Hamish van der Ven

"We believe in the power of social to uplift people

Our social impact strategy focuses on positively impacting our employees, customers, communities, and our environment for the long term."
www.hootsuite.com/social-impact

CEOs Say AI Is Making Work More Efficient. Employees Tell a Different Story. How much time workers say the technology saves them on the job is vastly different from what executives report.

The disconnect between management and employee on AI usage is big. At the same time, CEOs are reporting they aren't seeing any revenue growth from AI.

🤷

www.wsj.com/lifestyle/wo...

OpenAI Reportedly Planning to Make ChatGPT "Prioritize" Advertisers in Conversation OpenAI employees working on ChatGPT report plans to unleash sponsored advertisements above organic results.

The effort is a virtual goldmine for OpenAI.

Last few weeks to apply to @forestry.ubc.ca's Dual Master's of Green Business.

- 2 years
- 2 great cities (Helsinki & Vancouver)
- 2 degrees
- Unlimited career possibilities

Apply now: forestry.ubc.ca/future-stude...

YouTube video by Centre for Climate Justice AI and the Politics of Extraction | Centre for Climate Justice

🚨The video recording of the AI and the Politics of Extraction panel is now live! Watch this fascinating 1.5 hour discussion with @naomiaklein.bsky.social, @profwhw.bsky.social, @mysdick.bsky.social, and @profhvdv.bsky.social as they explore the risks of unfettered AI implementation.

Finally something on this argument current and future school teachers keep throwing at me - no, underserved groups are not currently or ever going to benefit from LLMs.

Resisting GenAI and Big Tech in Higher Education Tuesday 25th November 2025 8am - 9:30am PST | 11am -12:30pm EST | 4pm - 5:30pm GMT | 5pm - 6:30pm CET Virtual on Zoom – REGISTER HERE: http://bit.ly/4qE27dB Generative AI is permeating higher education in many different ways—it is increasingly embedded in university work and life, even if we don’t want to use it. But people are also sounding the alarm: Gen AI is disrupting learning and undermining trust in the integrity of academic work, while big tech’s energy consumption, use of water, and rapid expansion of data centers are exacerbating ecological crises. What can we do? How do we resist? Come learn about the environmental, social, economic, and political threats that AI poses and how we can individually and collectively resist and refuse. Learn about how some are challenging the narrative of inevitability. Join this interactive discussion with international scholars and activists on resisting GenAI and big tech in higher education. Inputs from multiple scholar-activists include: Christoph Becker (University of Toronto, Canada), Mary Finley-Brook (University of Richmond, USA), Dan McQuillan (Goldsmiths, University of London, UK), Sinéad Sheehan (University of Galway, Ireland), Jennie Stephens (National University of Ireland Maynooth, Ireland), and Paul Lachapelle (Montana State University, USA). This event will be recorded and is co-sponsored by: Climate Justice Universities Union and Climate Campus Network

Resisting GenAI and Big Tech in Higher Education - Tuesday 25th Nov, free registration, great panel, big focus on climate justice. Register here: lmula.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

Mega Pipelines, Mega Resistance Mega Pipelines, Mega Resistance - Tar Sands, Social Movements, and the Politics of Energy Infrastructure; Mega Pipelines, Mega Resistance reveals how and why social movements have frustrated major pip...

I awoke to the headline this morning that Ottawa and Alberta are reportedly “close” to a deal that includes a new heavy oil pipeline to the northwest coast of BC…

It feels timely to share that my book is out now with UBC Press, available open access

www.ubcpress.ca/mega-pipelin...

💬 Reminder to save your spot for "AI and the Politics of Extraction" at UBC's Centre for Climate Justice. I'm on a panel moderated by Carol Liao, and we will be discussing the complex political and legal issues raised by AI-enabled resource extraction.

🗓️Nov. 20
🕰️2-3:30pm
📍In-Person & Zoom

Can the world quit coal? Nearly a third of all countries worldwide have pledged to phase out their unabated coal-burning power. But China and India are still adding coal plants – for now.

Can the world quit #coal?

#COP30 #energy #ActOnClimate #Brazil #China #India
@matpaterson.bsky.social @leahstokes.bsky.social

theconversation.com/can-the-worl...

Google Has Chosen a Side in Trump's Mass Deportation Effort Google is hosting a CBP app that uses facial recognition to identify immigrants, while simultaneously removing apps that report the location of ICE officials because Google sees ICE as a vulnerable gr...

