Christopher English

AI sucks

AI sucks

Tech companies are stealing our books, music and films for AI. It’s brazen theft and must be stopped | Anna Funder and Julia Powles If we don’t refuse and resist, not just our culture but our democracy will be irrevocably diminished

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Fierce and factual from Anna Funder and @juliapowles.bsky.social

I respect Anil so I want to talk seriously about harm reduction and public health messaging.

First let me acknowledge that yes, many regular, not-super-online people are trying out AI tools. Of course they are! It's been aggressively pushed into everything and given heavy institutional support.

The Death of Meanjin Price of everything, value of nothing dept.

The Death of Meanjin. a couple of thoughts. open.substack.com/pub/greenwor...

AI sucks

AI sucks

I know it was a trainwreck interview, but I couldn't get past the point that we need to be like the US when it's not a settled issue in the US at all...

Incredible facts about Barrow Island There is no public access to Barrow Island as it is listed as a Class A Nature Reserve. It is home to 24 species and subspecies found nowhere else on Earth. Barrow Island is home to Boodie Cave, which is one of Australia's oldest archaeological sites and contains evidence of humans from 46,200 to 51,100 years ago. US energy giant Chevron was permitted to build its $54 billion Greater Gorgon gas extraction project on the island.

From a story about a new species of pseudoscorpion, this sort of highlighted the management of Australia in a nutshell

au.news.yahoo.com/incredible-p...

Should big tech be allowed to mine Australians’ text and data to train AI? The Productivity Commission is considering it Interim report on digital economy also mulls changes to privacy rules and copyright collections to help harness AI’s benefits

Idk why the productivity commission believes productivity can be derived by giving away other people's labour for free to companies with way too much money. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

AI sucks

a graphic featuring asort of zombie long armed creature, with an ant's head, and the words 'intaturalist zombie ant' on a plaster in front of a cricuit board thing

"The announcement was 782 words, followed by a nervous clarification of 731 words. The page featured 48,320 words of comments in just 24 hours"

Here's a new one for @crikey.com.au trying to figure out why the presence of backlash to "AI" is so weirdly uneven ->

www.crikey.com.au/2025/06/23/i...

People Are Becoming Obsessed with ChatGPT and Spiraling Into Severe Delusions A startling number of ChatGPT uses are developing intense, reality-bending AI delusions. The impacts on their real lives are often disastrous.

A startling number of ChatGPT uses are developing intense, reality-bending AI delusions. The impacts on their real lives are often disastrous

I’ve added two more, inspired by some responses.

US climate scientists need all the help they can get. Including from foul-mouthed comedians! 🤡😱😱

Watch Emmy Award-Winning David Cross team up with Prof Michael Oppenheimer in the US launch of the hit series "Climate Science Translated".

#climate #arresteddevelopment #climatescience

This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI The tool, called Nightshade, messes up training data in ways that could cause serious damage to image-generating AI models.

This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI | MIT Technology Review

YouTube video by Cambridge Disinformation Summit Belllingcat CEO Eliot Higgins, on how disordered discourse is destroying democracy

I've just come back from the Cambridge Disinformation Summit where I gave the opening keynote, titled "Demanufacturing Consent - How Disordered Discourse is Destroying Democracy", featuring everything from Fake Hooves to Jackson Hinkle being the worst.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-FV...

🧵 There’s a thread going around misrepresenting my work and Bellingcat’s education strategy. I want to use this as an opportunity to explain what we’re actually doing—and why it matters.

This is about truth, democracy, and how we build a more resilient society.
x.com/buynevich/st...

My protests against AI make me feel like a total loser, but not in the way you think Big tech companies are seeing their power consumption skyrocket far faster than any greenwashing actions they can take to pretend that power is ‘clean’.

"We are surrounded by cheerful, grinning volunteers, all willingly punting own-goals against the fossil-fuelled bullshit factories. It seems like nothing is going to stop them, so it’s time regulation did the job instead"

Me, in @crikey.com.au, feeling like a total loser:

Page against the machine With the inexorable rise of AI – in everyday tech, in public and private communications, in our universities – the value and distinctness of the written word is under siege

“These are words with nothing behind them. They have no purchase on reality, no logical coherence, no meaningful information to convey. They are greasy bubbles that pop the moment they touch anything.” James Ley on UNSW’s announcement of a deal with OpenAI

Truth and lies, trust and doubt: how should we be navigating the misinformation crisis?

We’re facing a crisis in public trust – in institutions and the information they feed us.

Chart showing how much dissolved inorganic nitrogen is produced each year: Tas salmon farms - 4,193tonnes, Tas sewage - 755 tonnes

It's enough to give you the sh*ts. @rodcampbell.bsky.social reveals that Tasmanian salmon farms produce 6 times more pollution than all of Tasmania's sewage #OffTheCharts
australiainstitute.org.au/post/the-big...

Have we passed peak intelligence?

In international tests, student scores for reading and maths sunk to a new low.

US teens are struggling to concentrate & evaluate information.

The excellent @jburnmurdoch.ft.com

Warning: this thread is dark 🧵

What we’re witnessing in America is what happens when disordered discourse captures a political party, then the state itself. The Republican Party was the first to fall - abandoning truth for conspiracy, ideology for grievance, and policy for performative outrage.

From Creative Australia to Sydney writers’ festival, the direct threat facing the arts is coming from within | Louise Adler In this adapted extract from What’s the Big Idea? Louise Adler looks at the failure of Australian cultural leaders shying from risk and artistic vision – and letting the tail wag the dog

From Creative Australia to Sydney writers’ festival, the direct threat facing the arts is coming from within:
Louise Adler

www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Labor hasn’t delivered on more effective nature laws. It’s not just embarrassing, it’s calamitous | Tim Winton As Ningaloo reef bleaches and an election looms, we must look to those who stand in the way of our safety – the small cohort of people profiting from fossil fuels, and the politicians who protect them

The major parties don't have the moral courage to protect the people and places we love.

This election is an opportunity to vote for a candidate who will. Minority govt may be the only thing that forces the Govt to put 🇦🇺ns ahead of vested interests.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Albanese’s inaction drives his own party towards extinction Under Anthony Albanese, Labor gives the ever stronger impression that it has never seen a corporation that it won’t prostrate itself to.

Superbly written and absolutely not f*cking around. Scathing and brilliant: www.theage.com.au/politics/fed...

The mystery is not why we Irish have responded to Israel’s barbarism. It’s why others have not I don’t believe in the idea of being on the right side of history. The histories of the future are none of our concern. Our concern is the present

"Why should Ireland be a special case? Perhaps I flatter myself, but I’d like to think that even if I were British, or American, or German, or Dutch, I would still be able to look at the campaign of slaughter and destruction Israel is waging, and see it for the moral outrage that it is."

The failure of figure-hugging future-skivvies. Sometimes, needing inspiration, I’ll hang out in a bookstore.

The end of the future and the triumph of fantasy.