Data & Society

How AI models not for kids are ending up in toys AI companies' lax policies mean that unvetted third-party developers can build AI chatbot toys for kids

A new report from US PIRG finds the AI companies ask very few questions about who is using their technology and for what. When it comes to toys for kids, the result is a market where the job of ensuring child safety is largely left up to unvetted third parties. pirg.org/edfund/resou...

Black-box AI and cheap drones are outpacing global rules of war From 3D-printed drones to Anthropic’s Claude, advanced technologies are making conflict more accessible and less accountable — leaving human oversight at risk.

“Do we have the right rules in place and accountability norms to handle the exponential growing use of [AI tools in warfare]? My answer would be no,” says Steven Feldstein, a senior fellow at @carnegieendowment.org. restofworld.org/2026/anthrop...

Key Questions on the Role of Technology in the Expanding Middle East War Tech Policy Press asked experts working at the intersection of technology policy, security, and international affairs to share what they are watching.

In @techpolicypress.bsky.social, experts consider the urgent questions and fault lines about the role of technology in armed conflict that have emerged in the days since the first US and Israeli strikes on Iran. www.techpolicy.press/key-question...

Grammarly Is Offering ‘Expert’ AI Reviews From Your Favorite Authors—Dead or Alive The tool, offered by the recently-rebranded company Superhuman, gives feedback based on the work of famous dead and living writers—without their permission.

Grammarly's new "Expert Review" tool uses AI to simulate feedback from famous authors and academics, including those who died decades ago. “These are not expert reviews, because there are no ‘experts’ involved in producing them,” says historian @ceaubin.com. www.wired.com/story/gramma...

AI on the Ground Program Director Ranjit Singh looks at an experimental history project that exposes some surprisingly basic problems in how today’s AI models understand time. datasociety.net/points/can-w...

Brown University researchers launch AI legislation tracking and analysis portal As a tool for researchers, lawmakers, journalists and the public, the CNTR AISLE Portal provides analysis of state- and federal-level AI bills pending across the U.S.

Great resource for anyone engaged or interested in US AI policy and governance from @geomblog.bsky.social and his team www.brown.edu/news/2026-03...

March 19 @ 12 pm ET! As AI is integrated into scientific practice, the practice of science itself is changing. Join Ranjit Singh, Kristin M. Branson, Lisa Messeri, & Nicole C. Nelson to explore what this means for the nature of proof, inference, uncertainty, & error. datasociety.net/events/the-c...

‘The digital colonization of flyover states’: how datacenters are tearing small-town America apart The rapid rollout of datacenters across the US is creating a divide between municipal governments and residents

“These are private corporations that, in many respects, have been given a lot of political deference to engage in this very accelerated behavior,” says Nicol Turner Lee of @brookings.edu. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Words Without Consequence What does it mean to have speech without a speaker?

"When fluent speech without responsibility becomes normal...it changes what it means to be human," Deb Roy writes, weighing how AI might be training us to “accept words without ownership and meaning without accountability.” www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

US Critical Mineral Aggression Abroad Connected to Data Center Fights at Home We must phase out fossil fuels—not endlessly reshuffle environmental sacrifice zones around the planet, write Hannah Lipstein and Tamara Kneese.

"Mounting a principled opposition to the resource grab for AI allows us to fight for just distributions of green technologies," write D&S program associate Hannah Lipstein and affiliate @tamigraph.bsky.social. www.techpolicy.press/us-critical-...

We Have Learned Nothing About Amplifying Morons “Looksmaxxers” are losers and freaks, but we let them steer the culture when we adopt their terminology.

In @404media.co, @emanuelmaiberg.bsky.social looks at @whitneyphillips.bsky.social's Data & Society report "The Oxygen of Amplification" and the lessons it holds for dealing with extremists and manipulators in today's "amplification renaissance.” www.404media.co/we-have-lear...

We don’t have to have unsupervised killer robots Employees at some companies with defense contracts feel betrayed.

“When I joined the tech industry, I thought tech was about making people’s lives easier,” an Amazon Web Services employee told @theverge.com, “but now it seems like it’s all about making it easier to surveil and deport and kill people.” www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...

NEW: Check out our popular education toolkit to help understand and dismantle the AI Surveillance Pipeline! It includes:

✅ a printable zine / board game
✅ videos featuring tech, policy, and labor experts
✅ a roundup of even more research, reports, and tools

Explore it all at bit.ly/AIpipeline

What’s the Point of School When AI Can Do Your Homework? The creator of the AI agent “Einstein” wants to free humans from the burden of academic labor. Critics say that misses the point of education entirely.

If an AI can go to school for you, what’s the point of going to school? Matthew Kirschenbaum, who teaches English at UVA, says that the attractiveness of agentic AI programs like Einstein is a symptom of a decades-long trend toward a transactive model of education. www.404media.co/whats-the-po...

