Sona Rai

A chatbot for the soul: mental health care, privacy, and intimacy in AI-based conversational agents - Communication and Change Artificial intelligence-based conversational agents—chatbots—are increasingly integrated into telehealth platforms, employee wellness programs, and mobile applications to address structural gaps in me...

🚨NEW PAPER ALERT 🚨 @tamigraph.bsky.social @briana-v.bsky.social and I discuss wellness chatbots, their labor implications, & "private vibes" vs "privacy". We call for critical human-AI communication scholarship that takes into account context & political economy: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Tomorrow! Next in our series w NYPL, D&S ED Janet Haven will talk to @cmcilwain.bsky.social, @juliaangwin.com & @catherinebracy.com about the power and potential of AI in the *public* interest. In-person spots are going fast; reserve yours or join the livestream! www.showclix.com/event/unders...

Packed room and a riveting discussion. @merbroussard.bsky.social describes AI as "mid," a useful deflation of hype & despair.

Cindy Cohn Is Leaving the EFF, but Not the Fight for Digital Rights After 25 years at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Cindy Cohn is stepping down as executive director. In a WIRED interview, she reflects on encryption, AI, and why she’s not ready to quit the battl...

The amazing Cindy Cohn, who we're so lucky to have on the D&S board, is stepping down as executive director of @eff.org after 25 years. We’re grateful for her countless contributions to the field and know she’s nowhere near done standing up for digital rights & justice. www.wired.com/story/eff-ci...

A photo of new D&S board member Felicia Wong, and a quote from her: "Data & Society’s research and policy engagement are critical to building a future where technology can serve people."

We’re delighted that @feliciawong.bsky.social, principal at @rooseveltinstitute.org‬ — and a visionary leader with an unwavering commitment to inclusive, paradigm-shifting economic policy — has joined our board of directors! datasociety.net/announcement...

Yesterday, Governor Polis announced that Colorado’s General Assembly will be convened on August 21, 2025 for a Special Session to address the impacts of the Federal budget bill, H.R.1. 1/7

Decomputing For a Better Future w/ Dan McQuillan — Tech Won't Save Us Paris Marx is joined by Dan McQuillan to discuss the global push by governments to rapidly adopt AI at all costs and how citizens can critically rethink our dependence on these technologies while imag...

i'm so late that i'm a full episode behind but this episode of @techwontsave.us with @danmcquillan.bsky.social is excellent. for everything where AI is presented as "the answer", we must attack the political economy and everything that led anyone to that conclusion

Exclusive: Google is indexing ChatGPT conversations, potentially exposing sensitive user data Thousands of shared ChatGPT chats are now appearing in Google search results.

Google is indexing conversations with ChatGPT that users have sent to friends, families, or colleagues — including those that reveal deeply personal details — turning private exchanges intended for small groups into search results visible to millions. www.fastcompany.com/91376687/goo...

Trump AI Action Plan Raises Legal Questions, Potentially Violates Constitution | TechPolicy.Press ACLU senior policy counsel Cody Venzke says Congress should conduct oversight to ensure agencies stay within legal and constitutional boundaries.

Trump is attempting to forestall state AI regulation. Just like the moratorium that was stricken from the reconciliation package, this attempt threatens significant harm, raises legal questions, and potentially violates the Constitution, writes ACLU senior policy counsel Cody Venzke.

Data Centers Aren’t the Future of American Prosperity Tamara Kneese and Maia Woluchem cut through lobbying points and speculative myths to focus on what the evidence reveals about the tech industry’s claims.

Data Centers Aren't the Future of American Prosperity- @tamigraph.bsky.social & @mwoluchem.bsky.social bust the myths of data centers: they don't massively increase jobs, they don't increase clean energy investment, and they don't benefit local communities! OH SNAP datasociety.net/library/data...

Grateful to @justinhendrix.bsky.social for facilitating this necessary conversation between @smw.bsky.social, Ryan Gerety, and me on why this AI Action Plan is so dangerous and what we can do about it. Listen/read here:

We are working to build a future where technology is governed in the public interest and used to support people and communities, rather than driving surveillance, control, and oppression. Explore our ✨new strategy✨ to learn more about our goals and priorities. datasociety.net/strategy-3/

Brown University to lead national institute focused on intuitive, trustworthy AI assistants A new institute, based at Brown and supported by a $20 million National Science Foundation grant, will convene researchers to guide development of a new generation of AI assistants for use in mental a...

