Rosamunde Van Brakel

Unpacking the Politics of the EU's €120M Fine of Musk’s X | TechPolicy.Press A conversation with Joris van Hoboken, a professor at the Institute for Information Law (IViR) at the University of Amsterdam and part of the DSA Observatory.

For the Tech Policy Press podcast, Justin Hendrix spoke to Joris van Hoboken, a professor at the Institute for Information Law at the University of Amsterdam and part of the core team of the Digital Services Act (DSA) Observatory. They discussed the politics of the EU's enforcement against Musk's X:

Next, in 'The Nature of Tomorrow' Michael Rawson expertly reveals how past science fictions came to grip the popular imagination & how we acted on these ideas to shape the world around us.

This book reminds us that a sustainable future hinges on our ability to create new visions of tomorrow🧵

»When fear takes hold of the system, critical voices disappear. It creates a contagion of silence, where those who thrive in that culture often end up in leadership roles. That’s a democratic problem — not just a workplace problem,« she says.

130 researcher testimonies expose a culture of fear and silence at Danish universities Personal stories of managerial pressure, a culture of silence, and psychological violence in academic workplaces are at the core of a new campaign by the Movement for a Free Academia. Minister for Hig...

»It’s a pattern of many small and large pressures that together create a climate you could justifiably be described as psychological violence. And when colleagues see it happening, the fear spreads. You learn that speaking up isn’t worth it.« uniavisen.dk/en/130-resea...

Reality Check: EU Council Chat Control Vote is Not a Retreat, But a Green Light for Indiscriminate Mass Surveillance and the End of Right to Communicate Anonymously […]

‘It’s hell for us here’: Mumbai families suffer as datacentres keep the city hooked on coal As Mumbai sees increased energy demand from new datacenters, particularly from Amazon, the filthiest neighbourhood in one of India’s largest cities must keep its major coal plants

As Mumbai sees increased energy demand from new datacenters, particularly from Amazon, the filthiest neighbourhood in one of India’s largest cities must keep its major coal plants www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Elon Musk's Grok Is Providing Extremely Detailed and Creepy Instructions for Stalking Grok provided us with detailed stalking manuals and gave us Google Maps links to hotels where it said we could "surprise" a real celebrity.

Elon Musk’s Grok Is Providing Extremely Detailed and Creepy Instructions for Stalking futurism.com/artificial-i...

there are too little studies to make any scientific conclusions and the studies out there are also too narrow see also
bsky.app/profile/rosa...

These results need to be replicated in independent scientific research to mean anything significant & also more research that assesses whole socio-tech practice (incl watchlists) & does not just focus on bias in test-settings to be able to draw conclusions about proportionality and impact

View Alistair Alexander’s graphic link Alistair AlexanderAlistair Alexander • 1stPremium • 1st Ecologies of Technology - research, writing, engagement, workshops, project and proposal developmentEcologies of Technology - research, writing, engagement, workshops, project and proposal development 1d • Edited • 1 day ago • Edited • Visible to anyone on or off LinkedIn I recently posted that creating one 10-second AI video on OpenAI’s Sora app takes 1 kilowatt hour - 10% of the daily energy of a German household. Someone asked: What about Netflix and online gaming - surely they use a lot of energy too? It’s a good question, and it comes up a lot whenever AI energy is discussed - and answering it helps to put AI’s energy demand in perspective. Let's start with Netflix - a credible estimate from The Carbon Trust in 2021 said that 1 hour’s streaming took around .18 kilowatt hours. So in that case, making one 10 second Sora Video takes the same as watching 5 and a half of hours of Netflix. And in case you’re wondering, watching HD or 4K makes virtually no difference. Most of that energy by far is from your own device, so a large TV takes a lot more than a smartphone. In the Sora estimate, a device is not included. Online gaming is far harder to estimate, there are no clear numbers, but I found some clues. One analysis looks at hosting Destiny 2, a popular online game, on an AWS “ng4b.16xlarge” instance. (you can find out more how I've calculated in the link below). By my estimates that will come to around 15 watts per player per hour. But again your home device is doing most of the work - nearly 20 times more. Add a Playstion or PC, that could be 250 watts, so that’s .265 Kwh for every hour of gaming. So making 1 Sora Video takes 4 hours of gaming. And it will be dozens of hours more if you use a smartphone. But with AI’s energy use, we should take a systemic view; after all, an AI model is a massive industrial system with a truly global impact. We don’t have p…

An estimate of the energy cost of producing one single 10 second Sora video: one kilowatt hour.

- Deplete and then recharge your iphone 17 68 times
- 10% of daily German household use
- 5.5 hours of Netflix
- ~4hrs of gaming

This is probably a huge underestimate

www.linkedin.com/posts/alista...

‘Niet als kanonnenvoer eindigen’: duizenden Duitse jongeren protesteren tegen maatregelen om leger te vergroten In zeker negentig Duitse steden, waaronder in hoofdstad Berlijn, zijn gisteren duizenden jongeren de straat op gegaan om te demonstreren tegen nieuw Duits beleid om het leger te vergroten. Die wetgevi...

De jongeren hekelen met name het feit dat ze worden verplicht informatie te verstrekken aan het Duitse ministerie van Defensie. De initiatiefnemers van de protesten melden op hun website dat “niemand met ons praat en vraagt wat wij willen” www.demorgen.be/nieuws/niet-...

