Alexios Mantzarlis

The rise of AI tools that write about you when you die Families and funeral directors are using AI obituary generators to more efficiently memorialize the dead. What happens when they get it wrong?

Updating my will to warn my heir(s) that if they use AI to write my obit my ghost will 100% haunt them www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

I'm sorry for your loss, Drew, and thanks for writing this piece.

a man in a suit has a pin on his pocket that says joe ALT: a man in a suit has a pin on his pocket that says joe

Ref. an all-time favorite in one of the best TV shows ever

I’m not too fussed by headline wording as long articles are clear about what’s going on, but “Echo an Authoritarian Playbook” is giving off “Whisper of Desire” vibes

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/03/u...

An aerial view of what the Gaza City area looked like this week. Taken from a Jordanian military aircraft, by our colleague Heidi Levine.

August 1, 2025 AMERICAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION Committee on Economic Statistics and Committee on Government Relations Statement from the American Economic Association on the Dismissal of the BLS Commissioner Leaders of the American Economic Association express their grave concern over the dismissal of the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) earlier today. The independence of the federal statistical agencies is essential to the proper functioning of a modern economy. Accurate, timely, and impartial statistics are the foundation upon which households, businesses, and policymakers make critical decisions. Undermining the independence or credibility of these agencies threatens the integrity of the information that markets, institutions, and the public rely on every day. Measuring the vast and dynamic U.S. economy in real time is inherently challenging. It is standard practice for statistical estimates to be revised as more complete and higher-quality data become available. These revisions reflect the commitment of statistical agencies to accuracy, transparency, and methodological rigor-not failure or bias. The BLS has long had a well-deserved reputation for professional excellence and nonpartisan integrity. Safeguarding this tradition is vital for the continued health of the U.S. economy and public trust in our institutions. We call upon elected officials to respect and preserve the independence of the nation's statistical infrastructure. Lawrence Katz President, American Economic Association Katharine Abraham President-Elect, American Economic Association Karen Dynan Chair, American Economic Association Committee on Economic Statistics Kenneth Troske Chair, American Economic Association Committee on Government Relations

Statement from the largest economics association about the BLS firing

As context: AEA approximately never makes such public statements

This is a big deal

Anyone here bike the whole Empire State Trail? Is it all about as challenging as the bit that goes to Poughkeepsie?

The economy is so good that I'm firing the BLS Commissioner for reporting numbers so grim I refuse to believe them, and also demanding the Fed cut rates typically seen during a recession.

my favorite bluesky arguments are the long drawn-out ones where person a responds via direct reply and person b exclusively answers through quote-posts. it's like seeing two people arguing on the street with one person facing sideways and shouting into the open door of a baskin robbins

Cornell Expected to Reach Settlement with Trump Administration to Restore Federal Funding Cornell University is expected to reach a settlement with the Trump administration to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding that has been revoked over the last several

“The ransom that [Columbia] ended up paying strikes me as a pretty good value if you decide you’re going to pay ransom,” he added. “But the problem with paying ransom is that it incentivizes the taking of more hostages.”

www.ithaca.com/news/ithaca/...

I think it happened to @ninajankowicz.com

Erika McEntarfer was confirmed in January 2024 as BLS commissioner by a vote of 86-6 by the Senate, including 38 Republican votes in favor. Republicans who voted to confirm her include JD Vance and John Thune.

Dr Labubu is selling questionable ED supplements on TikTok in case anyone is interested

Why is the stock market high, and the overall economy mixed, in the face of all these trade wars and government-generated uncertainty?

A big part of the answer is a massive boom in AI datacenter construction, so much it outweighs consumer spending. If that turns out to be an AI bubble… watch out.

Quick fire look at how google's new (in the UK) AI search responds to fact checked claims. Some really good, some really not so good things.

