Michael Richardson

Longtime listener, first time caller.

Mél is a wonderful interlocutor, which made this an absolute privilege.

I loved doing this with the brilliant Mél... hop in and have a listen once it's out next week!

This is a bloody good read

My university has announced a fund to essentially poach doctoral students from US institutions. DM me if you do work on the history/social impacts of AI and are interested in being poached 😂

Fascism For First Time Founders Over the last year or so I’ve seen a disturbing tendency in tech/startup/VC worlds to buy into the neoreactionary view that for startups to be successful they need to get on board the Trump t…

Terrific essay from @mmasnick.bsky.social

I wish more of the business community would recognize this
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/07/17/fascism-for-first-time-founders/

Sounds depressing, I’ll add it to the list

I think this is the best thing I’ve read about journalism, AI and the business models of media companies. Must read for anyone who cares about this stuff, which really should be everyone.

Nailing it.

“It is the only “business model” that we have and that I am certain works: We trade good, accurate, interesting, human articles for money and attention. The risks of offloading that trust to an AI in a careless way is the biggest possible risk factor that we could have as a business.”

How to silence academic speech on Palestine Jillian Segal’s proposal seeks to mobilise the IHRA definition of antisemitism and would have far-reaching implications for students and staff across Australian universities.

My legendary friend and colleague wrote for @crikey.com.au about the Gaza sized hole in Australian universities and what the draconian demands of special envoy Segal would mean for learning, teaching and being in the university. It is fire and you should read it.

www.crikey.com.au/2025/07/15/i...

Congrats! Incredible opportunity

Speculative Machines and Us: Histories and Futures of AI We warmly invite colleagues to join us for an in-person one-day symposium on Thursday 17th July 2025. To join, please register using the link below. The event is organised by the Centre for Science…

Final registration call for the @britishacademy.bsky.social funded symposium, 'Speculative Machines and Us: Histories and Futures of AI', @lancasteruni.bsky.social on 17 July! 💥🤖 FULL PROGRAMME, ABSTRACTS AND BIOS here: wp.lancs.ac.uk/sciencestudi...
Register now here: wp.lancs.ac.uk/sciencestudi...

ICE memo outlines plan to deport migrants to countries where they are not citizens The dramatic shift in policy could result in thousands of immigrants being deported to places where they lack family ties or even a common language.

Mass extraordinary rendition.

And we know with certainty from the War on Terror that those certifications against persecution and torture are pro forma and are better understood as a document colluding to such treatment.

Opinion | Trolling Democracy The rise of a toxic online politics.

missing from this otherwise insightful account of the extremely online young men of the American far right is the tech platforms that host this garbage, there’s just this tendency to take social media as given but these platforms could be reined in or shut down

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/10/o...

This is the entire OpenAI business model

I think this really nails it. I also think that a huge problem is that the general / universal versions like ChatGPT tend to be conflated with more specialised applications where the pro/con arguments and lines of critique look very different.

The UN Made AI-Generated Refugees The AIs are designed to teach people about atrocities in Sudan.

The intent behind this project makes me think of viral AI-gen image of girl holding puppy in a dingy during Hurricane Helene, legitimized for being "emblematic of people's trauma." Thru AI there's an active shift from evidentiary images towards a designed emblematic.
www.404media.co/the-un-made-...

I've written a lot about the need to extend witnessing beyond the human, but this ain't it. We need to attend more closely to the abundance of very human testimony about war and suffering, to listen and act in response, not look for ways to dehumanise the survivors of dehumanising violence.

If you want to know how political realignment is achieved and how the centre-left is moved inexorably to the right, this is it.

Antisemitism plan would strip funding from unis, arts events who fail to fight Jewish hate Powers to strip funding from public institutions who fail on antisemitism, a review of Australia's hate speech laws, and visa screening for antisemitic views are among the recommendations of a wide-ra...

The Albanese govt is seemingly backing a plan that could withhold uni and arts funding if they're seen to not tackle antisemitism. But what counts as "failure"? This sets a dangerous precedent, threatening academic independence, and informed and open debate.
www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07...

ICE Is Searching a Massive Insurance and Medical Bill Database to Find Deportation Targets The database, called ISO ClaimSearch, is nearly all encompassing and contains details on more than 1.8 billion insurance claims and 58 million medical bills.

I can’t count the number of conversations with students, friends, and academics where people dismissed at the idea that mass data collection was a huge risk to people’s lives and especially the most vulnerable

www.404media.co/ice-is-searc...

Non-academics: if you see an interesting academic paper on here and you can’t access it due to a paywall just email the author and (depending on the state of their inbox 😜) they will generally be thrilled you are interested in their work and send you a copy.

It's in a fab special issue on "New Worlds of Logistical Labour" edited by legends Tom Barnes, @laurenkatekelly.bsky.social and @blueskychris.bsky.social and in the open access journal Work, Organisation, Labour & Globalisation.

Digital twins and logistical labour: Models, plans and the inversion of the ‘real’ <p xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" class="first" dir="auto" id="d24518e99">This article argues that digital twins constitute new computational techniques for the mobi...

New article from me and Zoe Horn. "Digital twins and logistical labour: Models, plans and the inversion of the ‘real’," in which we show how operative, virtual replicas of material environments are beginning to subordinate the real within a logistical paradigm

www.scienceopen.com/hosted-docum...

Eliminate the humans so we can all get “popped up into some kind of sugar cube for a billion simulated years of bliss, but it's only six hours in clock time”

Or the violation of international law, which is actually more important to the rest of the world

Unfortunate timing for sure… but we’ll certainly make some kinda thing happen before too long. Try not to have toooo much fun though

(I’ll drop you a note post travels - a chat is overdue)

Boooo… why is this happening while I’m on the other side of the world, Ranjodh?

Excellent new research on the eco impacts of AI, and the necessity of better transparency regimes and data standards from @sashamtl.bsky.social and crew

screenshot of https://forest-restoration.eu/

Looking for a research associate to explore societal engagement with forest restoration on digital media – with @lboungr.bsky.social @wildflyingpanda.bsky.social @gabrielecolombo.bsky.social & more. Grateful for help sharing with those who might be interested! jonathangray.org/2025/05/31/s...

students and even some teachers need to understand that the essay-as-outcome isn’t what matters, but the essay-as-learning is crucial because it teaches thinking, analysis, communication, knowledge-making, resilience, planning, and more