Mike Zajko

CSE's response to the Snowden-related "airport wifi" story argues that to "ensure we are not targeting Canadians" metadata from Canadians must be collected to help distinguish foreign/Canadian targets -- this distinction cannot be made before collection

As we saw in the Snowden disclosures, domestic surveillance can often be justified as the hunt for foreign intelligence targets. Canada's CSE made a similar argument about why it was collecting data within Canada

OpenAI connection to Tumbler Ridge tragedy puts balance between privacy and public safety in the spotlight OpenAI’s decision not to alert law enforcement of its concerns about a user who went on to commit a mass murder has raised questions about how to balance privacy, surveillance, and public safety.

I said some things: betakit.com/openai-conne...

Amazon would rather blame its own engineers than its AI Protect the robot, sacrifice the human opinion  I've been watching AWS explain away outages for the better part of a decade. And this is hard!…

Amazon would rather blame its own engineers than its AI

This talk is next Friday! Come say hi in-person at Amii HQ if you're in Edmonton, or join online using the Zoom info on this page: sites.google.com/ualberta.ca/...

Just trying to read this Time story about AI infiltrating almost every aspect of our lives and the backlash against it, when this chatbot starts coming after me

Are We Still Human? Günther Anders in the Age of Automation

Want to learn more about Günther Anders & Chris Mueller's wonderful translation of Anders' book 'The Obsolescence of the Human'? Join Chris, @morbuscriticus.bsky.social & me for a webinar hosted by The Philosopher on March 2nd. Details & registration below www.thephilosopher1923.org/events/are-w...

We like your sounds, but do they come in 3D?

Bengio argues "The protection of human joy and endeavour” should be "at the heart of every AI frontier system". Concerned about "progress" toward AGI and "deception" by agential AI, LawZero seeks to develop a "non-agentic and trustworthy AI" yoshuabengio.org/2025/06/03/i...

Clearview AI lost in the BC Court of Appeals today. They tried to argue that the Personal Information Privacy Act was constitutionally inapplicable to their practice of scraping the internet for facial data. This is a win for all British Columbians.

Link: www.bccourts.ca/jdb-txt/ca/2...

Is 'slop studies' a field yet?

An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me – More Things Have Happened Context: An AI agent of unknown ownership autonomously wrote and published a personalized hit piece about me after I rejected its code, attempting to damage my reputation and shame me into acceptin…

the whole story is delightfully very 2026. I recommend reading the blog post by the engineer in question:

Safari Surveillance: A Reflection on Seeing and Being Seen in Kruger National Park In this post, Julia Rootenberg reflects on a recent trip to Kruger National Park and the surveillant landscape.

"Safari Surveillance: A Reflection on Seeing and Being Seen in Kruger National Park" by Julia Rootenberg.

Love to see this new post in the Surveillance & Society blog, _blink. #surveillance #wildlife #Kruger

medium.com/surveillance...

Also, including me.

YouTube video by Azifm - Topic easy 2 love

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

man, what a bummer

Canada’s new AI strategy is off to a bad start | BetaKit Canadians already have low trust in AI. Exclusionary and unclear public engagement methods aren’t helping.

My new article on Canada's recent AI strategy consultation. Lightning-fast engagement, dubious data protection measures, black box analysis, & AI-generated summaries from made-in-USA LLMs are not a winning strategy for building public trust

betakit.com/canadas-new-...

Feels like wishful thinking at this point, but I can definitely imagine humans (or Potemkin AI) renting other humans for things that are not good

Look, some of the models they used were Canadian 🍁

AI is

an attempt at the immortalization of superiority

an attempt at dehumanization

an attempt at the ultimate Othering

if left in the hands of the elite

How Bad Are A.I. Delusions? We Asked People Treating Them.

In my work as a teacher and moderator of SocArXiv, I encounter people who seem deluded, having been led to believe their ideas are brilliant by chatbots, and want my validation. We may need professional guidance for these interactions, as I am sometimes not sure what is the best response. Gift link:

Feels good to cite some good sci-fi in an academic publication. Like all the reading I do about spaceships and robots is actually justifiably 'work' after all...

The Canadian 🇨🇦 govt, and its Minister of AI and Innovation, is rushing headlong into full blown AI.

All gas, no brakes, no real consultation

So we're launching the People’s Consultation on AI

You can find out more here 👇:

www.peoplesaiconsultation.ca/news-updates/

Canada's pension plan invested $416 million in Musk's deepfake porn-generating AI The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) ploughed about $416 million last year into xAI, Elon Musk's AI company. The money helped fund the billionaire's push to build three of the world's larg...

www.nationalobserver.com/2026/01/20/n...

Dan is absolutely right. It's a gift. It's a mockery of global governance. Canada's participation will only serve to legitimize it. bsky.app/profile/dhne...

Ah, I thought it was drowning in data

Canada and Denmark sign deal to divide uninhabited Arctic island | CBC News Canada and Denmark have reached an agreement to divide a tiny uninhabited island in the Arctic, ending a nearly 50-year-long international dispute between two friendly countries.

www.cbc.ca/news/politic... Remember the 50-year “Whiskey War”over Hans Island? Canada would periodically plant its flag and leave a bottle of whiskey but the Danes would then replace it with their own and a bottle of schnapps. Good neighbours.

Evan Solomon Wants Canada to Trust AI. Can We Trust Evan Solomon? | The Walrus The journalist-turned-minister says the tech will make us richer and regulation should be “light”

Canada’s AI Minister “has been accused of naively embracing AI rather than working to mitigate its harms, and of listening mostly to voices from the tech sector—those who stand to benefit most from rapid AI adoption.”

Good article on the issues with Evan Solomon’s approach to tech and AI.

The mirage of AI deregulation One of the most interventionist approaches to technology governance in the United States in a generation has cloaked itself in the language of deregulation. In early December 2025, President Donald Tr...

🧵 Trump administration AI policy is widely described as deregulatory. This description is misleading. What's happening is not the absence of governance but its rearrangement--intensive state intervention operating through mechanisms we don't typically call regulation. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Is AI More Like a Mind or a Market? A group of scholars argue we should think of it as a “social technology” akin to a bureaucracy, a democracy or a marketplace.

Hayek's (Arguably More Legitimate) Children www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

I'm co-chairing the Society for Social Studies of Science @4sweb.bsky.social Conference in Toronto, Oct 2026. #STS #scipol #innovation

Theme: "TechnoPower • Technoscientific Futures".

Open panel submissions portal is open! ls!

Deadline: 2nd February 2026

www.4sonline.org/about_the_co...