Becca Ricks

In Critical Condition – How To Stabilize Researcher Data Access? | TechPolicy.Press Mark Scott and LK Seiling discuss the struggle for researcher access to social media data and an alternative future where transparency is seen as a civic good.

Two years into Europe’s Digital Services Act, data access for researchers is on life support, write Mark Scott and LK Seiling. Yet an alternative future is possible—one built on openness, interoperability, and platforms that treat data access as a civic and scientific good.

Three German universities offering post-docs for researchers "who cannot conduct or continue their work in the USA appropriately because of actual political pressure. "
www.uni-konstanz.de/zukunftskoll...

AI Is a Mass-Delusion Event Three years in, one of AI’s enduring impacts is to make people feel like they’re losing it.

Hello. I wrote a nice long essay about AI and this very strange moment where we're constantly told we're living in the dawn of a strange new future but the only thing that's actually clear is that everyone feels pretty unmoored and uncertain. I hope you'll read it

@tamigraph.bsky.social and I get to some mythbusting today about data centers and the supposed future they bring. Long story short: 😬

MACHINE YEARNING Sonja Drimmer critically examines art historians’ recent embrace of generative AI as a tool for humanities research.

“…what we are left with is a structure of feeling that is now a part of AI as an artifact, the aspirations pinned to its potentials, which are directing its adoption into spheres of intellectual inquiry where it may have little or even nothing to offer.” www.artforum.com/features/gen...

AI Generated Business: The Rise of AGI and the Rush to Find a Working Revenue Model By Brian Merchant In This Article Introduction OpenAI and the Generative AI Boom Silicon Valley Mythology, Distilled and Accelerated From “Safe AI” to AGI — and the Hype-Led Business Model Genesis Mar...

And while you’re at it - also read @bcmerchant.bsky.social's excellent AI Now report AI Generated Business, on how OpenAI has used narratives around AGI (front and center in this report) to inflate its business proposition: ainowinstitute.org/publications...

AI for good, with caveats: How a keynote speaker was censored during an international artificial intelligence summit Q&A with Abeba Birhane on how she was censored during the AI for good summit and how the industry can do better.

thebulletin.org/2025/07/ai-f...

Amazing group of AI auditing scholars and practitioners at the AI Accountability Lab @aial.ie, led by @abeba.bsky.social ✨

'They're Not Breathing': Inside the Chaos of ICE Detention Center 911 Calls Records of hundreds of emergency calls from ICE detention centers obtained by WIRED—including audio recordings—show a system inundated by life-threatening incidents, delayed treatment, and overcrowdin...

NEW: 911 audio and EMS records from ICE detention centers reveal a surge in medical emergencies — including staff sexual assaults, suicide attempts, and head injuries.

Records also show calls over severe pregnancy complications.

Free to read: www.wired.com/story/ice-de...

w/ @dell.bsky.social

The Proposed AI Moratorium Will Harm People with Disabilities. Here’s How. | TechPolicy.Press A proposed 10-year federal moratorium on state AI laws could expose people with disabilities to harm, Ariana Aboulafia and Travis Hall write.

While existing disability rights statutes do provide some legal recourse against AI-enabled discrimination, state-level regulation remains a vital avenue for harm mitigation. The proposed federal moratorium on state AI laws threatens those very protections, Ariana Aboulafia and Travis Hall write.

What actually happened at the Salt Lake City ‘No Kings’ shooting? One man is dead. Another is in jail—but not the one who fired his gun.

NEW: A protester was shot and killed at the Salt Lake City 'No Kings' march. A man is in police custody, booked on suspicion of murder—but not the one who fired the gun. From video, witnesses and interviews, @schotthappens.com and I tried to piece together what really happened Saturday.

Our report-

Most reporting on AI examines worst-case systems deployed under the guise of efficiency. But what would a good faith effort at Ethical AI look like? For two years, we’ve been looking over the shoulder of a city trying to do things differently.

Public Sector Triage of the Federal Government’s Data Hemorrhage | TechPolicy.Press Reem Suleiman, Esra’a Al Shafei, and Brian Hofer urge state and local governments to take action to protect the public amid a federal data-sharing crisis.

Federal data misuse is accelerating, but state and local governments can still act, argue Reem Suleiman, Esra’a Al Shafei, and Brian Hofer. “Before DHS, ICE, or others come knocking, governments should run, not walk! — through this triage checklist to protect the privacy of the most vulnerable.”

I'm biased, but this report is a must-read for anyone looking to understand the state of AI in 2025.

It explains how AI is entrenching power for big tech and the oligarch class, speeding deregulation, dislodging human expertise and threatening workers—and how there's still time to refuse all that.