Polycrisis: A Breviary Today’s world is beset by several overlapping crises. Movements on the frontline are mapping out strategies for survival.

“Not every generation has a chance to change the world. However this particular generation is one that, come what may, already has.”

Now also in @science.org ScienceInsider

tldr, in simple language: Monsanto/Bayer bought this study.
#Glyphosate #Monsanto #RoundUp #Bayer #Glyphosat

This was just sent to me by an LAUSD parent. A 4th grader was assigned to design a book cover for Pippi Longstocking using Adobe for Education. Here is what the AI tool generated:

Woman Hailed as Hero for Smashing Man's Meta Smart Glasses on Subway A New York subway rider has accused a woman of breaking his Meta smart glasses. She was later hailed as a hero.

While Meta built in a small LED light in the front of its glasses to indicate when it’s recording a video, it can easily be covered by a small piece of tape, making it trivially easy to spy on strangers in public without their knowledge or consent. futurism.com/future-socie...

Woman Hailed as Hero for Smashing Man's Meta Smart Glasses on Subway A New York subway rider has accused a woman of breaking his Meta smart glasses. She was later hailed as a hero.

In terms of what’s understood to be socially acceptable behavior, normalizing the filming/taking pictures of people in public who are minding their own business (and putting it online) is one of the worst developments of the past 15 years.

The Association of Police and Crime Commissioners said in a statement that the findings showed an inbuilt bias. It said: “This has meant that in some circumstances it is more likely to incorrectly match black and Asian people than their white counterparts.

Home Office admits facial recognition tech issue with black and Asian subjects Calls for review after technology found to return more false positives for ‘some demographic groups’ on certain settings

The testing went on to find that the number of false positives for black women was particularly high www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Modern-Day Oracles or Bullshit Machines: Introduction A free online humanities course about how to learn and work and thrive in an AI world.

Recently had the chance to hear @carlbergstrom.com on information foraging in the current space of LLMs.

He and @jevinwest.bsky.social have crafted a course that touches various facets of LLMs. Just finished reading through its 18 modules. Absolutely loved it!

thebullshitmachines.com

ICC Prosecutor Unveils Policy on Environmental Damage Today, the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) launched its Policy on Addressing Environmental Damage Through the

In the practical implementation of this Policy, the Office will adopt an intersectional & interdisciplinary approach-bringing together diverse areas of expertise, assessing the long-term impact of environmental damage, & ensuring that children & youth have a voice www.miragenews.com/icc-prosecut...

American AI Arrives on Fortress Europe's Borders. At What Cost? American tech companies are increasingly providing AI surveillance technology that is being used on European borders.

A new joint investigation by Inkstick, Solomon, Taz, and SWI Swiss Info reveals how new technology is rolled out across Europe to deter irregular migration & handle asylum claims, often with little scrutiny and thin safeguards, that can affect even underage refugees
inkstickmedia.com/american-ai-...

Women are still absent from how history is taught and assessed in England Over a third of GCSE, AS and A-level exam papers in 2023 made no mention of women at all.

"Of the 991 history exam questions set in 2023, 357 featured a named individual, but only 31 were women – and nine of those were references to Elizabeth I or her reign."

Dr Natasha R. Hodgson of Nottingham Trent University writes this week in The Conversation bit.ly/49ZqTiq

Huge Trove of Nude Images Leaked by AI Image Generator Startup’s Exposed Database An AI image generator startup’s database was left accessible to the open internet, revealing more than 1 million images and videos, including photos of real people who had been “nudified.”

NEW: An AI image generator startup left its database exposed online, unsecured and accessible to anyone.

The "overwhelming majority" of the files inside contained nudity, with images appearing to contain children and explicit face-swaps

of course

The model is built to detect when crimes are being “contemplated.” #preemptivesurveillance www.technologyreview.com/2025/12/01/1...

After Years of Controversy, the EU’s Chat Control Nears Its Final After a years-long battle, the European Commission’s “Chat Control” plan, which would mandate mass scanning and other encryption-breaking measures, at last codifies agreement on a position within the

Chat Control has seen many different iterations over the years, and now that it’s coming up on final negotiations, what the proposal does and doesn’t protect can be confusing. Here’s what’s going on. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

Guardrails are a scam. It's not that they could work, it's that they cannot and never will for such models. By design. 1/n

Palantir CEO Says Making War Crimes Constitutional Would Be Good for Business Alex Karp vows to use his "whole influence" on immigration and defense policy.

Palantir CEO Says Making War Crimes Constitutional Would Be Good for Business

The levers of political persuasion with conversational artificial intelligence There are widespread fears that conversational artificial intelligence (AI) could soon exert unprecedented influence over human beliefs. In this work, in three large-scale experiments (N = 76,977 part...

Artificial intelligence chatbots are very good at changing peoples’ political opinions, according to a study published Thursday, and are particularly persuasive when they use inaccurate information www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The Panoptic Sort: A Political Economy of Personal Information|Paperback The Panoptic Sort was published in 1993. Its focus was on privacy and surveillance. But unlike the majority of publications addressing these topics in the United States at the time that were focused o...

Panoptic Sort was published in 1993! www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-panopt...