Rakesh Sengupta

Rakesh Sengupta

@rakeshsengupta.bsky.social

Assistant Professor, University of Toronto. Film and media studies. He/him.

631 Followers 185 Following 14 Posts Joined Oct 2023
1 day ago
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'AI Is African Intelligence': The Workers Who Train AI Are Fighting Back Kenyan workers are still the underpaid labor behind AI training, moderation, and sex chatbots. The Data Labelers Association is fighting back.

“AI can never be AI without humans. It is not artificial intelligence. It’s African intelligence...We are training our own death. We train ChatGPT and it’s killing us slowly.”

Kenyan workers are still the underpaid labor behind AI training, moderation, and sex chatbots. Now, they're fighting back.

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2 months ago
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Amsterdam was lovely as always.

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2 months ago
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Great to be back at my old workplace for the GenAI & Creative Practices conference. Thanks so much to @tpoell.bsky.social and the wonderful organizing team for two terrific days of timely conversations.

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8 months ago
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It is really just an unspeakably beautiful thing that a socialist was able to defeat the nexus of the world's most curdled billionaires for mayor of New York

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9 months ago
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You’re here and not necessarily hearing / reading the experiences of Palestinians in Gaza in real time.

Here are just some of the tweets from Palestinians in Gaza as Israel turns this into one of the bloodiest nights of the genocide.

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10 months ago
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Three things we learned about Sam Altman by scoping his kitchen All Drizzle, no sizzle

This is a little bit genius: an analysis of OpenAI based on a close reading of a 22-second video of CEO Sam Altman cooking pasta. “His kitchen is a catalogue of inefficiency, incomprehension, and waste.” [ft.com]

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10 months ago
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'How come I can’t breathe?': Musk's data company draws a backlash in Memphis The company’s turbines — enough to power 280,000 homes — run without emission controls in an area that leads Tennessee in asthma hospitalizations.

Poisoning the air of a Black community for a fucking chatbot.

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10 months ago
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The AI jobs crisis is here, now It's not coming, it has already arrived.

The AI jobs crisis is not coming—it's here right now. It just might not look the way many thought it would.

www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-ai-job...

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10 months ago
Pierre Poilievre declared defeated in his seat

can’t tell you how much joy i get from seeing pierre poilievre lost his seat

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10 months ago
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How Big Tech hides its outsourced African workforce New data reveals the hidden network of African workers powering AI, as they push for transparency from the global companies that employ them indirectly.

New data reveals just how many African workers are indirectly employed in the tech sector, doing outsourced jobs like content moderation, customer service, and data annotation for AI models
restofworld.org/2025/big-tec...

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10 months ago
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Photographer Fatima Hassona killed ahead of Cannes documentary debut The Palestinian photojournalist Fatima Hassona, killed along with ten family members in an Israeli air strike on her home in northern Gaza, is the star of a documentary due to be screened at the Cannes film festival next month.

"In an earlier post, she wrote: "As for the inevitable death, if I die, I want a loud death, I don't want me in a breaking news story, nor in a number with a group, I want a death that is heard by the world, a trace that lasts forever, and immortal images that neither time nor place can bury."

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10 months ago
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Leaked: Palantir’s Plan to Help ICE Deport People Internal Palantir Slack chats and message boards obtained by 404 Media show the contracting giant is helping find the location of people flagged for deportation, that Palantir is now a “more mature pa...

New from 404 Media: we've obtained a leak from inside Palantir describing Palantir's plan to help ICE find people to deport. Includes peoples' location. Palantir is expecting a backlash, preparing comments for employees to tell their family. Says ICE "mature partner"

www.404media.co/leaked-palan...

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10 months ago

Such a shameful capitulation to Hindutva’s manufactured victimhood, modelled on the same lobbyist playbook for silencing all criticism and dissent. The Empire’s multicultural facade is now an open endorsement of caste discrimination.

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11 months ago
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Palestinian Student Leader Was Called In for Citizenship Interview — Then Arrested by ICE Palestinian Columbia student leader Mohsen Mahdawi was called in for a citizenship interview. Instead, ICE arrested him for deportation.

SCOOP: Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi went into an interview today hoping he would come out a U.S. citizen. Instead, ICE arrested him. theintercept.com/2025/04/14/i...

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11 months ago
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Palestinian Scholarship

Please share in your networks. Goldsmiths, UoL are offering 5 scholarships in Undergrad & MA courses for Palestinian students. The scholarships include: tuition fee waiver, £19,550 allowance, return trip to & from the UK.
Eligibility details & further info at link👇🏽
www.gold.ac.uk/fees-funding...

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11 months ago
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BREAKING— Last week, while Israel re-escalated its genocide in Gaza, Google Cloud acquired Israeli start-up Wiz, signaling Google's continued investment in Israel and its commitment to genocide profiteering.

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11 months ago
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Can you spare a minute to help this campaign? Global Filmmakers call for the release of Hamdan Ballal

Will @theacademyusa.bsky.social use its worldwide prominence to speak up for an Oscar-winning director? Hamdan Ballal was attacked and seriously injured—and the IDF arrested HIM while he was in the ambulance. No charges, no sign of him since. Where are you, AMPAS? chng.it/dzMJYfSbqM

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11 months ago
In memoriam photo of Jonathan Sterne (1970-2025)

It is with profound sadness that we mourn the passing of Jonathan Sterne, an extraordinary scholar whose groundbreaking work transformed the fields of sound studies, media theory, and the cultural study of technology.

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11 months ago

Indeed, Carrie is so wonderful and brilliant. Amazing that you had them both as professors!

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11 months ago
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Jonathan Sterne performing in Montréal, Fall 2022.

An absolute titan of the field and one of the very best human beings I’ve come across in academia (and I was never formally a student or colleague).

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11 months ago
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WATCH | Australian medic Muhammad Mustafa describes the aftermath of last night’s attacks at Baptist Hospital in Gaza City:

“It was just mostly women and children burned head to toe, limbs missing, heads missing…”

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11 months ago

🧵 Israel has resumed its genocide in Gaza.

After weeks of systematically violating ceasefire agreements, Israel launched massive airstrikes across Gaza overnight, targeting homes, hospitals, and shelters for displaced civilians.

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11 months ago

In an effort to make scholarship on African film and media at #SCMS25 visible, please note and share widely these papers and panels with an African focus.

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1 year ago
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Wow. Watch this from Zohran Mamdani. It looks like the exact "fight" and "conviction" people are hopelessly asking for from the people in charge of the Democratic party:

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1 year ago
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Mahmoud Khalil's Detention Is A War on Terror Milestone ICE turned a campus activist for Palestine into a political prisoner. Witness a coalescence of several post-9/11 currents that threaten your most basic freedoms

Mahmoud Khalil has become a political prisoner for protesting a US-backed genocide. His detention heralds new vistas of repression made possible by institutions and technological developments begun by the War on Terror.

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1 year ago

NO OTHER LAND!!!!

No Other Land now has more Oscars than it did distribution offers. a great and enduring shame upon the American film industry. free Palestine forever.

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1 year ago

We discuss AI images and fascism in this episode -- have a listen: shows.acast.com/the-data-fix...

it'll help you understand that aesthetic...

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1 year ago

Congratulations!

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