Anna Merlan

AI fakes spread disinformation. Is the distrust they create even worse? Manipulated images undermine our shared reality—and the democracy built upon it.

Manipulated images undermine our shared reality—and the democracy built upon it.

Perhaps the biggest point of interest convergence between AI and fascism is the way they exhaust people's capacity to belief in the very concept of knowable truth www.rand.org/pubs/perspec...

This one is a must-read.

Very incisive analysis of the effect weaponized AI disinfo is having on our civic space.

True. The first website I remember regularly checking ever was called Cute Overload and it was just cute user-submitted photos of animals. Can you even imagine how unusable it would be now?

Thank you for taking the time to read it!

lol I’ll see you there with my own car-bag

Holy shit

Thank you bud! went to a Covid safe clothing swap yesterday and thought I might see you! I got a full-on Morticia dress 🥲

Oh my God

"Debunking is good, but it's not sufficient…Resilience is built when societies lower the spread capacity of bad information & raise the verification capacity of ordinary people-without outsourcing everything to heroic fact-checkers."

indeed really hoping one day my cool shirt is just a museum relic

People may believe they’re being righteous, sharing false information & doctored images. “‘In the moments where it matters most,’ DiResta says, ‘You’ll see people do the least amount of checking.’”

"In fact, it’s one of the major tasks of modern disinformation—not to persuade people in something, yet to discourage them, turn them into passive, tired, exhausted mob.”

Disinformation is bad, from either side.

Increasingly realistic fake images are creating a sense that it's impossible to figure out what's true or knowable, and thus to make decisions. As disinformation scholar Dmytro Iarovyi told me, prolonged, sustained disinfo "changes people’s capacity to participate meaningfully in democratic life."

AI fakes spread disinformation. Is the distrust they create even worse? Manipulated images undermine our shared reality—and the democracy built upon it.

A few weeks ago, I saw a group of people in a Facebook comments section trying to figure out if a picture of Ilhan Omar was real. (It was not.) I couldn't stop thinking about it, so I wrote about what I'm calling "strategic memes against public participation." www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

AI fakes spread disinformation. Is the distrust they create even worse? Manipulated images undermine our shared reality—and the democracy built upon it.

AI fakes spread disinformation. Is the distrust they create even worse?

Every day can be international women’s day if you just maintain an extremely fixed delusion about how things are going

THREAD: I got laid off from NYMag/Vulture after 14 years. The family lost 75% of income + medical. Now mzs.press bookstore, once a side project. is do-or-die for Judith & I. I feel weird telling you this because others are doing much worse. But if you could like or share this, we'd be so grateful!

A wave of quittings reveals the AI industry’s gloom and doom What's behind the existential terror seizing Silicon Valley?

AI companies have “hit the ceiling on the places where it’s useful and easy to sell,” so they over-hype their products' capabilities to attract the venture capital required to squeeze out competitors, EFF’s Katharine Trendacosta told @MotherJones. www.motherjones.com/politics/20...

A wave of quittings reveals the AI industry’s gloom and doom What's behind the existential terror seizing Silicon Valley?

A wave of quittings shows the existential terror seizing Silicon Valley.

Please tell her she’s serving

A wave of quittings reveals the AI industry’s gloom and doom What's behind the existential terror seizing Silicon Valley?

“The people building this technology are simultaneously more excited and more frightened than anyone else on the planet. They believe it’s too powerful to stop and too important to abandon."

Encore in New Orleans When I photographed the Mardi Gras Eris parade in New Orleans in 2011, it ended in police violence and chaos. I was lucky enough to return in 2019 to photograph the same parade—and this time, it was a...

ALSO TODAY: @todseelie.bsky.social on photographing the joyous 2019 Eris Parade after a previous one ended in police violence. "The parade takes on a life and a logic of its own, and being within it is to be, for a time, part of a creature much larger than yourself." flaminghydra.com/encore-in-ne...

A wave of quittings reveals the AI industry’s gloom and doom What's behind the existential terror seizing Silicon Valley?

“The people building this technology are simultaneously more excited and more frightened than anyone else on the planet."

In their quest to prevent Iran from developing an advanced weapon, the US and Israel were also deploying one of their own: artificial intelligence.

A wave of quittings reveals the AI industry’s gloom and doom What's behind the existential terror seizing Silicon Valley?

With @abbyvesoulis.bsky.social, we wrote about the very weird vibe right now in the AI industry: part doom, part goldrush www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Why does this read so very much like a particularly deranged brand of AI-speak

No Help and Few Options for Travelers Stranded by Mideast Conflict

One woman who called the State Department helpline looking for help said they told her to "stop ranting and raving" and hung up on her.

Another woman said they asked her how to spell Oman.

www.nytimes.com/2026/03/04/t...

Florence ICE detainee dead after untreated tooth infection, official says An ICE detainee, who had been at a Florence detention center for four months, died Monday following an untreated tooth infection.

An ICE detainee in Arizona has died of a TOOTH INFECTION after it went untreated for weeks, a local official says. He was a Haitian asylum seeker imprisoned in Florence, Arizona. @emilybregel.bsky.social reports.
tucson.com/news/local/b...

A secretive ad campaign calls on New Mexicans to support controversial Project Jupiter data center • Source New Mexico A new campaign has emerged in New Mexico that urges residents to support a controversial data center, Project Jupiter, in southern New Mexico.

NEW: Physical mailers and digital ads have urged New Mexicans to support the controversial Project Jupiter data center. The company behind the effort is registered in Virginia, and seemingly no one wants to claim credit for it.

Die maus ist auf jeden fall meine kleine freund 🥲

Not to be dramatic but I love this maus and would do anything to ensure his safety