Hypervisible

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Every Reason Why I Hate AI and You Should Too maybe it's anti-innovation, maybe it's just avoiding hype. But one thing is clear, I'm completely done with hearing about AI.

You saw this, yes? malwaretech.com/2025/08/ever...

Oh that’s very good news.

if I ever get quoted about this stuff I would like to be identified not as a skeptic but as a hater

Goals!

Doesn’t miss!

I’m so angry about this. This is the teacher’s union taking money from AI companies to push their marketing materials. Massively letting down its members.

Surveillance Podcast Episode · Politechs · S1 E4 · 1h 13m

Had a lot of fun talking to Ray and Josh for this episode. If you are in a mood to listen to me rant rather than read skeets, give it a listen.

Will New AI Academy Help Teachers or Just Improve Tech’s Bottom Line? AFT says its AI training initiative will modernize teaching, while critics say it’s ‘a gigantic public experiment that no one has asked for.’

“…ed-tech critic and AI skeptic Audrey Watters called AFT’s partnership with the tech companies ‘a gigantic public experiment that no one has asked for.’”

And with these AI flash card creation tools… one of the main benefits of creating flash cards is the thought process of making the cards. Seeing them just as tools to memorize possible test answers is just a way to use AI tools to “teach to the test.”

If your Ai study tools claims it will “personalize towards a learning style,” I have to assume you have no idea what you are talking about. Can I really trust all the “guardrails” you have in place against “hallucinations”? Ever stop to wonder why you need so many in the first place?

We're joined this week by Dr. Chris Gilliard (@hypervisible.bsky.social), Co-Director of the Critical Internet Studies Institute to talk about what generative AI means for surveillance, and how this technology disproportionately harms marginalised groups:

politechs.dev/episodes/ai-...

Four Leading Scholars and Advocates Join EPIC’s Advisory Board <p>Today the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) announced the addition of four members to its Advisory Board.</p>

Congrats to CISI Co-Director @hypervisible.bsky.social on joining the @epic.org Advisory Board! epic.org/four-leading...

Surveillance Podcast Episode · Politechs · S1 E4 · 1h 13m

For an update on Chris' work with CISI, check out this new podcast via @politechs.bsky.social. Remember: Don't give the gift of surveillance! @hypervisible.bsky.social podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...

Thank you!!!

I know drones better not be first responders to mental health wellness checks.

The Rise of Silicon Valley’s Techno-Religion

“When you think about the billions at stake and the radical transformation of lives across the world because of the eccentric vision of this group, how much more cult-y does it have to be for this to be a cult? Not much…”

Retro futurist art of a city with blimps and people swimming through the air

We’re meant to take them seriously when all they are selling is rehashed 1950s fantasies of the future.

Police nationwide are embracing a new first responder: Drones Police tout the “Drone as First Responder” technology as life-saving for officers and community members, while critics raise surveillance and privacy concerns.

“So the idea that we should all be assured that law enforcement is just saying, ‘Don’t worry, it’s only for a narrow purpose’ flies in the face of what’s happened historically.”

Meet the Gen Zers who have sworn off AI — and ask their friends to do the same Some Gen Zers are firmly rejecting AI tools in their daily lives. We talked to four people, ages 23-27, who explained why they won't touch the tech.

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No one ever asks “how”

The cool thing about this claim is that any objection you have or problem you point out just means you don’t have enough faith in the machine that doesn’t exist (but definitely will real soon)

In other words, we are in the final few years of pre-AGI civilisation, after which nothing may ever be the same again. To some the prospect is apocalyptic, to others, like Hassabis, it’s utopian. “Assuming we steward it safely and responsibly into the world, and obviously we’re trying to play our part in that, then we should be in a world of what I sometimes call radical abundance,” says Hassabis. He paints a picture of medical advances, room-temperature superconductors, nuclear fusion, advances in materials, mathematics. “It should lead to incredible productivity and therefore prosperity for society. Of course, we’ve got to make sure it gets distributed fairly, but that’s more of a political question. And if it is, we should be in an amazing world of abundance for maybe the first time in human history, where things don’t have to be zero sum. And if that works, we should be travelling to the stars, really.” Is he getting too close to his own technology? There are so many issues around AI, it’s difficult to know where to even begin: deepfakes and misinformation; replacement of human jobs; vast energy consumption; use of copyright material, or simply AI deciding that we humans are expendable and taking matters into its own hands.

“We are going to create a machine that solves all our problems” is a preposterous assertion and should be treated as such. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

🤦🏿‍♂️

It's almost as if students are complete human beings and have the ability to just decide not to do something. Unlike the machines they want to compare and equivocate humans to.

A Generation Is Turning to ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ for Botox and Concert Tickets Young Americans are turning to easy, high-interest loan products. Research shows some are spending more.

“Companies like Affirm and Klarna can extend loans as large as $20,000, offering annual interest rates ranging from zero to 36%.” 😮

It's not worth it if having a stance is worth anything.

Me on why I'm not on Substack (or barely):

I’m not engaging with art on an output level. I don’t care how fast the machine does a thing or how many paintings or books the machine can produce. I’m looking at art as the creative evidence of human creativity and depth. If a machine does it instead, it says nothing to me. It means nothing.

Going to start calling chatbots sycophancy as a service.

Im epileptic.
Im a historian of disability and medicine.
Ive taught eugenics histories for over a decade.
This ad is the perfect example of how certain kinds of eugenicist discourse about genes have been normalized, and I will be using it in lectures.
It is not a made up controversy.