. Fund the welfare state. Create opportunities for parents to have an education and well paying jobs. More EAs in school, more doctors.

Our society is anti-child, and this is why so many children are in burnout.

Naomi Klein @naomiaklein.bsky.social · 19d

If you, like me, are the parent of a neuro-atypical child dreading this autism press conference, please remember: These are the people hurting our kids. Not us. They are the ones stigmatizing and pathologizing them. They are the ones peddling untested science. And we should be very, very angry.

Reposted by Jen Raso

Gil Durán @gilduran.com · 17d

1/ A longtime Wired editor just wrote a mush-brained essay about how he totally missed the political rot of Silicon Valley (& still doesn't get it).

But in the late 1990s, a Wired journalist warned of a toxic ideology bubbling up from tech. Paulina Borsook has largely been erased. Let's change that

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AI Now Institute @ainowinstitute.bsky.social · 16d

LIVE NOW: AI Now’s @ambakak.bsky.social joins UN Secretary General António Guterres, President of the General Assembly Annalena Baerbock, UN Tech Envoy Amandeep Gill, and nation leaders to launch a Global Dialogue on AI Governance on the floor of the UN.

Livestream: webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1p...

High-level multi-stakeholder informal meeting to launch the Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence Governance

The high-level informal meeting is convened pursuant to General Assembly resolution 79/325, which established the Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence Governance as a follow-up to the Pact for t...

webtv.un.org

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