Claims are linked in each post and a screenshot of responses I was given from google.com/aimode

(a thread)

Also this month on Misinfo Review: @rasmuskleis.bsky.social et al. find that corrections posted by other users had a small and often insignificant effect on the perceived accuracy of false Facebook posts in Brazil, India and the UK.

misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/the-...

On HKS Misinformation Review @davidlazer.bsky.social and others find that information quality on X decreased -- at least when measured in terms of NewsGuard reliability scores of the domains being shared -- after Elon Musk's acquisition of the platform

misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/decl...

CCDH found that the reach of 44 misleading tweets about the January fires in Los Angeles by Alex Jones absolutely dwarfed the views gotten by a sample of relevant news articles and posts from emergency responders.

counterhate.com/wp-content/u...

I guess I'm seeing it as a positive alternative to an engagement-first or hyper-personalized feed where ragebait and content that feeds into confirmation bias have a leg up

humans suck at spotting AI-generated images arxiv.org/pdf/2507.18640

I wrote about my takeaways on TrustCon last week, and how basically everyone from all sides are making the lives of trust & safety professionals more difficult, rather than helping them make the internet better.

Journalist Discovers Google Vulnerability That Allowed People to Disappear Specific Pages From Search Negative articles about a tech CEO vanished from Google after someone made fraudulent requests using the Refresh Outdated Content Tool.

"Negative articles about a tech CEO vanished from Google after someone made fraudulent requests using the Refresh Outdated Content Tool."

www.404media.co/journalist-d...

Photoshop just made it shockingly easy to edit objects and people into photos Almost anyone can “Photoshop” now.

"Harmonize" is such a fun euphemism for "make s**t up" www.theverge.com/news/715073/...

Spotify rolls out Covid disclosures two months after Joe Rogan boycott A handful of musicians and creators boycotted the platform for airing “The Joe Rogan Experience,” which they say spread Covid-19 vaccine misinformation.

By the way, this is the "censorship" being denounced www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-ne...

Joel Kaplan is getting a bonus for this -- Mark Zuckerberg's unhinged "More Speech, Fewer Mistakes" speech is quoted in a letter from Jim Jordan to Spotify asking for details on its COVID-19 misinformation policies

judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-su...

All of which is a roundabout way of saying zentropi.ai is now open for everyone! Free tier for testing, enterprise tier includes optimization. We've believed our system could take a 3-month process and reduce it to 3 days. Seeing it proved out with 50 experts? Worth the whole conference. 🧵 9/9

X to test using Community Notes to find the posts everyone likes | TechCrunch X is piloting a new feature that will help to identify the platform's best posts. The system is similar to how Community Notes fact-checking works.

X is considering exporting its Community Notes bridging algorithm to the main feed. This...might not be a bad idea?

techcrunch.com/2025/07/24/x...

Perfis no TikTok usam IA para desinformar sobre tarifaço e alcançam mais de 15 milhões de views Aos Fatos identificou 30 perfis que buscam engajamento e lucro com conteúdo que fere as regras da plataforma; maioria foi removida pelo TikTok após contato da reportagem

Aos Fatos found 30 TikTok profiles spreading AI-generated misinformation about US-Brazil relations amid an escalating trade war. The platform removed 26 of them following the fact-checkers’ outreach. www.aosfatos.org/noticias/per...

Hong Kong university’s AI deepfake porn scandal ignites debate Victims call for city to reform its laws to adequately penalise this "new form of sexual violence". Read more at straitstimes.com. Read more at straitstimes.com.

"The more than 700 photos discovered included original innocuous screenshots and digitally manipulated indecent images of women who were the student’s 'friends, university classmates, seniors, primary school classmates and even secondary school teachers'."

www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-as...

Bay Area companies skewered over false tsunami information Amid active tsunami warnings, Grok said they'd been cancelled.

"Grok, the chatbot made by Elon Musk’s Bay Area-based xAI and embedded in the social media site X, repeatedly told the site’s users that Hawaii’s tsunami warning had been canceled when it actually hadn’t, incorrectly citing sources."

www.sfgate.com/tech/article...