Luke Stark
@lukestark.bsky.social
🏳️🌈 just a simple country AI ethicist | Assistant Professor, Western University 🇨🇦 | he/his/him | | no all-male panels |#BLM | 🏳️⚧️ ally | views my own
https://starkcontrast.co/
https://starlingcentre.ca/
https://starkcontrast.co/
https://starlingcentre.ca/
Pinned
Battle Hymn Of The Republic
YouTube video by Joan Baez - Topic
m.youtube.com
The Union anthem has always been understood as a call to freedom and against tyranny
m.youtube.com/watch?v=v4N2...
m.youtube.com/watch?v=v4N2...
Reposted by Luke Stark
I treat boycotts as personal blood vendettas. This is about me physically harming a corporation, not about me telling any other human how to live their life.
I don’t have time to judge others while I’m digging two graves for me and Target.
I don’t have time to judge others while I’m digging two graves for me and Target.
As I always do with boycotts, I urge: be tough with corporations, gentle with individual buyers. For some people, Black Friday sales are the way they get their kids jackets that fit, shoes that hold up to the weather. Yelling at them doesn’t help the cause.
November 28, 2025 at 4:34 PM
I treat boycotts as personal blood vendettas. This is about me physically harming a corporation, not about me telling any other human how to live their life.
I don’t have time to judge others while I’m digging two graves for me and Target.
I don’t have time to judge others while I’m digging two graves for me and Target.
Reposted by Luke Stark
given how unpopular Trump is, it’s insane that civil society/universities/law firms are still asking themselves “how do I stay on Trump’s good side” rather than “how do I avoid facing consequences for complying with Trump’s illegal demands”
New Gallup poll shows Trump's approval hit a new low for his second term:
-36% approve
-60% disapprove
His approval among Republicans went from 91% in January to 84% in November
news.gallup.com/poll/699221/...
-36% approve
-60% disapprove
His approval among Republicans went from 91% in January to 84% in November
news.gallup.com/poll/699221/...
Trump's Approval Rating Drops to 36%, New Second-Term Low
President Donald Trump's job approval rating has slipped to a new second-term low point and is approaching his all-time low of 34%.
news.gallup.com
November 28, 2025 at 5:01 PM
given how unpopular Trump is, it’s insane that civil society/universities/law firms are still asking themselves “how do I stay on Trump’s good side” rather than “how do I avoid facing consequences for complying with Trump’s illegal demands”
Reposted by Luke Stark
it’s vitally important for the future of this country that this wildly unpopular administration is tied directly to its enablers in congress and the courts and used to discredit the entire conservative movement
Gallup poll | 11/3-11/25
President Trump approval
Disapprove 60% (+6)
Approve 36% (-5)
news.gallup.com/poll/699221/...
President Trump approval
Disapprove 60% (+6)
Approve 36% (-5)
news.gallup.com/poll/699221/...
November 28, 2025 at 4:52 PM
it’s vitally important for the future of this country that this wildly unpopular administration is tied directly to its enablers in congress and the courts and used to discredit the entire conservative movement
Reposted by Luke Stark
Kind of a horrific future we’ve stumbled into where you read a headline about people leaving Twitter for Reddit and immediately think “oh thank goodness”
November 28, 2025 at 2:50 PM
Kind of a horrific future we’ve stumbled into where you read a headline about people leaving Twitter for Reddit and immediately think “oh thank goodness”
Reposted by Luke Stark
Lots of people sharing this clip because it's funny and cathartic but I also genuinely believe it's important.
We have to win the narrative battle between "I live in a corrupt society and that's just how it is" and "I live in a corrupt society and we are going to defeat and humiliate these ghouls."
We have to win the narrative battle between "I live in a corrupt society and that's just how it is" and "I live in a corrupt society and we are going to defeat and humiliate these ghouls."
Good morning to Brazilian reporter Manuela Borges, who’s been waiting eleven years for this petty moment. ❤️ 🇧🇷
November 26, 2025 at 4:07 PM
Lots of people sharing this clip because it's funny and cathartic but I also genuinely believe it's important.
We have to win the narrative battle between "I live in a corrupt society and that's just how it is" and "I live in a corrupt society and we are going to defeat and humiliate these ghouls."
We have to win the narrative battle between "I live in a corrupt society and that's just how it is" and "I live in a corrupt society and we are going to defeat and humiliate these ghouls."
Reposted by Luke Stark
a low, dishonest decade.
November 28, 2025 at 1:53 PM
a low, dishonest decade.
Reposted by Luke Stark
The DC shooting story is really getting to me because we literally trained this man as a child soldier for a death squad in a forever war and Stephen Miller et al want to blame it on other cultures? It's our culture, American culture, that killed that woman.
