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The fundamental flaws of the rhetoric of AI inevitability

Kin @cell-less.bsky.social · 22d

AI inevitability isn’t destiny — it’s rhetoric. Read my review of Becker’s More Everything Forever. His critique shows how Longtermism rests on speculative futures and 'troubling moral arithmetic' rather than grounded evidence. medium.com/@kin.artcoll...

Review of Adam Becker, More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity…

medium.com

The metaphor of the ‘black box’ is commonly used to describe systems in which the inputs and outputs are known but the inner mechanisms are not. ‘Artificial intelligence’ technologies are an exampl…

Kin @cell-less.bsky.social · 22d

What is inside the black box of AI? My latest video installation is an exposé of the hidden labour that goes into making AI, specifically click-work and data-labelling which is outsourced by hugely profitable US companies often to low-paid, precarious workers. cell-less.com/2025/09/10/d...

Dissimulation

cell-less.com

The fundamental flaws of the rhetoric of AI inevitability

Kin @cell-less.bsky.social · 22d

Schools and universities should be making research like this mandatory reading before the term starts.

Kin @cell-less.bsky.social · 22d

Digging into the 'troubling moral arithmetic' of Longtermism, this is my review of Adam Becker's latest book More Everything Forever (Basic Books): medium.com/@kin.artcoll...

Review of Adam Becker, More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity…

medium.com

US cash turned Tommy Robinson into the poster boy of UK f...

Kin @cell-less.bsky.social · 24d

Billionaires interfering with our democracy. Who would have thought it? 🙄

Outside the Old Bailey in 2018, a reinvented Tommy Robinson flashed his perfect new teeth to 2,000 diehard supporters at a “free Tommy” rally on a stage ...

observer.co.uk

Kin @cell-less.bsky.social · May 21

Really enjoyed recording this last podcast episode with Dr Eleanor Dare whose recent work includes the AI Forensics project at @camdighum.bsky.social

We talk about AI and power, impossibly huge datasets, deskilling and the impacts of ChatGPT in education contexts #ai #bigtech #technews

Digital Fatalism: Eleanor Dare

Podcast Episode · Digital Fatalism · 05/20/2025 · 26m

podcasts.apple.com

23andMe sold out of bankruptcy to Regeneron

Reposted by Kin

Carissa Véliz @carissaveliz.bsky.social · May 20

And.... it finally happened. #23andMe is a perfect #privacy example to learn from. When companies who amass troves of very personal data go bankrupt, the data gets sold or acquired by other companies, further complicating already questionable "consent" practices.

Drugmaker’s takeover could raise privacy concerns among genetics start-up’s 15mn users

www.ft.com

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Kin @cell-less.bsky.social · May 14

Surely this is the existential risk from AI. The idea that we're advancing our intelligence as a species as well as creating a super-intelligence is one of the biggest cons out there.

Without critical thinking skills and the ability to make meaning for ourselves, what the hell are we?

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Kin @cell-less.bsky.social · May 14

Some photos/videos from my recent commission at NewBridge Project, Newcastle, thinking through algorithm-related issues like visibility/black-boxing/agency/public engagement through the metaphor of 'dissolving': cell-less.com/2025/05/02/t...

The Dissolve

‘Dissolving black boxes’ (interactive installation/moving image) was an Everyday Algorithms micro-commission, supported by The NewBridge Project and curated by Shelly Knotts. The metaph…

cell-less.com

Kin @cell-less.bsky.social · May 14

I'd be interested in the 'specifically generatively AI' - could you expand? Is the trust not similarly broken with AI-decision-making in systems like healthcare/welfare/policing, or maybe it's specific forms of trust that you're alluding to?

Kin @cell-less.bsky.social · May 14

There are 4 episodes in my podcast series interviewing artists/researchers about narratives of inevitability in technology discourses, automated decision-making and ideologies of the tech industry. It's very niche but if you're into this kind of thing, listen here: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/d...

