Applied Statistics - aka A.I.

A shockingly inefficient trillion-dollar project

AI-obsessed executives and managers are creating a distinct new type of toxic work environment for the slop era, workers told us.

Sources and leaks from Amazon, Adobe, Atlassian, Citi, and more show what is really happening with AI right now: companies are trying to rein in AI use as costs spiral out of control.

The trolley dilemma is a staple of philosophy because it probes our intuitions about whether it’s permissible to kill one person to save many more.

While big tech has been strategically investing to promote a positive narrative around AI, many rapidly expanding global networks of people and communities are resisting AI tools, writes Jennie C Stephens

A phenomenon I've noticed recently is people trying to occupy some untenable middleground wrt to the use of systems sold as "AI" -- this is a position where people try to recognize the harms of this tech but also hold space for "responsible" or "ethical" use. When someone is trying to hold this unte

"Ok I know about all these harms of generative AI. But what about when their coding tools are actually useful? I built this amazing thing that wouldn't have existed otherwise, what do you think about that?" I have had this exact exchange with a lot of socially-aware, activist-ey engineers and hobbyist coders lately, and I've been thinking about it a lot. My first question is usually, "*is* it actually useful?", because in a lot of situations (especially large-scale, production code), more and more people are reporting that they only appear to increase productivity, and that these tools are wreaking havoc on their codebases. But there are certain cases—often around prototyping, hobby projects, solo-developer stuff— where it's clear that someone created something cool or useful they would not have created otherwise using a generative AI coding tool. I won't argue with that. These conversations can lead into a kind of "what if I used Claude Code and it cured cancer, hmm?" dynamic. And I think I finally have a response: I'm not here to adjudicate who is, like, going to AI Ethics Heaven. I can't stop you. But if you care about these issues— the destructive data centers, the exploitative content moderation, the theft of our data— what is your piece of the work in fighting that? I think refusal can be a really meaningful and impactful piece of the work. You can look at the harms and decide not to engage, on principle. You can organize with coworkers to negotiate collective refusal. That really does have an impact. But maybe refusal isn't your piece of the work— maybe you'll be fired if you don't use these tools (or you're dead certain Claude Code will cure cancer)— okay! Are you supporting data center protests? Fighting for legislation? Raising awareness about data worker organizing? Maybe researching smaller local models you can run on your own hardware? There's a lot you can do to fight the harmful impacts of large-scale generative AI (this is why we compiled The Resist List*, after all). Find your piece of the work, and go do that. *https://airesistlist.org/ | 12 comments on LinkedIn

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archived 19 Jun 2026 01:52:54 UTC

The key to understanding AI's place in human society is the humanities, whose scholars have been studying the human-nonhuman relationship for centuries, argues Dr Elvis Imafidon.

The Vatican wasn't waiting for an invitation Author's note: I kept seeing people say "the Pope has entered the AI conversation" yesterday, as if the Vatican had just discovered the thing existed. It's not a small error, it's the kind of error that makes the governance problem worse, because if you t

(RNS) — Pope Leo XIV's new encyclical on AI is set to be released Monday (May 25), with Chris Olah, a co-founder of Anthropic, at his side.

