Mark Hurst

Cutting Out the Middleman SEEMS LIKE EVERYTHING YOU DO NOW, THERE'S SOME TECH BRO TRYING TO GET INVOLVED. Tech bro: HEL-LO! I CAN HELP YOU WRITE THAT LETTER! AND THEY ARE EVERYWHERE. CARS REPORT EVERYTHING YOU DO Phone showing DoorDump app - FOOD DELIVERED THROUGH APP Amazon Echo device - BIG BEZOS IS LISTENING MAYBE IT'S TIME TO CUT OUT THE MIDDLEMEN. HANDWRITTEN LETTERS PRINT MEDIA - Newspaper called The Actually Edited News FLIP PHONES PRE-COMPUTERIZED CARS THEY WOULDN'T LIKE IT. Tech bro: HEY, I'LL DRAW CARTOONS FOR YOU, MAKE DECISIONS, PRETEND I'M YOUR BEST FRIEND--ANYTHING YOU WANT! Woman listening to Sony WALKMAN: AH, PEACE AT LAST. ©2025 Jen Sorensen - Be a subscriber! jensorensen.com/subscribe

A recent comic reflecting thoughts I've been having lately about out-of-control data harvesting and a growing surveillance state.

Three emerging dystopias: money, water, and truth: Techtonic with Mark Hurst Audio & playlist from July 28, 2025

heh @markhurst.bsky.social the other day on his podcast conjectured that ai is going to overwrite original texts (wfmu.org/playlists/sh...)

i don't know that you need ai for that per se but i could definitely see losing a text because the original is destroyed and all the extant copies are altered

It’s almost too perfect that the billboard behind these two confused Waymos says STOP HIRING HUMANS

thanks, Julie :)

Three emerging dystopias: money, water, and truth: Techtonic with Mark Hurst Audio & playlist from July 28, 2025

My new Techtonic episode covers three emerging dystopias: money, water, and truth.

- Money: the scourge of surveillance pricing
- Water: wasting drinking water to create AI slop
- Truth: Big Tech rewriting history with AI

A ton of links and excerpts on the episode page:
wfmu.org/playlists/sh...

Their Water Taps Ran Dry When Meta Built Next Door

per data center... "A data center like Meta’s, which was completed last year, typically guzzles around 500,000 gallons [2.2 million liters] of water a day. New data centers [will] require millions of gallons of water a day."

Gift link below:
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/14/t...

reminds me of what @ladyjimrockford.bsky.social posted - bsky.app/profile/lady...

We've all seen inflatable "tube men" outside car dealerships.

Here's a new design specifically made for Tesla dealerships.

From the late 1930s, a description of the 2020s (posted by John Mark Newman on the bird site):

Bookplate with a series of six images illustrating a stick figure from the purchase of their first book to their books being unceremoniously tossed after death. Text reads "EX LIBRIS KNUD SCHØNBERG"

Are YOU the most depressing book plate ever? YES, You ARE!

Dreams - Su Shi (trans. Arthur Waley) Families, when a child is born Want it to be intelligent. I, through intelligence, Having wrecked my whole life, Only hope the baby will prove Ignorant and stupid. Then he will crown a tranquil life By becoming a Cabinet Minister.

Here's a poem by one of the old Chinese scholar bureaucrats that I think captures a certain Vibe very well

The White House orders tech companies to make AI bigoted again War is peace, bias is objectivity, speech is censorship.

“LLMs produce incontrovertibly incorrect information with clear potential for real-world harm; they can falsely identify innocent people as criminals, misidentify poisonous mushrooms, and reinforce paranoid delusions. This order has nothing to do with any of that.”

Back in April I wrote the essay "AI is creating a frictionless surveillance state":
buttondown.com/creativegood...

Now look at @bcmerchant.bsky.social's post below.

It's coming true.

Matt Foley and a Van Down By the River in Starry Night Over the Rhône by Vincent Van Gogh.

fictional characters in paintings: thread

perfectly stated

Privacy scholar Daniel Solove: "We're entering a dark age" I was happy to speak with Daniel Solove on Techtonic this week about his new book On Privacy and Technology. It’s a short, readable book covering all the...

A credit-reporting agency falsely claimed people were terrorists. When the citizens sued, guess who the courts sided with.

I spoke w/ @daniel-solove.bsky.social on techtonic.fm about how our privacy is being destroyed. Often, he says, "the law is the villain."
buttondown.com/creativegood...

SAYNO to WAYMO.

something Ricken would probably try out

Hacker Plants Computer 'Wiping' Commands in Amazon's AI Coding Agent The wiping commands probably wouldn't have worked, but a hacker who says they wanted to expose Amazon’s AI “security theater” was able to add code to Amazon’s popular ‘Q’ AI assistant for VS Code, whi...

If Amazon's AI coding assistant deletes everything on your computer, what are the chances Amazon is going to take any responsibility?

Serious question. Because that moment is coming for someone.

www.404media.co/hacker-plant...

Amazon buys Bee AI wearable that listens to everything you say Amazon is getting into AI wearables.

Big Tech used to say "heavens, no, we'd never listen to your conversations" -

but now Big Tech says "we're excited to sell a device that listens to your conversations"

www.theverge.com/news/711621/...

To have been told for years by conservatives and neoliberals that we don't need government regulation to reign in carbon emissions because innovative technology will eventually solve the climate crisis, only to see the entirety of big tech go whole hog into environmental destruction for AI. 🙃

How a Video Studio Embraced A.I. and Stormed the Internet

“Calling them ‘filmmakers’ is insulting to people who actually make films.”

That's a comment on this NYT article about a genAI video studio.

Gift link:
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/18/t...

Sorry we have to ration your water... we used all the water for images in the story about how AI is taking up all the water

Inside the Silicon Valley push to breed super-babies Investors say genetic prediction services for embryos, used by Elon Musk and others, are a trust fund for future children. Many scientists are skeptical.

Oh, you mean eugenics.

Customer service is broken – and other news It turns out there’s a word for the hassle forced on consumers by customer service departments. It’s called sludge. I learned this from an article by Chris...

New from me: Customer service is broken - and other news (prompt theory conspiracy, LLMs are not minds, iPhone privacy tip, and more).
buttondown.com/creativegood...

Zuck building a monument to Cthulhu the size of Manhattan powered by poison to save his empire, etc

🤬

Data Center Water Usage: A Comprehensive Guide Data centers use significant amounts of water for their cooling systems and this usage is gaining recognition in water-stressed regions of the world.

There are several types of data center cooling systems that require water, but yeah mostly they're being extremely inefficient.
dgtlinfra.com/data-center-...

“Because electricity is more costly for data centers than water, companies often prioritize building their facilities in places with cheap power, even if the area is drought stricken.”

From the explainlikeimfive community on Reddit Explore this post and more from the explainlikeimfive community

Explanation of how datacenters use up water (and don't just recycle it):
www.reddit.com/r/explainlik...

(via @candidgamera.bsky.social )