Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by 🌶 David Gray Widder

The Onion @theonion.com · 15h

Israel Agrees To Go Back To Killing Palestinians On Less Frequent Basis

CAIRO—As part of a historic ceasefire agreement with Hamas following two years of war, the Israeli government reportedly agreed Thursday to go back to killing Palestinians on a less frequent basis. “I...

theonion.com

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🌶 David Gray Widder @davidthewid.bsky.social · 18h

🫧The news is finally asking if we're in an AI Bubble, and when it will pop. Good!🎈

Our data shows how we got here: Big Cloud is frantically investing in AI startups to build cloud market share and justify their *massive* investments in AI infrastructure.

How Google, Microsoft & Amazon invests:

🌶 David Gray Widder @davidthewid.bsky.social · Aug 6

📣🚨NEW: ☁️ Big Cloud—Google, Microsoft & Amazon—control two thirds of the cloud compute market. They’re getting rich off the AI gold rush.

In new work with @nathanckim.bsky.social, we show how Big Cloud is expanding their empire by scrutinizing their *investments*… 🧵

📄PDF: dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn...

The cover of the report, with dark blue title "How Big Cloud becomes Bigger" with "Bigger" in bold, and subtitle in light blue "Scrutinizing Google Microsoft and Amazon's investments", and light grey author line "David Gray Widder and Nathan Kim" on light grey page background with three clouds: white, dark grey, and very dark grey getting bigger and going towards the top right until they're off the page.

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🌶 David Gray Widder @davidthewid.bsky.social · 18h

Every paper of Cella's is a banger, she's a pillar of the local organizing scene, a rare scholar who walks the walk.

Cella is amazing - hire her!

Cella (is on the job market) @cellllla.bsky.social · 19h

✨I’m on the academic job market ✨

I’m a PhD candidate at @hcii.cmu.edu studying tech, labor, and resistance 👩🏻‍💻💪🏽💥

I research how workers and communities contest harmful sociotechnical systems and shape alternative futures through everyday resistance and collective action

More info: cella.io

Cella M. Sum –

cella.io

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🌶 David Gray Widder @davidthewid.bsky.social · 18h

🫧The news is finally asking if we're in an AI Bubble, and when it will pop. Good!🎈

Our data shows how we got here: Big Cloud is frantically investing in AI startups to build cloud market share and justify their *massive* investments in AI infrastructure.

How Google, Microsoft & Amazon invests:

🌶 David Gray Widder @davidthewid.bsky.social · Aug 6

📣🚨NEW: ☁️ Big Cloud—Google, Microsoft & Amazon—control two thirds of the cloud compute market. They’re getting rich off the AI gold rush.

In new work with @nathanckim.bsky.social, we show how Big Cloud is expanding their empire by scrutinizing their *investments*… 🧵

📄PDF: dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn...

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Tech Policy Press @techpolicypress.bsky.social · Aug 14

Just three companies comprise “Big Cloud” — Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, which together control two thirds of the cloud computing market. But dependence on Big Cloud is not just technical or infrastructural: it is also financial, write Nathan Kim and David Gray Widder.

‘Big Cloud’ is Building Power via Pervasive Investments | TechPolicy.Press

Dependence on Big Cloud is not just technical or infrastructural: it is also financial, write Nathan Kim and David Gray Widder.

buff.ly

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nathan kim @nathanckim.bsky.social · 1d

Did you know that the university of Michigan is building the world’s largest supercomputer for Los Alamos National Labs’ nuclear weapons production programs, and paying for $830 million of it despite not being able to use >90% of it?

I wrote about it here:

www.michigandaily.com/opinion/umic...

UMich says the Ypsi Data Center won’t “manufacture nuclear weapons.” What does Los Alamos think?

University administration must make a choice: Will it side with the public and live up to its stated ideals of serving the public good and public interest? Or will it side with LANL and spend hundreds...

www.michigandaily.com

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Jordan Uhl @jordanuhl.com · 4d

Israeli drone footage shows the destruction in Gaza:

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Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 2d

You cannot, by definition, be eugenicist to an LLM.
Thats not what eugenics was, is or means.
But also, it should worry everyone when tech people like Hailey dehumanize the actual survivors and ongoing victims of eugenics by making comparisons like this--its alarming.

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.bsky.social · 2d

A someone who has written extensively about the eugenic roots that permeates those who claim to be building so-called artificial general intelligence, I'm here to tell you to please NOT compare criticism against corporations claiming to build a machine god, with eugenics. The audacity.

if you're writing a sentence that sounds like eugenics but you go "oh that's fine to say because it's not a real person" (whatever that means) you may want to consider what made you okay with saying that.

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Rafe Meager (they/them) @economeager.bsky.social · 3d

jumpscare on instagram @dandekadt.bsky.social

some instagram account has posted a screenshot of dan's post that says "My wife and I never talk baby talk to our kid. We enforce academic seminar norms and jargon. My child isnt even 2 yet and can interrupt presenters on the first slide. Adults at family gatherings are shocked when my child asks a questino that turns out to be more of a comment." it has THIRTY SIX THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIVE LIKES

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Meredith Whittaker @meredithmeredith.bsky.social · 4d

📣 Germany's close to reversing its opposition to mass surveillance & private message scanning, & backing the Chat Control bill. This could end private comms-& Signal-in the EU.

Time's short and they're counting on obscurity: please let German politicians know how horrifying their reversal would be.

Signal @signal.org · 6d

We are alarmed by reports that Germany is on the verge of a catastrophic about-face, reversing its longstanding and principled opposition to the EU’s Chat Control proposal which, if passed, could spell the end of the right to privacy in Europe. signal.org/blog/pdfs/ge...

signal.org

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AAUP @aaup.org · 9d

BREAKING: WE WON!!!
💥 💥 💥

Federal Judge William G. Young ruled today in our lawsuit against the Trump administration that the policy of arresting, detaining, & deporting noncitizen students & faculty members for their pro-Palestinian advocacy violates the 1st Amendment.