Whoever said that digital tech is neither bad nor good, just depends on how you use it, should read this article.

www.404media.co/google-has-c...

❗ AI skeptics: don't miss this hybrid event.❗

Register here: climatejustice.ubc.ca/events/event...

I believe this is what those in the biz call a 'flywheel.' Basis for a paper?

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/21/t...

Surging Eco-Anxiety: Consequences for Global Environmental Politics Abstract. Eco-anxiety is surging as environmental crises escalate. As the ecopsychology literature reveals, the effects and intensity of eco-anxiety vary across cultures, circumstances, and personalit...

Do you find the environmental polycrisis spooky? 👻 🎃 You're not alone. Check out my latest article with Peter Dauvergne: Surging Eco-Anxiety: Consequences for Global Environmental Politics. Our conclusions will haaaaaauunt you. 🧛 👿

doi.org/10.1162/GLEP...

Pretends to be shocked
www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/...

This sounds…smart? I’m cautiously optimistic

“AI will help us solve climate change”

Great business model! They have to turn a profit somewhere, right? Get the audience (of lonely and poorly socialized males) addicted on an investor-subsidized product (of personalized porn) and then, slowly but inevitably, turn up the cost.

Towns are saying no to AI data centers. One got sued over it. A developer sued a Michigan township after it voted against a data center proposal. Cities in Ohio and Missouri have explored data center bans.

Proposals to build data centers are facing growing opposition across the country.

Local leaders are weighing concerns about data centers’ water and electricity use with the hefty community investments that developers often offer to sweeten their deals.

Will AI make or break Canada? Podcast Episode · The House · 2025-10-11 · 49m

Nice to be interviewed by CBC's The House. Catch me talking about the environmental impacts of AI around minute 30 here:

podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/t...

AI Data Centers Are an Even Bigger Disaster Than Previously Thought An investment manager realized he made a crucial mistake — and that his grim prediction about AI investments may not have been cynical enough.

I saw the dot coms crash from a front row seat. AI is running out of money way faster.

The evangelism is insecurity from people who made the wrong bet. I’ve seen it before. futurism.com/future-socie...

🚨🚨Conference Alert! Abstract Submissions Due Soon!🚨🚨 “Globalizing Political Economy: Launching the Global Political Economy Network", Happening July 2026, University of British Columbia. Open to all Topics Within a GPE Framework. Lots of Travel Funding Available. Details: tinyurl.com/2nv8st73

AI could ‘destroy nearly 100 million jobs,’ Senate report finds The report identified 20 jobs at significant risk from AI, 15 of which could see more than half of their positions replaced.

—>the report estimated that emerging technologies "could destroy nearly 100 million U.S. jobs in a decade," replacing 47 percent of truck drivers, 64 percent of accountants and 89 percent of fast food and counter workers.

The Case Against Generative AI Soundtrack: Queens of the Stone Age - First It Giveth Before we go any further: This is, for the third time this year, the longest newsletter I've ever written, weighing in somewhere around 18,500 wo...

Newsletter: This is The Case Against Generative AI, a comprehensive analysis of a financial collapse built on myths I’ll dispel, the markets’ unhealthy obsession with NVIDIA's growth, and the fact that there is not enough money in the world to fund OpenAI.
www.wheresyoured.at/the-case-aga...

For those looking for ways to push back against the blind adoption of AI in universities, I recommend this piece: zenodo.org/records/1706...

Too Complex to Fail: The Stability of Global Environmental Governance Beyond Hegemony The recent US disengagement from global governance has revived concerns—first theorized in the 1970s and 1980s—about the vulnerability of international institutions to hegemonic decline. While these ...

🚨 New paper: Will global environmental governance survive Trump?
@rakhyunkim.bsky.social and I argue that its high complexity makes it more resilient than other governance systems. We give hegemonic stability theory a complexity science twist.

📖 Open Access: doi.org/10.1111/1758...

Education report calling for ethical AI use contains over 15 fake sources Experts find fake sources in Canadian government report that took 18 months to complete.

Lmaooooooo

This is very generous and a nice writeup of some of the tech critical media crowd, including yours truly

Social media causes more harm than good We need to stop falling for anti-regulation hysteria if we’re to get control of digital harms

Social media was once positioned as the great connecting force that would improve our world. If it ever did that, it certainly isn’t now.

We must rein in these platforms, and deceptive narratives aimed at stopped regulation isn’t helping. Age restrictions are an experiment worth trying.