Suresh Venkatasubramanian

University leaders need to take a look at journalists.

Mainstream journalism has not covered itself in glory in the Trump era to put it mildly.

But the Pentagon's attempt to get them to sign an agreement never to say anything the Pentagon doesn't want said was a bridge too far.

NO ONE signed.

While some believe AI can be used to improve lives, others may exploit this knowledge for financial gain. How AI is fueling surveillance capitalism and undermining democracy

"AI systems are used to make invisible, inscrutable judgements that will affect our lives in ways we may not even begin to see," says Suresh Venkatasubramanian @geomblog.bsky.social.

"It sounds Kafkaesque because it is Kafkaesque."

The Bulletin made a short video presentation to accompany the article. It's great especially if you want to see me gesticulating wildly at every word I say (My parents used to call me Magnus Pyke when I was a child, and that clearly hasn't gone away)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cn8_...

Social media feeds today are optimized for engagement, often leading to misalignment between users' intentions and technology use.

In a new paper, we introduce Bonsai, a tool to create feeds based on stated preferences, rather than predicted engagement.

arxiv.org/abs/2509.10776

@geomblog.bsky.social YESS! "Intimacy Machines" is officially my new fave oxymoron.

(tough competition what with "gender-neutral masculine standard" floating around out there)

My husband was detained by ICE today

Juan Muñoz, an American citizen, father of 2, and local government official, was peacefully protesting w. other elected officials. He was assaulted and taken away

I have had zero contact or updates since

#SOS
@duckworth.senate.gov @durbin.senate.gov

I said a thing :).

A) you are too kind. B) I was really annoyed :)

I didn't know the article had landed :). Thanks!

Critics see something different. Suresh Venkatasubramanian, director of the Center for Technological Responsibility, Reimagination, and Redesign at Brown University, said that Friend is clearly an example of a frothy AI company, but that it also bore a “pernicious” resemblance to a mostly forgotten early-20th-century fad: “radium necklaces.”

When Marie Curie’s new glowing discovery first hit the market, jewelers embedded radium in pendants and bracelets and sold them as chic wellness accessories—until decades later, people started dying of cancer.

“I look at Friend and I think, ‘Are we making the same mistake?’” Venkatasubramanian told Fortune. “We’re rushing these intimacy machines into people’s lives with no evidence they’re safe, or even helpful.”

Sick burn. finance.yahoo.com/news/22-old-...

Joined ABC News Live to discuss the Trump and Republicans’ disastrous government shutdown that’s leaving Americans poorer and sicker.

I’m fighting to end the cuts, lower costs, and save health care. Watch here 📺

Civil rights agency drops a key tool used to investigate workplace discrimination The U.S. civil rights agency responsible for enforcing worker rights will stop investigating complaints about company policies that don’t explicitly discriminate but may disproportionately harm certai...

This was expected, but is also going to be a disaster when it comes to dealing with bias in algorithmic tools for employment.

Source: AP News
search.app/kuYRD

Newsom threatens to cut state funding to universities that sign Trump’s political compact The White House is asking nine major universities, including USC, to commit to President Trump’s political priorities in exchange for more favorable access to federal money.

Not great to be caught in a tug of war between the 2:
"Newsom on Thursday threatened to cut “billions” in state funding from any CA campus that signs a Trump administration compact and agrees to sweeping and largely conservative campus policies in exchange" for fed $ www.latimes.com/california/s...

Just noting that a university that signed this compact would be agreeing to gut clinics and institutes like, say, the Knight Institute, whose mandate is to promote free speech and press freedom. What would it even mean for us to be “neutral”?

The "AI" responses that Google gives about me and my work are consistently error-prone, which I know because I am me. If I know Google's "AI" responses give incorrect answers about things I know about, I can't trust it to give correct answers about things I don't know. So, no, I don't use it.

Jane Goodall’s legacy: three ways she changed science The primatologist challenged what it meant to be a scientist.

Jane Goodall challenged what it meant to be a scientist.

In this news story we look at three ways she changed science.

A loss for science, a loss for the community, a loss for everyone

🧪 #academicSky

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

The Turing Test and our shifting conceptions of intelligence “Can machines think?” So asked Alan Turing in his 1950 paper, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” Turing quickly noted that, given the difficulty of defining thinking, the question is “too meaning...

In honor of the 75th anniversary of the Turing test, I'm re-upping my short essay, "The Turing Test and our shifting conceptions of intelligence".

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

No inference time compute required.

Amazing

"AI's Real Dangers for Democracy," by Dean Jackson and Samuel Woolley

Sam Woolley and I have a piece out in
@jodemocracy.bsky.social on the true dangers AI poses to democracy in the years ahead.

While acknowledging immediate harms like discrimination, we eschew catastrophism and explore the cumulative impact of already visible trends.

muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...

WE WON: "This case -– perhaps the most important ever to fall w/in..this district court squarely presents the issue whether non-citizens lawfully present here in US..have the same free speech rights as the rest of us. The Court answers this Constitutional question unequivocally “yes, they do.”"

Incredible work by Veena and the AAUP. Standing up for so many here when universities and other institutions dedicated to "free speech" refuse to.

YouTube video by Katie Couric The Exhausting Reality of Being a Black Lawyer - Bryan Stevenson's Truth

"Here I am, this middle-aged black man, I'm in my best suit. I actually argued the case at the Supreme Court that we were trying to implement. I've got all these degrees and awards. And I'm still required to laugh at my own humiliation."

Bryan Stevenson with @katiecouric.bsky.social

OpenAI Adds Parental Safety Controls for Teen ChatGPT Users. Here’s What to Expect OpenAI’s review process for teenage ChatGPT users who are flagged for suicidal ideation includes human moderators. Parents can expect an alert about alarming prompts within hours.

“This worldwide update includes the ability for parents, as well as law enforcement, to receive notifications if a child—in this case, users between the ages of 13 and 18—engages in chatbot conversations about self harm or suicide.”

Copyright law doesn't protect what people seem to want it to protect. This talk by Pamela Samuelson @pamelasamuelson.bsky.social was very enlightening.
icml.cc/virtual/2025...

Cry, Heart, But Never Break: A Remarkable Illustrated Meditation on Loss and Life “Who would enjoy the sun if it never rained? Who would yearn for the day if there were no night?”

Cry, Heart, but Never Break – a remarkable Danish illustrated meditation on loss and life www.themarginalian.org/2016/03/08/c...

Ruha’s hand pointing to pink graffiti that reads “Fuck ICE”

Ruha standing in front of Trump tower in Chicago with these words of Octavia E. Butler overlaying the image: “Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery"

Ruha standing in front of tall historic building in Chicago with these words overlaying the image. they ask me to imagine but they want me to imagine their futures and i keep imagining mine.

they ask me to imagine
but they want me to imagine
their futures
and i keep imagining
mine.

Scientists & experts say that RNA innovation is poised to usher in a new era of treatments & cures for different diseases & illnesses. The work being done at Brown University is helping to lead the way. Great to speak at Brown’s RNA Center Symposium this morning.

The Most Detailed Maps of H-1B Visa Holders Joining America's Top Research Institutions A new analysis by The Xylom shows for the first time just how much America’s top research institutions have grown to depend on the specialized knowledge of H-1B skilled workers — and how this…

EXCLUSIVE: A new analysis by The Xylom's @alexip718.com shows for the first time just how much America’s top research institutions have grown to depend on H-1B skilled workers — and how this delicate balance might be disrupted by U.S. President Donald Trump’s crackdown on legal immigration.

AGI this, AGI that

A GI disturbance is what your arguments are giving me