November 28, 2025 at 1:40 PM
The DC shooting story is really getting to me because we literally trained this man as a child soldier for a death squad in a forever war and Stephen Miller et al want to blame it on other cultures? It's our culture, American culture, that killed that woman.
Reposted by Luke Stark
'Small changes to the tone of posts fed to users of X can increase feelings of political polarisation as much in a week as would have historically taken at least three years, research has found.' 1/3
Small changes to ‘for you’ feed on X can rapidly increase political polarisation
Study finds that a week of political content can bring about a shift in views that previously would have taken three years
www.theguardian.com
November 28, 2025 at 7:32 AM
'Small changes to the tone of posts fed to users of X can increase feelings of political polarisation as much in a week as would have historically taken at least three years, research has found.' 1/3
Reposted by Luke Stark
'The degree of increased division – known as “affective polarisation” – achieved in one week by the changes the academics made to X users’ feeds was as great as would have on average taken three years between 1978 and 2020.' 2/3 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Platform-independent experiments on social media
Changing algorithms with artificial intelligence tools can influence partisan animosity
www.science.org
November 28, 2025 at 7:32 AM
'The degree of increased division – known as “affective polarisation” – achieved in one week by the changes the academics made to X users’ feeds was as great as would have on average taken three years between 1978 and 2020.' 2/3 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reposted by Luke Stark
This is probably the biggest reason I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. We have had multiple towns nearly or even entirely burnt off the face of the earth. We have floods and droughts destroying our agriculture. The water supply in cities like Calgary is straight FUCKED.
But wheee politics fun
But wheee politics fun
Something that is easy to forget in all the "Carney is a political genius / Carney is a political naif" argle bargle is that climate policies matter. Environmental regulations matter. Getting rid of them may or may not achieve a political end — but it's guaranteed to have real-world implications.
November 27, 2025 at 11:42 PM
This is probably the biggest reason I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. We have had multiple towns nearly or even entirely burnt off the face of the earth. We have floods and droughts destroying our agriculture. The water supply in cities like Calgary is straight FUCKED.
But wheee politics fun
But wheee politics fun
Reposted by Luke Stark
They can’t make computers as intelligent as humans, but they can make humans as unthinking as computers.
November 24, 2025 at 5:18 PM
They can’t make computers as intelligent as humans, but they can make humans as unthinking as computers.
Reposted by Luke Stark
Every prompt to chatbot software is “generate me some text.” If it generated you some text, it performed its function correctly. It never lies, it never wants anything, it’s text generating software that generates text.
Not wanting to disappoint you so much that it lies is the last quality I want in a computer.
November 28, 2025 at 3:25 AM
Every prompt to chatbot software is “generate me some text.” If it generated you some text, it performed its function correctly. It never lies, it never wants anything, it’s text generating software that generates text.
Reposted by Luke Stark
Reposted by Luke Stark
An interesting take that's counter to much of the climate and environment movement's reaction to the Carney news, but this is the most load-bearing sentence in the piece and we already know that markets - and specifically carbon markets - are way worse than direction intervention at cutting GHGs
November 28, 2025 at 10:38 AM
An interesting take that's counter to much of the climate and environment movement's reaction to the Carney news, but this is the most load-bearing sentence in the piece and we already know that markets - and specifically carbon markets - are way worse than direction intervention at cutting GHGs
Reposted by Luke Stark
Important enough that I think it's worth translating: "We should consider everything AI produces a hallucination. Some of them may appear factually accurate. For the model, that isn't a relative distinction."
Wir sollten vielmehr alles, was LLMs produzieren, als Halluzinationen betrachten. Manche davon mögen zwar als faktisch zutreffend erscheinen. Das ist jedoch für die Modelle kein relevanter Unterschied
Wir sollten aufhören, es Halluzinationen zu nennen , wenn eine KI-Software uns Bullshit erzählt. Das klingt als könne sie nichts dafür, sei nur kurz geblendet worden oder versehentlich im Drogenrausch. Es sind Lügen. LLMs sind Lügenmaschinen. Ihre Entwickler haben sie als potentielle Lügner gebaut.
November 28, 2025 at 9:48 AM
Important enough that I think it's worth translating: "We should consider everything AI produces a hallucination. Some of them may appear factually accurate. For the model, that isn't a relative distinction."
Reposted by Luke Stark
I found this terribly sad. A young woman with her life ahead of her, and she becomes one of the last American victims of the Long War.
November 28, 2025 at 2:07 AM
I found this terribly sad. A young woman with her life ahead of her, and she becomes one of the last American victims of the Long War.
Reposted by Luke Stark
Straight-up sociopath.
Asked about a Guard member who’s dead because of his bullshit and it takes him 30 seconds to make it all about how great he is.
