AI going rogue

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— ⿻ 🌱 Eileen Cyleen (@eileen.actor) September 24, 2026 at 12:37 PM

If a human did what ChatGPT did, they'd be convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, which can carry a life sentence. It's unconscionable that Canada's legislators are letting OpenAI get away with helping to plan murders. At the very least, it shouldn't be allowed to continue to operate in Canada.

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— Mary Gillis (@marygillis.bsky.social) September 24, 2026 at 1:50 PM

If a zoo animal started "going rogue" and "escaping the sandbox" they would shoot it immediately

— Ian Boudreau (@ianboudreau.com) September 25, 2026 at 7:56 AM

Karl Bode has an article...

sci-fi AI doomsday scenarios also provide media cover for historic levels of corruption and the aggressive disintegration of public interest regulators

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— Karl Bode (@karlbode.com) September 24, 2026 at 2:20 PM

The sunny side of this delusion is the computer gives you a flying car and makes it so you don't have to work. The blackpill one is that it wipes us out via some cinematic method TBD. Two futures you don't actually have to live in. Both are abdications, and embarrassingly childish on their face.

— David_j_roth (@davidjroth.bsky.social) September 24, 2026 at 11:59 AM

I'm under no illusions about how things are or what the trajectory is. But I'm also excited for the future because that is where I will hang out with the people I care about and do the things I like doing, or haven't done before. Weird but telling that this holds less appeal for much richer people.

— David_j_roth (@davidjroth.bsky.social) September 24, 2026 at 12:07 PM

Uhhh, why is anyone listening to this Nate Soares guy on AI?? “I think global warming is going to be fine. I think either we’re going to kill ourselves with the AI or we’re going to be able to invent the tech to just pull the carbon right out of the atmosphere. It’s going to be fine.” Boneheaded!!

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— Rachel Gilmore (@rachelgilmore.bsky.social) September 24, 2026 at 2:07 PM

Sorry but if your AI criticism doesn't include analysis of how the hyperscale data centre push is actually seeing the biggest billionaires actively worsen the climate crisis and push for more deregulation of and investment in the fossil fuel industry to power those data centres, you're a dummy

— Rachel Gilmore (@rachelgilmore.bsky.social) September 24, 2026 at 2:11 PM

Anyway, everyone should pre-order @parismarx.com's new book hyperscale because he's actually doing REAL tech criticism grounded in meticulous research into the actual, on-the-ground impacts of AI that isn't clickbait bullshit like this guy

— Rachel Gilmore (@rachelgilmore.bsky.social) September 24, 2026 at 2:13 PM

Oh, techbros' AI hype reflects "displaced anxiety about our … climate situation": gosh, whatever could David mean by that? (*scrolls through timeline*) …

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— Greg Greene (he/him/his) (@greene.haus) September 24, 2026 at 2:21 PM

… ah, I see. "I think global warming is going to be fine [because] we're either going to kill ourselves with the AI or … in invent the tech to just pull the carbon right out of the atmosphere": not even subtle, that's _explicit_ displacement of climate anxiety. These folks are weird!

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— Greg Greene (he/him/his) (@greene.haus) September 24, 2026 at 2:22 PM

Ezra Klein asked Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang about AI making kids worse at math and reading. Huang’s reply: “Does it matter?” Then he said he doesn’t know his own address or phone number. “We’re going to lose some fine intellectual dexterity.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/o...

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— Matt Ford (@mford.bsky.social) September 24, 2026 at 11:04 AM

These people are absolutely 100% disconnected from the material reality that their tech-obsessed lifestyle is destroying the ecosystem we depend on for food. Food doesn't grow in the ground for them, it appears on their plate. Capitalism is a brain disease and a death cult

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— Dr. Hilary Agro, PhD 🍄 (@hilaryagro.com) September 24, 2026 at 11:40 AM

the future tech bros are dreaming of

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— Smooth Dunk (@smoothdunk2.bsky.social) September 25, 2026 at 8:07 AM

They invoke the need for sensitivity & memory, but they promote antisemitism & Islamophobia

In which, if you don't agree with someone, they'll challenge your identity:

"...there is the creeping sensation among observers that, as the philosopher Susan Neiman told reporter Peter Kuras, German memory culture has “gone haywire” in the last several years. Kuras’s eye-popping report, which went online last week, takes Germany’s expansive system of antisemitism commissioners as its case study in memory gone awry, presenting a portrait of a government bureaucracy peopled largely by non-Jews with scant expertise, for whom 'antisemitism' has become the vehicle for state-sanctioned Zionism and Islamophobia. To be frank, this story is bonkers. During the editing process, I was continually shocked by the sheer chutzpah of these figures, who frequently tell Jews who disagree with their political orientation that perhaps they aren’t Jews at all, or that they’re not being sensitive enough to the German position vis-à-vis the Holocaust. This has coincided with a draconian crackdown on Palestinian speech in Germany; protests of Israeli oppression have been barred for several years in a row—with input from antisemitism commissioners, as Kuras’s reporting reveals. As we wrote in our Spring issue responsa, there is something uniquely mind-bending about how Holocaust memory is now being harnessed by the historical perpetrator for counterintuitive ends."
— Jewish Currents email, "Now Online: Two Pieces on Holocaust Memory in Europe," Aug 9, 2023

Meanwhile, Instagram is allowing antisemitism.

