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Kristen Thomasen

@kristenthomasen.bsky.social

1.1K followers 350 following 240 posts

Law things, robots, space, privacy || habitual misAInthrope || feministing || #HamOnt kid in Windsor || she/her || (Profile pic from community art-making project in #YQG graffiti alley)

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Kristen Thomasen @kristenthomasen.bsky.social · May 23

ICYMI: We Robot 2025 has a new permanent online home @windsorlaw.bsky.social, along with 2 exciting updates:

🤖 Video links are now included for each of our panels. Revisit or check out the conversation if you couldn't join us in person.

🤖 And (see next post) 1/3

www.uwindsor.ca/law/3450/wer...

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Jeff Doctor @jeff.doctor · 19h

I am once again asking Canadian journalists to ask the most basic-ass question of "on whose land will these be built?" How is it that every other major industry must consider Indigenous rights but with tech it's like "meh".
www.cbc.ca/news/busines...

ANALYSIS | Why OpenAI wants to help Canada build homegrown artificial intelligence | CBC News

OpenAI wants to help Canada build a sovereign digital infrastructure for artificial intelligence, putting the country in a tough spot as it tries to distance itself from overreliance on U.S. tech comp...

www.cbc.ca

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Lauren McKenzie @themckenziest.gay · 1d

Seeing Ms. Rachel say exactly what needs to be said to Obama is so damn refreshing

Dear President Obama,
I saw in your statement you said "Israeli families" & "the people of Gaza."
Palestinians have families, too.
This kind of language contributes to dehumanization. Dehumanization is part of what caused so many to stay silent as 20,000 children were killed in this genocide.
I've sat with wonderful Palestinian families from Gaza. They look at their children just like we look at ours - with all the love & hope in the world.
Love,
Ms Rachel

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Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie @audrelawdamercy.bsky.social · 1d

aaand we are officially in the hide-your-neighbors stage

Sophie Sherry @sophiesherry.bsky.social · 1d

During a military-style raid on a building in Chicago’s South Shore, one resident heard a knock on his door.   It wasn’t the feds — it was a mom and her 7-year-old daughter, pleading for help.

He let them hide in his unit for the next 3 days.

chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

Neighbor shielded 7-year-old during South Shore federal raid: ‘I didn’t want them to take her’

During the Sept. 30 raid one tenant protected a terrified girl and her mom. Remnants at the complex, including a detailed map of all the units, offer clues to what authorities may have known before th...

chicago.suntimes.com

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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 1d

I love this poem. It was the last poem from Carver's last book written while he was dying of cancer. It is the inscription on his tombstone apparently too.

Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 1d

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

by Raymond Carver

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Prof Anna Watts @profannawatts.bsky.social · 2d

Lol the Nobels can't even acknowledge women's contribution to discovery. But sure let's acknowledge The Machines.

Headline from an article in Nature this week that states "Prizes must recognize machine contributions to discovery. The future of science will be written by humans and machines together. Awards should reflect that reality."

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Torrance Coste @torrancecoste.bsky.social · 2d

not if it continues to advance and improve for another 1000 years could AI generate an idea I hate more than "kevin o'leary building the world's biggest data centre in a drought-prone region without consent from local Nations"

thenarwhal.ca/ai-data-cent...

What will the AI data centre boom mean for Canada? | The Narwhal

Sprawling AI data centres, like Kevin O’Leary’s plans for Wonder Valley in Alberta, are hungry for land, water and power

thenarwhal.ca

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Juno Rylee Schultz @junoryleejournalism.com · 3d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

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Kristen Thomasen @kristenthomasen.bsky.social · 2d

Drake hot line bling meme: first image shows Drake with hand up disliking something and reads “losing in the court of public opinion”. Second image, below the first, shows Drake pointing gleefully and reads “losing in the court of law”

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Kristen Thomasen @kristenthomasen.bsky.social · 4d

Right up there with deleting Orwell’s 1984 off of everyone’s kindle 🏆

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Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 4d

Cool :)

Techmeme @techmeme.com · 4d

JPMorgan Chase reports that $1.2T of debt is now tied to AI-related companies, making it the largest segment in the investment-grade market (Caleb Mutua/Bloomberg)

Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

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Hamilton Nolan @hamiltonnolan.bsky.social · 4d

It takes no special technical expertise to know that
1) AI's main value proposition today is automating labor,
2) AI is going to supercharge economic inequality, and
3) If we do not get out in front of that policy-wise, we are fools.

www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/thinking-o...

