dr corinne cath (ccs) is in London

““The low-hanging-fruit era of tech, where earlier consumer-facing software businesses were easier to build and printing money, it just feels over,” said Sheel Mohnot, a general partner at the venture capital firm Better Tomorrow Ventures in San Francisco.”

Silicon Valley Is in Its ‘Hard Tech’ Era

There is a shift happening in tech, from social media consumer facing to “hard tech” and civil society is miles behind on some of this

We need to understand B2B tech, defense tech, and hard tech (GPUs) and unstuck our selves from questions of social media — or we’ll be even more on the backfoot

It is pretty noticeable that even as mainstream opinion on Israel and Gaza finally shifts, you don’t hear the Responsible Adults apologizing for punishing all the college kids protesting the atrocities. Quite the opposite in fact!

OpenAI’s ChatGPT Agent Is Haunting My Browser New tools from OpenAI and Perplexity can browse the web for you. If the idea takes off, these generative AI agents could turn the internet into a ghost town where only bots roam.

New tools from OpenAI and Perplexity can browse the web for you. If the idea takes off, these generative AI agents could turn the internet into a ghost town where only bots roam.

Woman in long dress is looking out the window.

Can genAI start-ups really challenge #BigTech's dominance? 🧐

🔎 We analysed 12 start-ups' value chains and what we found is clear:

They're highly dependent on Big Tech companies, particularly Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Nvidia.

Read our full analysis: www.somo.nl/the-real-win...

Digital sovereignty can’t be bargained away The European Commission has tools, public support and a mandate to act on Big Tech. Trading that away for short-term calm would be a costly mistake.

New poll shows huge majorities of Europeans--74% of Von Der Leyen's own CDU--want a tough stance on Big Tech.

This is no time to roll over. Tech is vital infrastructure, and it can be ours again--with a three-part play:

Break, build, enforce.

w/ @robin.berjon.com: www.politico.eu/article/digi...

Worth a watch:

Head of Signal, Meredith Whittaker, on so-called "agentic AI" and the difference between how it's described in the marketing and what access and control it would actually require to work as advertised.

If you were too young in 2003 here is what Bush told the American people:

1) The Iraq War won’t cost a lot of money
3) We won’t need a lot of troops
4) We’ll bring peace and freedom to Iraq
5) We’ll find WMDs
6) We’ll be welcomed as liberators
7) It will be easy
8) It won’t take long

All lies.

World War 3 kinda sucks, but you know, it was either this or pronouns

Favourite quote

“Technological change cannot be revolutionary if it fails to change the social and political structures of a society and instead heightens inequalities and divisions that are already present”

🚨BREAKING: More than two thirds of us have less freedom of expression now than a decade ago.

That’s 5.6 billion people.

Dive into our Global Expression Report 2025 – out today: www.globalexpressionreport.org

🇪🇺 The EU is at a crossroads on digital infrastructure. Calls for European 'digital sovereignty' are multiplying. But how do we get there? Is it even the right aim? 🤔

Join leading voices discussing approaches for Europe's digital future. 📅 Fri, June 20, 6-7:30pm CEST

www.aim4dem.nl/events/

a man holding a sign that says look out on it ALT: a man holding a sign that says look out on it

and believe it or not, laughs were had too -- even when the times are a-changing

#AIGovernance #FundamentalRights #DigitalRights #CPDP2025 #EUPolicy

EU: The Times They Are A-Changin – AI governance at a crossroads - ARTICLE 19 ‘Come gather round people wherever you roam / And admit that the waters around you have grown,’ Bob Dylan sang sixty years ago. At the annual Computers, Privacy and Data Protection (CPDP) conference i...

TLDR: Europe needs AI governance that inverts the relationship between technology and society - developing tech that serves structural justice and fundamental rights, not the other way around.

Read our full analysis here:

www.article19.org/resources/eu...

Our @article19.bsky.social #CPDP panel asked if the EU is sacrificing human rights for "competitiveness" in #AI governance

We heard from

🔹 Dr. Seda Gürses (TU Delft)
🔹 Maria Donde (Coimisiún na Meán)
🔹 Kai Zenner (EP Digital Policy)
🔹 Dr. Maria Luisa Stasi (ARTICLE 19)
🔹 Bob Dylan (yes, really)

It’s not human rights but stone cold geopolitics, with a friendly user interface

Introducing OpenAI for Countries A new initiative to support countries around the world that want to build on democratic AI rails.

#OpenAI’s “AI on democratic rails” sounds cute—until you realize the first track runs through the UAE. Behind the branding is a US-controlled #AI stack, sold as #sovereignty but wired for leverage.

openai.com/global-affai...

I can’t speak for anyone else, but this analogy of “Lady Liberty’ held captive, is exactly how I feel about this presidency & administration and what their attempting to do with our rights and freedoms…

The New Yorker captured the feelings perfectly…

One word, UNACCEPTABLE!

I've seen folks talk about how "in four years" they'll be able to get back to their planned projects and I really don't think that's going to work out. People & projects losing funding now will not be able to hit pause and come back once funding is restored. Hard-won progress & capacity will be lost

train work how?

[Anthropic CRO Dario Amodei]

It's like a death cult

📢2025 DMA Enforcement Symposium: Call for Abstracts 📢

The call for abstracts for our 3rd annual Brussels symposium is LIVE. We’re looking for critical assessments of gatekeepers’ compliance with obligations and their impact on users' rights, enforcement structure and procedural issues, and more.

a puppet of mark zuckerberg says hi i 'm zucky in a dark room ALT: a puppet of mark zuckerberg says hi i 'm zucky in a dark room

GAFAM spells MAGA, if you squint.

Happy Monday in 2025 all!

#gafam #tech #2025

Dune = Elon ❤️

With a hard exercise first: is this quote by a tech bro or from sci-fi?

Look at this one, and tell me

My fav session at #CPDP25 this far is happening now:

How dystopian sci-fi books have been misread by tech bros and fueled their tech visions of the future

Republicans snuck an amendment into this bill to ban Affordable Care Act insurance plans from covering abortion care.

This is part of their play for a national abortion ban, in the middle of the night, and ripping healthcare away from millions.

E.U. Offers Emergency Funding for Radio Free Europe After Trump Cuts

The E.U. offers emergency financing for Radio Free Europe, but the amount falls way short of what's needed for it to stay afloat. “In a time of growing, unfiltered content, independent journalism is more important than ever,” says @kajakallas.bsky.social

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/21/w...