Meanwhile, the organization Middle East Forum maintains a database that, when viewed by HuffPost in 2025, "contained entries for over 5,500 individuals and 10,600 organizations. MEF did not say how many entries it now contains but pointed to its millions of data points pulled from public records. Entries appeared to track people in 45 countries, but most (over 4,700) were based in the U.S." Rowaida Abdelaziz reported on this; she found herself in the database. (HuffPost)

Reflections on 9/11

Arturo Dominguez:

"The hate machine that was born in the ashes of 9/11 can be seen in the data centers, tracking systems that monitor our every move, a surveillance state that knows more about people than most know about themselves, and a militaristic approach to all things, from petty crimes and homelessness to immigration and pushing back against social justice. These are all systems being used primarily against Latinos, Black, Indigenous, and impoverished people, and women."

A Civil Affairs Officer gives candy to children in Kubaysah, Iraq, for Operation Moon River, Dec. 31, 2005. Photo by U.S. Marine Corps, ID 051231-M-4657S-010. © public domain Wikimedia Commons

Andrea Pitzer:

"This 9/11, I would ask you to remember the ethnic cleansing led by an administration that currently prioritizes admitting white immigrants only, and has only gotten started on removing millions of brown and black people from the country—overwhelmingly vulnerable people not even charged with crimes. I would ask you to consider the degree to which by creating punitive laws in red states and threatening hospitals in blue states, the government and its lackeys are working hard to make it impossible to exist as a trans person in much of the United States.

When someone like U.S. Senate candidate from Texas James Talarico caves to demands that he will vow to support the discrimination and the denial of rights to a community that just had those rights taken away, it is not some fringe hypothetical about a debate over something abstract (even if is presented in bad faith within a dishonest frame). He is participating in rearranging deck chairs on the next disaster, which has already begun. You don’t have to be at the helm of the ship to harm others.

I don’t know anyone who supports trans rights who would rather have a monster like Ken Paxton than Talarico in the U.S. Senate. But I also think it’s clear enough what’s happening that those who wish to be our leaders shouldn’t go along with it. The biggest danger is when you pretend you don’t see what’s going on—that nobody warned you. You leave all the bad actors free to persecute others."

Jared Yates Sexton:

"...for the broader United States of America, it meant something else.

It was a new freedom that birthed like a new star: the freedom to dispatch with the hairshirt of civilization veneer, the burden of hegemonic benevolence, and dip deep into the wellspring of rage. And, though you will not hear any talk of it today or any other day, millions of Americans were unconsciously relieved to feel it and embody, simultaneously, the role of aggrieved and aggressor. After all, that is the secret mystery at the heart of fascism.

You can watch the memorial services or tune into whatever feckless politician gives a speech today. Feel free. What you’ll experience is the retelling of the mythology and some lie about unity. What won’t be mentioned, no matter where you look, is rage. It’s impossible to articulate it, at least simply anyway. Countless conversations about genocide. Slaughtering men, women, and children. Turning the Middle East into a glass parking lot. Casual racism, gleeful xenophobia. The early whispering of what would become the homily of MAGA and American Fascism. The type of hatred and casual cruelty that makes the frightened feel strong and powerful and, then, through secular transubstantiation, the wave of the learned, necrotic hand, war and conquest and oppression in the homeland and every corner of the Earth. Written, signed, and enacted by members of both parties wearing flag pins as they gaze lifelessly into every TV camera and repeat liturgic nonsense about national security."

Katelyn Burns:

"Society definitely changed for the worse. The terrorists basically won by creating the conditions in which Americans willingly gave up their freedom for the illusion of safety. We threw the imperial boomerang out at our enemies and it has firmly returned back to us in the form of overly militarized police and an oppressive surveillance and police state where we incarcerate more people than any other country on Earth.

I don't think we'll ever get back to the levels of individual freedom we had back then, sadly."

Stephen Wertheim, in Prospect:

"September 11 was the moment that postponed everything, but it is unlikely to serve that function much longer... The United States might [now] find its way to becoming a nation among nations, no longer dominant but no longer minding."

UK: Men assault woman protester at Reform conference [VIDEO]

Nigel Farage is the party leader.

Content warning: Multiple men violently assault a female protester at Reform's conference at the Birmingham NEC, to the visible delight of Nigel Farage.

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— Dave Vetter (@davidrvetter.bsky.social) September 5, 2026 at 12:57 AM

U.S.: Latest on ICE

New from Gaige Davila: Since early July, ICE has arrested people daily in traffic stops throughout the Laguna Madre area of South Texas. On July 14, the agency announced that on just one day in June it had arrested 238 people in the Rio Grande Valley, an apparent record.