A banner for the "Ideologies of Control: A Series on Tech Power and Democratic Crisis" series. The title "The Myth of AGI" is large, and followed by the Tech Policy Press and Data + Society logos. The quote from the article is below: The next time you see someone talk about the promise or threat of AGI, you should ask: What social or political problems are they interested in papering over, and how are they implicated in creating them or making them worse? By Alex Hanna and Emily M. Bender

Today, as part of the @techpolicypress.bsky.social and @datasociety.bsky.social "Ideologies of Control: A Series on Tech Power and Democratic Crisis" series, @emilymbender.bsky.social and I write about the myth of AGI.

www.techpolicy.press/the-myth-of-...

Tech Power and the Crisis of Democracy | TechPolicy.Press Announcing a new series, Jacob Metcalf and Meg Young examine how a small group of tech billionaires is pushing an anti-democratic agenda.

"Actual reform is done carefully...Instead, AI appears to be understood within this administration as a highly effective tool for consolidating power..." Great piece by Jake Metcalf & Meg Young introducing a @techpolicypress.bsky.social series on technofacism: www.techpolicy.press/tech-power-a...

NEW REPORT: Artificial Power, our 2025 Landscape Report, is out.

Today’s AI isn’t just being used by us, it’s being used on us. We urgently need to reclaim public power over the future trajectory of AI. Another path is possible.

Read the report: ainowinstitute.org/2025-landscape

When it comes to Trump's brain drain, “the damage is already done” How the DOGE-triggered attack on government research left America in the dark.

I spent five weeks talking to federal workers about knowledge loss and brain drain across the federal government, and its implications, both right now and for decades to come. Their stories are frightening, but I think it's important to know what we're facing: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Happy to have a shared piece on trust in relationality in the new @datasociety.bsky.social Trust Issues Anthology! Read below 🪢

Developer Builds Tool That Scrapes YouTube Comments, Uses AI to Predict Where Users Live The developer claims the tool is for cops, but anyone can sign up and use it for targeted harassment.

A new tool has scraped YouTube comments, lets harassers or anyone else search for a specific user, use AI to approximate where the person might be from based on their comments. Developer says it's for cops, but there are no checks. We signed up and used it www.404media.co/developer-bu...

Policy and Research Staff Technologist ...

Psst! Hey you! EFF is hiring a staff technologist and *you* should apply! www.paycomonline.net/v4/ats/web.p...

Empire of AI by Karen Hao: 9780593657508 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books “Excellent and deeply reported.” —Tim Wu, The New York Times “Startling and intensely researched . . . an essential account of how OpenAI and ChatGPT came to be and the catastrophic...

www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/743569...

Listening to an author talk by @karenhao.bsky.social on her new book Empire of AI, hosted by @alltechishuman.bsky.social. Hao describes "quasi-religious" beliefs motivating doomer/boomer narratives around the "inevitability" of AGI that run parallel to narratives around the inevitability of empire.

When @kesearles.bsky.social and I began our research we thought we would be studying experts’ experiences w/ *online* harassment. But we quickly realized that was insufficient. Now we speak of tech-facilitated harassment & hybrid forms of harassment.

A 🧵 about what we found and why it matters: 1/

US House Passes 10-Year Moratorium on State AI Laws | TechPolicy.Press The US House advanced a 10-year pause on state AI regulation, but its fate is uncertain in the Senate.

This is really not good; www.techpolicy.press/us-house-pas...

DOGE Used Meta AI Model to Review Emails From Federal Workers DOGE tested and used Meta’s Llama 2 model to review and classify responses from federal workers to the infamous “Fork in the Road” email.

SCOOP: DOGE used Meta's Llama 2 model to review emails from federal workers responding to the original "Fork in the Road" email.

www.wired.com/story/doge-u...

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.

“This primer maps what we currently know about generative AI’s role in scams, the communities most at risk, and the broader economic + cultural shifts that are making people more willing to take risks, more vulnerable to deception, and more likely to either perpetuate scams or fall victim to them.”

Trump ambushes South African president in Oval Office with video | CNN South African President Cyril Ramaphosa sat in awkward silence as he listened to a video US President Donald Trump played in the Oval Office. CNN’s Larry Madowo reports that Trump was pushing debunked...

staging a show-and-tell about a fake genocide during a real genocide to the government that has done the most to seek justice for that real genocide is designed to break our brains. They know what they are doing. www.cnn.com/2025/05/21/w...

The data center boom in the desert The AI race is transforming northwestern Nevada into one of the world's largest data-center markets—and sparking fears of water strains in the nation’s driest state.

One of the world's biggest data center booms is quietly underway just outside of Reno. Some projects have been covered, but few outlets have recognized the full scope of the plans.

The developments will require gigawatts of new electricity generation & could consume billions of gallons of water.

The Attention Economy: How Big Tech Firms Exploit Children and Hurt Families The Federal Trade Commission will hold a workshop entitled "The Attention Economy: How Big Tech Firms Exploit Children and Hurt Families" on June 4 at the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D.

This FTC workshop about kids safety online features speakers and organizations that work diligently to harm marginalized youth, especially teens who identify as LGBTQIA+.

This is not a serious workshop. Shocking, I know.
www.ftc.gov/news-events/...