As part of our series “Democratizing AI for the Global Majority,” Teanna Barrett (@bound4nostar.bsky.social) examines the politics and power asymmetries shaping AI development in Africa today, and how developing local AI ecosystems might offer a path for progress. datasociety.net/points/towar...

Join us online TODAY at 12 pm ET! (Please note corrected time)

Sam Altman Is Losing His Grip on Humanity You don’t “train a human.”

"[T]o liken raising a child — or, for that matter, the evolution of Homo sapiens — to developing algorithmic products makes very clear that the [AI] industry has lost touch, if it ever had any, with what it means to be human," @matteowong.bsky.social writes. www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

AI Lost Out to Traditional Models in Forecasting NYC's Blizzard Two days before New York's biggest snowstorm in a decade began, forecasters were still unsure how much snow would fall. One traditional US model had consistently predicted a major hit, while newer art...

“We’re so trained to think anything AI is better,” says Columbia Climate School researcher Andrew Kruczkiewicz. “Even if models are considered better or high quality, decision-making is not necessarily simplified.” www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

ScamGPT: GenAI and the Automation of Fraud This collaboration between Lana Swartz, Alice E. Marwick, and Kate Larson maps generative AI's role in scams, the communities most at risk, and the broader economic and cultural shifts at play.

Read the primer by @lanalanalana.bsky.social, @alicetiara.bsky.social and Kate Larson: It maps what we know about generative AI’s role in scams, the communities most at risk, and the broader economic and cultural shifts at play. datasociety.net/library/scam...

AI vibe scamming is here AI coding agents make it possible for anyone to build a sophisticated-looking website, including scammers.

"The more and more that AI becomes infrastructural and becomes part of our everyday lives, the more likely we are to encounter scams and fraud,” says @lanalanalana.bsky.social, co-author of our primer "Scam GPT: GenAI and the Automation of Fraud." www.marketplace.org/story/2026/0...

The People vs. AI Across red states and blue, a grassroots movement is pushing back on the unchecked growth of the artificial intelligence industry.

Surveying the growing backlash to AI, TIME spoke to nine Americans from disparate regions, ideologies, and professions — including a nurse, a pastor, and a filmmaker — who are taking the fight over this technology into their own hands. time.com/7377579/ai-d...

The Lesson of A.I. Literacy Class: Don’t Let the Chatbot Think for You

“Are you steering the technology or is it steering you?” asked a slide on the classroom whiteboard at Washington Park High School. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/t...

AI Delusions Are Leading to Domestic Abuse, Harassment, and Stalking ChatGPT and other AI chatbots are reinforcing users' delusions about other people — fueling fixations linked to stalking and abuse.

Perpetrators have long used new technologies to enable abusive behavior. @mharrisondupre.bsky.social finds that AI delusions are amplifying domestic abuse, harassment, and stalking in disturbing ways. futurism.com/artificial-i...

Wrote a short post on @cunygcdi.bsky.social's blog, 'Tagging The Tower' on attending a @datasociety.bsky.social event earlier this week. It prompted me to think about #AILiteracy / #DigitalLiteracy / #CriticalAI in @thegraduatecenter.bsky.social's ecosystem:

gcdi.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2026/02/20/t...

Thank you to @newint.bsky.social and @deccamuldowney.bsky.social for letting us write about Pennsylvania, its planned AI futures, and how people are pushing back. Read online and find in print! The entire March issue is about the humans behind the AI empire machine.

While many people feel relief after using chatbots for mental health support, they are designed to keep you coming back and can drive dependence. "You need to really be careful about what forms of other care you’re displacing,” says D&S researcher @briana-v.bsky.social. www.msn.com/en-us/health...

'Pennsylvania is perfect' Tech companies are building enormous data centres and reconfiguring energy infrastructure across the US, all to power the burgeoning AI industry. On a road trip, Maia Woluchem and Livia Garofalo trace...

In @newint.bsky.social, D&S's @mwoluchem.bsky.social and @livgar.bsky.social write about their work tracing the impacts of, and resistance to, the AI industry's development push in Pennsylvania — and introduce us to some of the people living in the thick of it. newint.org/science-and-...

Looking forward to reading more work in this vein at next month's D&S workshop on AI-enabled science 🦾

In one illustration of how AI is reshaping scientific practice, AI on the Ground Program Director Ranjit Singh considers the research a computational biologist is conducting on fruit flies, and the lessons it holds for the field. datasociety.net/points/simul...

Mental Health, Chatbots, and the Future of Care

Next week @livgar.bsky.social and I are hosting a discussion on our research into how people use LLMs for care/support—with voices across psychiatry, policy, engineering, and research in one room (rare & urgently needed). Come ask hard questions + share thoughts 💙 datasociety.net/events/menta...