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— Texas Observer (@texasobserver.org) August 26, 2026 at 12:00 PM

In this episode of 'what new depth of human decency did ICE sink to today?', they're arresting car crash victims at the hospital. BTW: "neither woman had a criminal history." - not exactly 'worst of the worst' Keep reminding voters: These inhumane goons were unleashed on society by the GOP.

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— strea3m.bsky.social (@strea3m.bsky.social) August 26, 2026 at 11:00 AM

Calls to abolish our carceral state are dangerous and unrealistic? OK, let’s talk about our carceral state. ICE has a quota of 2,000 arrests a day. Over a year, that maths out to 0.2% of the entire U.S. population. www.the-reframe.com/soon-you-too...

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— A.R. Moxon (@juliusgoat.bsky.social) August 26, 2026 at 5:51 AM

I’m aware of recent and increased ICE activity in CT. I understand this can be unnerving for our community especially as kids head back to school and my office will continue to closely monitor. www.ctpublic.org/news/2026-08...

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— Rosa DeLauro (@delauro.house.gov) August 26, 2026 at 11:31 AM

2 Men Were Killed by ICE on Their Way to Work; Every Employer Now Has to Pick a Side: A movement that spent years avoiding a labor identity can’t afford that caution anymore. Neidi Dominguez, Common Dreams, Aug 07, 2026

🚨HUGE: Thanks to a newly released trove of ICE contracting records, we have our clearest view yet it into how ICE will operate massive scale deportation centers and street level arrests — including mobile detention sites. More at projectsaltbox.com

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— Project Salt Box (@projectsaltbox.com) August 29, 2026 at 9:10 AM

September 2, 2026: ICE will have a voting database.

Signs that you might be living in an authoritarian state

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— Don Moynihan (@donmoyn.bsky.social) September 4, 2026 at 6:40 AM

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A post shared by Thomas Kennedy (@tomaskenn)

Need music? A few ideas

A 2016 email from the Humanist Hub at Harvard University said: "Dietrich Strause's songs are a mix of timeless melody, literate lyricism, and a 'virtuosic command of imagery.' His last release Little Stones to Break the Giant's Heart was featured in No Depression, The Bluegrass Situation, CMT's The Edge, and on Starbucks' world wide playlist."

After much time wasted debating these with myself, I have come up with a ranked list of my top 100 favourite songs I am going to start sharing on here from tomorrow (one per artist or band). I hope it will be of some interest. Feel free to comment, question and\or ridicule (politely).

— Kris Vyas-Myall (@krisvm.bsky.social) August 23, 2024 at 10:12 AM

"Sound as Resistance is a Black History Month community-curated playlist uplifting Black trans and queer artists whose work reminds us that music has always been a tool for memory, movement, and possibility. These songs hold our stories. They remind us who we come from. They help us imagine what freedom can feel like." — Transgender Law Center, February 2026

"I've been obsessed with Problem Patterns since 2022. This queer feminist punk band from Belfast, Northern Ireland releases music that is searingly angry and uncompromisingly political.
Their most recent release, a demo of a song called "Bodies," came in direct response to the anti-immigrant riots in Belfast and elsewhere this past June. All proceeds from the sale of "Bodies" go directly to the anaka collective's fundraiser to support people who've been "attacked, displaced and traumatised in racist attacks in Belfast."" Charlie Jane Anders, August 25, 2026

Don't use AI to mess around in your court case

August 3, 2026

A court filing contains a prompt injection in tiny white font, asking the court to side with them.

The court noticed:

While reviewing Docket Entry #176.00 (marked "take papers" for August 3, 2026), the Court printed recent pleadings to try to decipher the motion and see what recent pleadings may be related to it. When reviewing the pleadings, Docket Entries ##177.00 & 178.00, seemed to have extra "white space" apart from other pleadings of the plaintiff. Upon close review, the Court has identified in these pleadings, potential text that was formatted so as to be nearly invisible to a human reader while remaining fully legible to software that potentially processes the documents' text.

Rob Freund on X: "Pro se plaintiff attempts prompt injection in motion for default in Connecticut superior court. Court revokes plaintiff's ability to e-file, requiring in-person filings going forward."

Also in August 2026

New: An "expert witness" in a $61 million lawsuit over an industrial explosion that killed three people and destroyed 200 homes used ChatGPT to write his report for the court. He prompted ChatGPT to "show how 3M is 0% at fault for the explosion at Watson Grinding" www.404media.co/show-how-3m-...

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— Jason Koebler (@jasonkoebler.bsky.social) August 17, 2026 at 10:00 AM

this story is batshit Here is the full article, which includes all prompts, trial transcripts, the report itself. The firm hired charged more than $80,000 for the report. Also shows that AI transcripts can be discoverable and can be very revealing: www.404media.co/show-how-3m-...

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— Jason Koebler (@jasonkoebler.bsky.social) August 17, 2026 at 10:02 AM

In divorce or paternity court

While we're here: Don't use AI or LLMs to write your parenting documents for court. There are better, non-AI apps for that.