Thinking of AI as a Social Problem

No need to know the unknowable. The knowable is bad enough.

www.hamiltonnolan.com

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Lex McMenamin (they/them) @leximcmenamin.com · 5d

Greta Thunberg, deported to Greece, says the targeting of the Sumud Flotilla is "not the story" @teenvogue.com — instead, she says:

"Israel once again violated international humanitarian law by preventing aid from getting into Gaza while people are being starved.”

Greta Thunberg On Her Detention: I'm "Not The Story" — It's Israel Violating International Humanitarian Law

“I could talk for a very, very long time about our mistreatment and abuses in our imprisonment. Trust me. But that is not the story.”

www.teenvogue.com

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Kristen Thomasen @kristenthomasen.bsky.social · 5d

and beyond consent, much like colonial/imperial expansion, publics will be conscripted into training and testing the systems for ever wider use 🤮

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Cynthia Khoo @cyn-k.bsky.social · 5d

Others have drawn these links already, but: colonialism, rape culture, and AI /big tech are intertwined. It all comes down to a deliberate unwillingness to respect consent. Whether land, sex/bodies, or data—if those driven by white supremacist patriarchy want it, doesn't matter if someone says no.

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Kristen Thomasen @kristenthomasen.bsky.social · 5d

The consultation is structured to a pre-determined outcome: yes, more AI. Very much agree with @anabrandusescu.bsky.social 👇🏻

(I‘m also offended by how much effort so many stakeholders put into trying to make the AIDA process better only to be ignored again. As Ana says, it’s no way to build trust)

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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Kristen Thomasen @kristenthomasen.bsky.social · 6d

Something is sparking in gen A, I hope it can materialize to its best potential.

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Jesse Hawken @jessehawken.bsky.social · 6d

Queen

KOJAMF🤘🖤🤘 @kojamf.bsky.social · 7d

Dr. Jane Goodall filmed an interview with Netflix in March 2025 that she understood would only be released after her death.

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Kristen Thomasen @kristenthomasen.bsky.social · 6d

i would read the thought piece on the through line between western society’s lack of urgency/denial around climate catastrophe, genocide, fascism, and Italian Brainrot as a philosophical aesthetic.

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Kristen Thomasen @kristenthomasen.bsky.social · 6d

“Absurdism is the philosophical theory that the universe is irrational and meaningless. It states that trying to find meaning leads people into conflict with a seemingly meaningless world.” (Wikipedia)

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Kristen Thomasen @kristenthomasen.bsky.social · 6d

My kid explained 6-7 to me: it means nothing. It just means 6 7 (🤷🏼‍♀️). It’s just a vibe. Like life. What does life mean?

This kid is Gen-A, and the A is for Absurdism.

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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 6d

I think often about the Amazon engineer who wrote in an open letter to the company that Ring was “incompatible” with a free society.

Analysis | Amazon’s Ring plans to scan everyone’s face at the door

For the first time, the company is putting facial recognition into its home security doorbells and video cameras.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Dr. Johnathan Flowers, Blade Wielding Bisexual (Lordean arc) @shengokai.blacksky.app · 7d

Putting aside the question of AI personhood, a slur requires a history of dehumanization.

In order to fuction, the slur has to call into being that history of dehumanization for its injurious force. There is no such history for LLMs, regardless of claims otherwise.

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Kristen Thomasen @kristenthomasen.bsky.social · 10d

No one ever suspects the butterfly.

Willow @rockshrimp.bsky.social · 10d

what's the stupidest/randomest Simpsons quote that lives in your head rent free? Mine is the urge to say "you said go to bread" every time I am about to head to bed.

Reposted by Kristen Thomasen

Haymarket Books @haymarketbooks.org · 11d

We made a reading list for you.

Abolish the Border, Abolish the Police Reading List

In solidarity with all those standing up for our communities against the brutality of immigrant detention and police repression, we offer an extensive reading list about border and police ab...

www.haymarketbooks.org

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Kristen Thomasen @kristenthomasen.bsky.social · 11d

The momcologist in me is having trouble holding back my full nsfw opinion.

But this administration does not give a f*** about helping kids with cancer.