Elf Monk

Rosalind Franklin and the damage of gender harassment Spurred by a recent report on sexual harassment in academia, our columnist revisits a historical case and reflects on what has changed—and what hasn’t

Thinking only of Rosalind Franklin today, and what was stolen from her (and so many other female scientists alongside her).

Michiganders, this is serious business! We're already seeing DTE try to push a new data center through near Ann Arbor and Saline without a chance for public comment! This WILL impact not only our land and water, but our energy bills! SAY NO.

OpenAI pirated large numbers of books and used them to train models.

OpenAI then deleted the dataset with the pirated books, and employees sent each other messages about doing so.

A lawsuit could now force the company to pay $150,000 per book, adding up to billions in damages.

Image of the cover of The Monster Theory Reader which features Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s chapter “Monster Culture (Seven Theses).” There is also an image of Junji Ito’s Creature and a screenshot of Cohen’s seven theses, which are: Thesis I: The Monster's Body Is a Cultural Body; Thesis II: The Monster Always Escapes; Thesis III: The Monster Is the Harbinger of Category Crisis; Thesis IV: The Monster Dwells at the Gates of Difference; Thesis V: The Monster Polices the Borders of the Possible; Thesis VI: Fear of the Monster Is Really a Kind of Desire; Thesis VII: The Monster Stands at the Threshold… of Becoming

#Frankenstein’s monster endures for a reason: because he incorporates many different fears & fantasies, many different theories & possibilities of monstrosity. Indeed, Junji Ito’s interpretation of the Creature embodies each of Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s “seven theses” about what makes a monster. 1/15

The English language trade dress cover for Junji Ito’s Frankenstein.

Junji Ito’s adaptation of Mary Shelley’s #Frankenstein was published in English in 2018 and won an Eisner Award for “Best Adaptation from Another Medium.” It’s both a faithful & idiosyncratic adaptation, showcasing Ito's mastery of horror storytelling within the comics medium.1/8 #Frankenstein

How artists behind Marvel, Alien, and the Matrix movies are fighting AI With solidarity, legislation, class action lawsuits, and a little help from Guillermo del Toro. Plus, the Luddite Renaissance continues, and I open the mailbag.

Artists behind some of the most popular films of all time are also forging one of the most powerful organized resistances to AI.

With solidarity, class action lawsuits and strong legislation, they're fighting to protect their livelihoods, and pop culture, from big tech.

My latest:

Screenshot from Windows Settings>Privacy and Security>Text and image Generation. "Text and image generation uses on-device AI technologies to quickly respond to requests. Turning this settings off will not affect apps and features using cloud AI technologies. Text and image generation Windows and anyone using this device can use Text and image generation.

BY THE WAY

If you've updated to Windows 11 recently, you're probably on version 25H2.

There's a new setting in Settings: Privacy & Security.

Scroll aaaaaaaalll the way to the bottom and you'll see "Text and Image Generation."

TURN IT OFF.

Silicon Valley's capture of our political institutions is all but complete The tech lobby kills off two key California AI bills, and why it matters. Plus: How Sam Altman played Hollywood with Sora 2, organized mass social media deletions, and more.

CA governor Gavin Newsom vetoed both of the major AI bills on his desk that Silicon Valley meaningfully opposed—one making it illegal for bosses to use AI to fire workers with no oversight, one requiring chatbot sellers to ensure their products do not harm children before marketing to them.

The bad brain day has begun. Let's play a game to distract me from my own self-recrimination.

1 like = 1 factoid about WEIRD TALES (1923-1954)

Struzan by himself

RIP the legendary Drew Struzan (1947-2025) 😩

Even though we were expecting the news any day now, it makes me very sad. What an artist.

This week, I was prompted to review The Hunchback of Notre Dame from a genre perspective and I realized it's probably the film I would most recommend for everyone right now, young and old alike.

Frollo is a genocidal potential rapist who gleefully orders law enforcement to murder innocent civilians

Jane Goodall | Biography, Awards, Institute, Books, & Facts | Britannica Jane Goodall is a British ethologist known for her exceptionally detailed and long-term research on the chimpanzees of Tanzania’s Gombe Stream National Park. In 1977 she cofounded the Jane Goodall Ins...

www.britannica.com/biography/Ja...

Jane Goodall, legendary primatologist, has died at age 91 Jane Goodall, primatologist who transformed our understanding of the lives of apes, has died, according to an announcement from the Jane Goodall Institute.

JUST IN: Jane Goodall, primatologist who transformed our understanding of the lives of apes, has died, according to an announcement from the Jane Goodall Institute.

AI is fascism - Halifax Examiner Eventually, fascism runs its course, just as the AI hype machine will. It's just a question of how much damage will be done before it's over.

AI is fascism
Morning File by @timbousquet.bsky.social

photo of paulina borsook

1/ A longtime Wired editor just wrote a mush-brained essay about how he totally missed the political rot of Silicon Valley (& still doesn't get it).