Reposted by Kin

Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social · Apr 28

"A new dataset, visualized as maps, reveals the extent to which African workers are indirectly employed in the tech sector, doing content moderation, customer service, and data annotation for AI models, among other jobs." restofworld.org/2025/big-tec...

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Reposted by Kin

Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social · Apr 17

the ACM CHI conference has fully embraced AI snake-oil this year. this is the world-leading conference on human-computer interaction. absolutely unacceptable. if the conference won't remove these and distance itself from pseudoscience, the HCI community loses all credibility

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Kin @cell-less.bsky.social · Mar 31

Brilliant news!! @disabilityarts.bsky.social

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Kin @cell-less.bsky.social · Mar 27

Great attendance at the wave of protests yesterday in Newcastle. Why is the government cutting support for disabled people yet increasing spending on defence/military? It can't go unchallenged. #WelfareNotWarfare spread the message.

Disabled People Against Cuts - DPAC @dis-ppl-protest.bsky.social · Mar 27

#WelfareNotWarfare

Useful stats and figures to use in interviews when speaking to the media

dpac.uk.net/2025/03/disa...

dpac.uk.net

Kin @cell-less.bsky.social · Mar 25

Well this is kind of cool... An interactive website teaching about Dark Patterns on the internet neal.fun/dark-patterns/

Suspended for Pro-Palestine Speech: My statement on Yale Law School’s embrace of AI-generated smears

Kin @cell-less.bsky.social · Mar 25

An AI-bot accuses a university scholar of being a 'terrorist'. In what crazy world does the university act on AI-fabricated claims without verifying any legitimacy? And this university was rated #1 of Best Law Schools! mondoweiss.net/2025/03/susp... @yaleisp.bsky.social

Helyeh Doutaghi was placed on leave by Yale Law School after being falsely accused of “terrorism” over her support for Palestine. She says her case reflects the new era of Zionist McCarthyism and that...

mondoweiss.net

An AI bubble threatens Silicon Valley, and all of us.

Kin @cell-less.bsky.social · Mar 25

'A study by Uplevel Data Labs tracked 800 software engineers using Copilot on GitHub and found no measurable increase in coding productivity, despite this exact use case being the one pointed to the most by AI companies'.

Is anyone still convinced by AI hype? prospect.org/power/2025-0...

Bubble Trouble

prospect.org

Kin @cell-less.bsky.social · Mar 25

'According to its own numbers, OpenAI loses $2 for every $1 it makes, a red flag for the sustainability of any business.' The AI hype bubble has got to burst at some point.

Reposted by Kin

Sarah Myers West @smw.bsky.social · Mar 25

The money being poured into AI far outpaces the Manhattan Project ($30b today) and Operation Warp Speed ($18b) combined, and rivals the cost of the entire Interstate Highway System ($114b) - for gains that are much much more speculative.

David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · Mar 25

Today's feature from our latest print issue is from researcher and writer Bryan McMahon about AI, and specifically the *business* of AI. Though hundreds of billions have been poured in, that money hasn't bought dominance, & a gaping hole in the public markets may result.
prospect.org/power/2025-0...

Bubble Trouble

An AI bubble threatens Silicon Valley, and all of us.

prospect.org

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Kin @cell-less.bsky.social · Mar 25

With 23andMe filing for bankruptcy, there's talk of genetic data being for sale. Data from 15 million people (plus any relatives who are connected genetically).

If it's sold to a company with ties to law enforcement, what could possibly go wrong...? www.eff.org/deeplinks/20... @eff.org

A Sale of 23andMe’s Data Would Be Bad for Privacy. Here’s What Customers Can Do.

The CEO of 23andMe has recently said she’d consider selling the genetic genealogy testing company–and with it, the sensitive DNA data that it’s collected, and stored, from many of its 15 million custo...

www.eff.org

Kin @cell-less.bsky.social · Mar 21

It absolutely is this constructing of an alternative reality that you write about, and why it's so important (albeit draining) to keep writing about the actual experience of being disabled.