Full ruling here:

Findings of Fact & Conclusions of Law – #261 in American Association of University Professors v. Rubio (D. Mass., 1:25-cv-10685) – CourtListener.com

Judge William G. Young: ORDER entered. FINDINGS OF FACT AND RULINGS OF LAW, PURSUANT TO FED. R. CIV. P. 52(A)(Sonnenberg, Elizabeth) (Additional attachment(s) added on 9/30/2025: # 1 Main Document) (J...

www.courtlistener.com

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Travis Campbell @hcoyote.bsky.social · 9d

A wise man once said, “you get paid more for linear regression if you call it machine learning and data science.”

Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 13d

There is absolutely no good faith reason to use the term “AI” for any technology one is selling.

It serves only for dazzling people into thinking the technology has capabilities that it doesn’t.

If one wants a technology to be trustworthy, just use a transparent, informative term without hype.

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Dan Hirschman @asociologist.bsky.social · 10d

Cornell admin overruled a faculty committee to suspend a professor who asked a disruptive Israeli student to leave his class on Gaza. Details in the article. www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Cornell Cut Classes by a Pro-Palestinian Professor After an Israeli Student’s Discrimination Complaint

Dr. Eric Cheyfitz, who has taught at Cornell for more than two decades, claims the university is attempting to silence him as part of a broader crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism.

www.thenation.com

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🌶 David Gray Widder @davidthewid.bsky.social · 12d

The hype bubble popping won't fix things, though. Disastrous effects remain, you may find our short piece useful:

bsky.app/profile/davi...

🌶 David Gray Widder @davidthewid.bsky.social · Nov 21

Pleased this is now out from the Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center Political Economy of AI essay collection.

In it, @histoftech.bsky.social and I examine the the lasting harmful effects of the deflating GenAI hype bubble:

ash.harvard.edu/resources/wa...

Watching the Generative AI Hype Bubble Deflate – Ash Center

ash.harvard.edu

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Matt Pogue @kyloson.com · Dec 7

7/If there's one silver lining, I'm far from alone in feeling this way - ash.harvard.edu/resources/wa.... I think it's time to draw some lines in the sand b4 AI takes that from us too and say "no more". AI, if you're listening, we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore! 😏

Watching the Generative AI Hype Bubble Deflate – Ash Center

ash.harvard.edu

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🌶 David Gray Widder @davidthewid.bsky.social · 12d

this is what we've been saying :-)

Kathleen E. Kennedy @themedievaldrk.bsky.social · 12d

More datapoints, this time from the funds. Looks like even the official view is when not if, and perhaps soon.

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🌶 David Gray Widder @davidthewid.bsky.social · 13d

loony tunes

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 13d

IOKIYAR, literally overriding the Power of the Purse edition.

www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24p...

Cite as: 606 U.S. _
(2025)
1
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 25A269
DEPARTMENT OF STATE, ET AL. U. AIDS VACCINE ADVOCACY COALITION, ET AL.
ON APPLICATION FOR STAY
[September 26, 2025]
On September 3, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia entered a preliminary injunction directing the Executive to obligate roughly $10.5 billion of appropriated aid funding set to expire on September 30. Of that $10.5 billion, $4 billion was proposed to be rescinded in a "special message" transmitted pursuant to the Impoundment Control Act. See 2 U. S. C. §681 et seq. After the District Court and the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied stays of that order, the Government filed this application to stay the District Court's injunction.
The application for stay
presented to THE CHIEF JUSTICE and by him referred to the Court is granted. The Government, at this early stage, has made a sufficient showing that the Impoundment Control Act precludes respondents' suit, brought pursuant to the Administrative
Procedure Act,
to enforce
the
appropriations at issue here. The Government has also made a sufficient showing that mandamus relief is unavailable to respondents. And, on the record before the Court, the asserted harms to the Executive's conduct of foreign affairs appear to outweigh the potential harm faced by respondents. This order should not be read as a final determination on the merits. The relief granted by the Court today reflects our preliminary view, consistent with

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🌶 David Gray Widder @davidthewid.bsky.social · 14d

After years of them going "oh it's just one big gov contract!! we don't know what they use it for in the gov! we can't switch off access for individual gov units!!!"

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Alex Hanna-ween @alexhanna.bsky.social · 14d

Wow, incredible. Huge win for the No Azure for Apartheid organizers.

Julia Carrie Wong @joolia.bsky.social · 14d

Microsoft will no longer allow Israel to use its cloud services to enable its mass surveillance of occupied Palestinians – "the first known case of a US technology company withdrawing services provided to the Israeli military since the beginning of its war on Gaza"

Microsoft blocks Israel’s use of its technology in mass surveillance of Palestinians

Exclusive: Tech firm ends military unit’s access to AI and data services after Guardian reveals secret spy project

www.theguardian.com

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🌶 David Gray Widder @davidthewid.bsky.social · 15d

I'm so excited to read this! Looks amazing. Thanks also for engaging with our work :)

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redrum scare(d) corncob (no one said it made sense) @inquiline.myatproto.social · 16d

At some point earlier I'd said I was willing to help onboard anyone considering joining Mastodon, & that I am also willing to speak candidly about drawbacks there. All that still stands...

And, I have a just-out paper about user safety & moderation there: openjournals.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/Jo...

Pin the tail on the researcher: From distributed to meshy accountability in decentralized social media | The Journal of Community Informatics

openjournals.uwaterloo.ca