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Digital Fatalism: Eleanor Dare Podcast Episode · Digital Fatalism · 05/20/2025 · 26m

Really enjoyed recording this last podcast episode with Dr Eleanor Dare whose recent work includes the AI Forensics project at @camdighum.bsky.social

We talk about AI and power, impossibly huge datasets, deskilling and the impacts of ChatGPT in education contexts #ai #bigtech #technews

23andMe sold out of bankruptcy to Regeneron Drugmaker’s takeover could raise privacy concerns among genetics start-up’s 15mn users

And.... it finally happened. #23andMe is a perfect #privacy example to learn from. When companies who amass troves of very personal data go bankrupt, the data gets sold or acquired by other companies, further complicating already questionable "consent" practices.

Surely this is the existential risk from AI. The idea that we're advancing our intelligence as a species as well as creating a super-intelligence is one of the biggest cons out there.

Without critical thinking skills and the ability to make meaning for ourselves, what the hell are we?

The Dissolve ‘Dissolving black boxes’ (interactive installation/moving image) was an Everyday Algorithms micro-commission, supported by The NewBridge Project and curated by Shelly Knotts. The metaph…

Some photos/videos from my recent commission at NewBridge Project, Newcastle, thinking through algorithm-related issues like visibility/black-boxing/agency/public engagement through the metaphor of 'dissolving': cell-less.com/2025/05/02/t...

I'd be interested in the 'specifically generatively AI' - could you expand? Is the trust not similarly broken with AI-decision-making in systems like healthcare/welfare/policing, or maybe it's specific forms of trust that you're alluding to?

There are 4 episodes in my podcast series interviewing artists/researchers about narratives of inevitability in technology discourses, automated decision-making and ideologies of the tech industry. It's very niche but if you're into this kind of thing, listen here: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/d...

"A new dataset, visualized as maps, reveals the extent to which African workers are indirectly employed in the tech sector, doing content moderation, customer service, and data annotation for AI models, among other jobs." restofworld.org/2025/big-tec...

the ACM CHI conference has fully embraced AI snake-oil this year. this is the world-leading conference on human-computer interaction. absolutely unacceptable. if the conference won't remove these and distance itself from pseudoscience, the HCI community loses all credibility

Brilliant news!! @disabilityarts.bsky.social

Great attendance at the wave of protests yesterday in Newcastle. Why is the government cutting support for disabled people yet increasing spending on defence/military? It can't go unchallenged. #WelfareNotWarfare spread the message.

Well this is kind of cool... An interactive website teaching about Dark Patterns on the internet neal.fun/dark-patterns/

Suspended for Pro-Palestine Speech: My statement on Yale Law School’s embrace of AI-generated smears Helyeh Doutaghi was placed on leave by Yale Law School after being falsely accused of “terrorism” over her support for Palestine. She says her case reflects the new era of Zionist McCarthyism and that...

An AI-bot accuses a university scholar of being a 'terrorist'. In what crazy world does the university act on AI-fabricated claims without verifying any legitimacy? And this university was rated #1 of Best Law Schools! mondoweiss.net/2025/03/susp... @yaleisp.bsky.social

Bubble Trouble An AI bubble threatens Silicon Valley, and all of us.

'A study by Uplevel Data Labs tracked 800 software engineers using Copilot on GitHub and found no measurable increase in coding productivity, despite this exact use case being the one pointed to the most by AI companies'.

Is anyone still convinced by AI hype? prospect.org/power/2025-0...

'According to its own numbers, OpenAI loses $2 for every $1 it makes, a red flag for the sustainability of any business.' The AI hype bubble has got to burst at some point.

The money being poured into AI far outpaces the Manhattan Project ($30b today) and Operation Warp Speed ($18b) combined, and rivals the cost of the entire Interstate Highway System ($114b) - for gains that are much much more speculative.

A Sale of 23andMe’s Data Would Be Bad for Privacy. Here’s What Customers Can Do. The CEO of 23andMe has recently said she’d consider selling the genetic genealogy testing company–and with it, the sensitive DNA data that it’s collected, and stored, from many of its 15 million custo...

With 23andMe filing for bankruptcy, there's talk of genetic data being for sale. Data from 15 million people (plus any relatives who are connected genetically).

If it's sold to a company with ties to law enforcement, what could possibly go wrong...? www.eff.org/deeplinks/20... @eff.org

It absolutely is this constructing of an alternative reality that you write about, and why it's so important (albeit draining) to keep writing about the actual experience of being disabled.

I've been endlessly obsessed with masks/pseudonyms so I love reading stuff like this: 'Our masks are not there to hide our identity but to reveal it... Masking symbolises the rejection of the cult of personality, rooted in consumer capitalism’. Written on masks at Carnival Against Capital, 1999.

Love this: 'The process of invisibilization...from the cloudification of networks to the emergence of algorithmic governance – has gone hand in hand with the evolution of media activism and hacktivist practices employing anonymity and invisibility as tactical weapons': inactual.it/zone-di-opac...

We also discussed WHY students are using ChatGPT in classrooms. One quote stuck with me, 'I don't think I'm that clever, an AI could write a much better answer'. Ironic considering it actually did a terrible job... But it's interesting how issues of self-confidence are playing into this. 2/2

Spent the afternoon at a seminar on AI in schools. It was a small group but good to see that people in Newcastle are thinking critically about AI in Ed-Tech. 1/2

Everything you say to your Echo will be sent to Amazon starting on March 28 Amazon is killing a privacy feature to bolster Alexa+, the new subscription assistant.

Alexa-enabled devices lost Amazon $25 bil from 2017-2021. How are they planning on saving it? By sending everyone's voice recordings to the cloud so that you can activate Alexa without having to actually say 'Alexa'... Are people happy to sacrifice privacy for this? arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025...

A few pics from Peter Kennard's 'Archive of Dissent'. He says that his art "rails at the waste of lives caused by the trillions spent on manufacturing weapons and the vast profits made by arms companies.” I particularly like his newer works incorporating light/projection into photomontage.

I'm hiring for a postdoc! 🌟 pls help spread the word
Senior Research and Teaching Associate (PostDoc)
with a focus on Internet Use and Society
details here: webuse.org/postdoc/

Digital Fatalism Society & Culture Podcast · 3 Episodes · Updated Weekly

I've started one called Digital Fatalism. It's in the early stages and pretty niche...! It's part of my PhD research at Newcastle Uni: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/d...

"the Harvard Electricity Law Initiative reviewed 40 special contracts...between utilities & data centers. If these contracts offer discounted electricity rates to data centers,...other customers may end up paying for the shortfall through higher utility bills."

web.archive.org/web/20250314...

Countering Digital Colonialism | CCCB LAB A new type of dependency is emerging in which digital infrastructures replicate the old colonial logics.

Digital colonialism: 'US tech monopolies...have embedded themselves into South African society'. E.g. Operation Phakisa, 'designed to equip public schools with digital tools but, in reality, hands over the country’s educational data sovereignty to US corporations. lab.cccb.org/en/counterin...

Has anyone done any surveys on how popular the AI summaries are with Google Search users, given that they're often wrong?

Enjoying these 'Human-Computer Counter-Choreographies' at NewBridge Project's exhibition Everyday Algorithms.

'70% of schools have less funding than they did in 2010. Two thirds of council-run youth centres in England have closed in the same period'. There are going to be consequences.