Asked about a Guard member who’s dead because of his bullshit and it takes him 30 seconds to make it all about how great he is.
Q: Do you plan to attend Sarah's funeral?
TRUMP: I haven't thought about it yet, but it's certainly something I can conceive of. I love West Virginia. You know, I won West Virginia by one of the biggest margins of any president anywhere.
TRUMP: I haven't thought about it yet, but it's certainly something I can conceive of. I love West Virginia. You know, I won West Virginia by one of the biggest margins of any president anywhere.
November 28, 2025 at 1:02 AM
Straight-up sociopath.
Asked about a Guard member who’s dead because of his bullshit and it takes him 30 seconds to make it all about how great he is.
Asked about a Guard member who’s dead because of his bullshit and it takes him 30 seconds to make it all about how great he is.
Reposted by Luke Stark
So many weird obsessions in here like that you couldn't serve kosher food to a whole daycare or wear a niqab to a parent-teacher conference. One person can pray in a park but not three together?
Doesn't the CAQ have any real problems to work on in Quebec?
Doesn't the CAQ have any real problems to work on in Quebec?
Quebec law to require government authorization before groups can do anything religious in a park montrealgazette.com/news/provinc...
Quebec plans to ban street prayers as it moves to beef up secularism law
The law will oblige students and staff to keep their faces uncovered while they are within the education system, from daycare to university.
montrealgazette.com
November 27, 2025 at 7:51 PM
So many weird obsessions in here like that you couldn't serve kosher food to a whole daycare or wear a niqab to a parent-teacher conference. One person can pray in a park but not three together?
Doesn't the CAQ have any real problems to work on in Quebec?
Doesn't the CAQ have any real problems to work on in Quebec?
Reposted by Luke Stark
It's insane working in investments because I'd get fired immediately at any *appearance* of conflicts of interest, even if they aren't real, but the govt is just unloading the money gun at their friends and no one fucking cares
November 27, 2025 at 8:49 PM
It's insane working in investments because I'd get fired immediately at any *appearance* of conflicts of interest, even if they aren't real, but the govt is just unloading the money gun at their friends and no one fucking cares
Reposted by Luke Stark
Reposted by Luke Stark
Pedestrian struck by motorist on Parkside a block from the speed camera that vigilantes kept tearing down that caused ford to remove them from all Ontario. Drive as you wish Ontario. Nobody matters. This is what you voted for.
November 28, 2025 at 12:52 AM
Pedestrian struck by motorist on Parkside a block from the speed camera that vigilantes kept tearing down that caused ford to remove them from all Ontario. Drive as you wish Ontario. Nobody matters. This is what you voted for.
Reposted by Luke Stark
👇 I can't believe so many people are *praising* Carney for this.
I think it’s bad, actually, to play political chess with Indigenous rights.
November 28, 2025 at 12:52 AM
👇 I can't believe so many people are *praising* Carney for this.
Reposted by Luke Stark
What we have witnessed tday in this new federal-Alberta agreement is a complete abandonment of core federal climate policy and a complete abdication to the MAGA-aligned govt of Alberta and to oil & gas corporations that send huge chunks their profits to the US.
November 27, 2025 at 7:50 PM
What we have witnessed tday in this new federal-Alberta agreement is a complete abandonment of core federal climate policy and a complete abdication to the MAGA-aligned govt of Alberta and to oil & gas corporations that send huge chunks their profits to the US.
Reposted by Luke Stark
Good and infuriating thread.
The agreement includes, “Construction of thousands of megawatts of AI computing power,” to be powered by nuclear and which also explains the extension of gas-powered electricity for Alberta.
This agreement is just terrible at so many levels.
This agreement is just terrible at so many levels.
November 28, 2025 at 12:42 AM
Good and infuriating thread.
Reposted by Luke Stark
I absolutely hate this. Cutting funding for this program actually costs more because people are homeless again and have to access other programs. But while right-wing parties bang on about saving money they’re actually just being cruel to those less fortunate than themselves.
Sadly the current right-wing coalition government in Finland has cut the funding for the nation’s “Housing First” success story, & homelessness is now on the rise again. That just reinforces the fact that such programs work, if political ideology doesn’t stand in the way.
ysaatio.fi/en/news/home...
ysaatio.fi/en/news/home...
Homelessness on the Rise in Finland - Y-Säätiö
Asunnottomien ihmisten määrä on kääntynyt kasvuun. Nyt asunnottomien määrä kasvoi Helsingissä, vaikka asunnottomia asutettiin vuoden aikana vaikuttava määrä.
ysaatio.fi
November 25, 2025 at 3:56 AM
I absolutely hate this. Cutting funding for this program actually costs more because people are homeless again and have to access other programs. But while right-wing parties bang on about saving money they’re actually just being cruel to those less fortunate than themselves.