But in the late 1990s, a Wired journalist warned of a toxic ideology bubbling up from tech. Paulina Borsook has largely been erased. Let's change that

It’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day, so here are some things you didn’t* know about pirates (*unless you already did), and which I didn’t know until I read my niece’s Masters dissertation a while back. Firstly – remarkably – pirate ships were democracies with a pretty flat management structure

Artists are losing work, wages, and hope as bosses and clients embrace AI Visual artists, illustrators and graphic designers share their stories about how AI is being used to lower wages, degrade work and even replace it altogether, in this installment of AI Killed My Job.

Freelance illustration gigs drying up. Ad agencies using Midjourney instead of hiring human artists. Costume design turned over to AI wholesale. Good work vanishing.

These are the stories of working visual artists, who describe losing jobs, wages, and hope as their clients and bosses embrace AI.

This is long, but worth it. Some choice quotes:

www.nplusonemag.com/issue-51/the...

>>

Robert Redford, movie star and Sundance founder, dies at 89 He won a massive following with “Butch Cassidy” and “All the President’s Men.” Through the Sundance Institute, he became a patron saint of independent film.

Robert Redford — who was awarded the LCV Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 — was an environmental champion who bravely spoke out against the fossil fuel industry while fighting for clean air and clean water as human rights.

RIP and thank you for all you did for our planet. 💚

Movie star and visionary Robert Redford has died at age 89 A movie star to his core, Robert Redford has died after a visionary career in cinema, including founding the Sundance Institute that transformed the market for independent films.

A movie star to his core, Robert Redford has died after a visionary career in cinema, including founding the Sundance Institute that transformed the market for independent films.

Total porn ban proposed by Michigan lawmakers Some states have moved to require age verification to ensure only adults are watching porn, but no states have outright banned the viewing of pornographic material.

Michigan lawmakers have introduced a bill prohibiting the any "depiction or description" of trans people or trans existence online, including it in a bill banning "pornographic" material

The bill would completely erase trans people online, equating them with porn.

Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task This study explores the neural and behavioral consequences of LLM-assisted essay writing. Participants were divided into three groups: LLM, Search Engine, and Brain-only (no tools). Each completed thr...

arxiv.org/abs/2506.08872

A 200+ page research paper from the University of Warwick, led by Nataliya Kosmyna (et al)

This was published a couple months ago but I've only just had the chance to read it. I highly encourage others to do the same but I wanted to condense some observations in a short 🧵

Oracle and OpenAI Are Full Of Crap This week, something strange happened. Oracle, a company that had just missed on its earnings and revenue estimates, saw a more-than-39% single day bump in its stock, leading a massive market rally. ...

Premium Newsletter: Oracle and OpenAI are full of crap. OpenAI, while claiming it'll make more revenue than NVIDIA by 2030 - needs $250bn in funding to pay its $300bn compute contract with Oracle...who cannot physically build the data centers to service it in time.
www.wheresyoured.at/oracle-openai/

In today’s Senate Commerce Hearing the White House endorsed support for federal preemption of state AI laws. The fight against preemption did not disappear with the moratorium—in fact, Sen. Cruz introduced a bill today putting us directly on the path to preemption. A thread on its risks below: 🧵

Hey I reviewed this for WaPo. It’s extraordinary. www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/0...

Over at my website, I take a look back at collaborating with the great Sal Buscema on SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN.

www.jmdematteis.com/2025/09/spec...

Cognitive scientists and AI researchers make a forceful call to reject “uncritical adoption" of AI in academia A new paper calls on academia to repel rampant AI in university departments and classrooms.

With students heading back to the classroom, a group of cognitive scientists and AI researchers has published one of the most forceful and evidence-backed calls yet to reject the "uncritical adoption of AI" in academia:

The last 48 hours have been surreal here in Kathmandu! Nepal’s youth recently started a viral online campaign exposing and targeting corrupt politicians & their children’s lavish lifestyles while the rest were struggling! Rattled, they tried banning social media altogether and all hell broke loose!

Cory Doctorow: Science Fiction is a Luddite Literature From 1811-1816, a secret society styling themselves “the Luddites” smashed textile machinery in the mills of England. Today, we use “Luddite” as a pejorative referring to backwards, anti-technology…

Luddites asked the questions we all should about any technology:
What the technology does
Who the technology does it for
And who it does it to.

See: locusmag.com/2022/01/cory...
And
www.bloodinthemachine.com

Elements of Creative Writing (2nd edition) | OEN Manifold This free and open access textbook introduces new writers to some basic elements of the craft of creative writing. The authors—Rachel Morgan, Jeremy Schraffenberger, and Grant Tracey—are editors of th...

Putting some open education resources out there for y'all, #WritingCommunity 💛