We’re very excited to partner with @brown.edu for this new NSF-funded AI research institute, focused on developing a new generation of AI assistants for use in mental and behavioral health that are capable of trustworthy, sensitive, and context-aware interactions. www.brown.edu/news/2025-07...

🚨New! Data centers aren’t destiny. With the Trump administration set to release its AI action plan, @tamigraph.bsky.social‬ & ‪@mwoluchem.bsky.social‬ cut through lobbying points and speculation to focus on what the evidence reveals about the tech industry’s claims. datasociety.net/library/data...

Today the OpenAI Nonprofit Commission released a report asserting OpenAI is ‘positioned to be a force of good in this Age of Intelligence’. The report also claims that AI Now was among the orgs participating in the listening process that led to this report. We did not.

In NY state, you can have access to Medicaid if you have DACA, so now I am nervous that DACAmented folks will be especially vulnerable.

413. ScamGPT – How AI Supercharges Fraud (ft. Alice Marwick) We chat with Alice Marwick — director of research at Data & Society — about a new report she co-authored on how generative AI is now unleashing a new world of scams and fraud. AI is supercharging ...

On This Machine Kills, Director of Research @alicetiara.bsky.social talks about how generative AI is unleashing a new world of scams and fraud. player.fm/series/this-...

it’s absurd that NYT forced him to delete these skeets, which … convey the factual information that Zohran Mamdani is, in fact, a man of South Asian descent who was born and raised in Africa, and that the pseudonymous source of the hacked material is a white supremacist eugenicist.

Inside the digital publishing industry, which I try to monitor closely, this is the big news. By Julia Alexander at Puck.

Great thread. I grew up in (what I didn’t know was) an unusually diasporically-integrated South Asian-American community, where refugees of South Asian descent from Uganda were anchors of our community alongside immigrants from India, Pakistan & elsewhere. This context is key to understand.

“The increasing role of consumer-oriented technology companies in warfare has implications for everyone — not just those who are targeted by AI weapons,” write Brian J. Chen, Tina M. Park and ‪@pasternack.bsky.social‬. www.techpolicy.press/booming-mili...

In our statement for the record to the House Oversight Committee hearing on government use of AI, we argue that DOGE threatens Americans’ personal privacy and is violating Trump's own AI procurement regulations — and that AI doesn't make government more efficient. datasociety.net/announcement...

YouTube video by The Internet is Crack #33 Built to Divide

Want to hear me talk about harassment, disinformation, and other light-weight, fun filled topics for 45 minutes? I had a great time talking to Seth Camillo and Caroline Risberg for The Internet is Crack pod: www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQvz...

Efforts to prepare for AI’s effects on employment must be grounded in evidence, not speculative futures, @nataliyan.bsky.social‬ writes. “Absent specificity…we risk either inaction or misdirected action on some of the most important issues of our time.” www.techpolicy.press/weaponizing-...

Text on a blue and black background that shows the title of the new Points blog post: "Chatbots in Disguise: How Participants Use GenAI to Hack Qualitative Research" by Ranjit Singh, Livia Garofalo, Briana Vecchione, and Emnet Tafesse. It includes a quote: "For qualitative research, the challenge is no longer just how to collect authentic stories, but how to make sense of truths that arrive mediated, curated, and sometimes co-written by machines."

When D&S researchers Ranjit Singh, @livgar.bsky.social‬, @briana-v.bsky.social‬, and @emnetspeaks.bsky.social‬ set out to interview people about their use of mental health chatbots, they encountered — and were fascinated by — a particular kind of AI-enabled deception. datasociety.net/points/chatb...

🚨BIG STORY: Senators put a line into the crypto bill requiring bankrupt banks to prioritize remunerating crypto investors over depositors.

The provision could require banks to take cash from your savings account & use it to pay senators' crypto donors.

www.levernews.com/cryptos-new-...

The enemy of my enemy is still my enemy but I still like seeing them fight

Join us tomorrow!!

Happy Musk vs Trump day for all those celebrating.