I just finished reading the encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, presented today by Pope Leo XIV. Here are a few highlights and thoughts: - Your AI is material: “Nothing in the world of AI is immaterial or magical. Every seemingly immediate and flawless response is the result of a long chain of mediation, involving vast networks of natural resources, energy infrastructure and, above all, people.” - A personal joy was finding the core of my own work reflected in this passage: “A significant part of the digital economy’s functioning relies on the silent work of millions of people engaged in essential yet largely unseen activities, such as data labeling, model training and content moderation, often involving disturbing material. In many cases, these workers are young people, predominantly women, working under demanding conditions for minimal wages.” - Power concentration: “In a world where data, computational resources and regulatory influence remain in the hands of a few, to speak of the common good means exposing this new form of epistemic, economic and political asymmetry and naming the new monopolies of AI.” - Technology “is never neutral, because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate and use it.” - AI doesn't equal productivity: “while AI promises to boost productivity by taking over mundane tasks, it frequently forces workers to adapt to the speed and demands of machines (...) Current approaches to technology can paradoxically de-skill workers, subject them to automated surveillance and relegate them to rigid and repetitive tasks” - War and the risk that “technology, detached from ethics and responsibility, will render decisions about life and death more rapid and impersonal, and will present the use of force as an immediate and viable option.” Now...it would be refreshing to see a Pope (or any powerful figure) state things many of us have argued for years, such as: “A more moral AI is not enough if that morality is determined by a few,” if he were not saying them while sitting next to one of those very few: Chris Olah. It is hard to believe Leo is unaware of Anthropic’s cooperation with Palantir, or of Claude’s use in Venezuela, Iran, and against migrants in the US. It is also hard to imagine that Leo writes about the hidden labor powering AI without knowing that Anthropic outsources much of its data work under conditions very similar to those already exposed in relation to OpenAI and Meta. And the warning about trans- and posthumanism inevitably recalls what Timnit Gebru and Émile P. Torres have written about TESCREAL ideology, from which Anthropic is hardly exempt. Finally, it is difficult to read a text that echoes so many of the things many of us have been saying for at least a decade, while still covering them with a veil of inevitability. As if the only alternative were to imagine an AI aligned with the social doctrine of the Church, without leaving room to ask ourselves if we need AI at all. | 23 comments on LinkedIn

Silicon Valley oligarchs worried about the risks their technology posed to the world. They forgot about people.

These workers are training AI to take their own jobs.There’s a hidden workforce powering the rise of ChatGPT, and nearly 1 in 5 of them have fallen into home...

. Quando un sistema di AI sbaglia, la prima reazione è spesso la sorpresa. Come può una macchina così potente confondersi?  La risposta è meno intuitiva di quanto sembri: sbaglia esattamente per lo stesso motivo per cui funziona. Perché ragiona in termini di probabilità. Un'approssimazione del mondo Ogni sistema di AI, che classifichi immagini, formuli…

By: Emily M. Bender and Decca Muldowney At a recent appointment, Emily’s physical therapist (who knows some about her research) said, “Before we get started,...

A theory of why AI models act like humans

Marketers are dealing with leadership who run memes through Claude, use pet names for chatbots, and outsource their gut instincts.

archived 2 Jun 2026 04:32:31 UTC

New technologies of reproduction are plundering the art world – and getting away with it

archived 9 Apr 2026 09:30:31 UTC

archived 12 May 2026 16:04:55 UTC

full PDF in my downloads

1. Introduction

Three books unpack our infatuation with prediction, and what we lose when we outsource this task to machines.

Spoiler: the nine-person team works for Anthropic.

Magnifica Humanitas, annotated with AI-ethics research

All I'm gonna say about this official Vatican + Anthropic mandate, is that I guess it was only a matter of time before the religion of effective altruism, worshipping so-called artificial general intelligence, merged with entrenched religious institutions. I didn't expect leaders of the Vatican, an organization endowed with billions, to go against the hype. I expected them to jump on the bandwagon of the dudes who are about to make billions with their IPOs. Did you know that the Vatican actually has a venture capital arm investing in Silicon Valley companies? They may have even invested in Anthropic for all I know. What I've learned in the nonprofit space is that all of these people you thought were independent from each other, hang out in the same places, Davos or a bunch of closed door meetings for the world's power brokers. Leaders of corporations, foundations, governments, entrenched religious institutions, they hear from each other much more so than anyone else. They're all in the same echo chamber. It's the same lesson I learned about academia and industry, Stanford and Silicon Valley being the same, etc. The only one who fights for your rights is you. Don't look to anyone powerful to do that, they only respond to your pressure. The Vatican could have told Anthropic to stop stealing data, exploiting labor, killing the environment, deceiving us with anthropomorphic designs and lying about product "capabilities." Instead they partnered with them, like partnering with the Sackler family to discuss the harms of oxy. The Vatican could have partnered with the exploited data workers fighting for their rights, the people whose water is polluted fighting data centers, or the many other victims around the world. But no, they featured ANTHROPIC, giving them their endorsement with this feature. "Vatican washing", like greenwashing. | 112 comments on LinkedIn

One minute, Dennis Biesma was playing with a chatbot; the next, he was convinced his sentient friend would make him a fortune. He’s just one of many people who lost control after an AI encounter