Damien Pfister

I find it terrifying that people (men) think they are falling in love with AI chat bots.

The desire for a romantic object that does not exist outside of your interactions with you and has no purpose other than to secure and maintain your attention is the purest distillation of misogyny.

Enduring Digital Damage Networks the intricate relationship between rapidly advancing digital technologies and environmental degradation and reveals the costs of our globally connec...

Just heard word that my book, ENDURING DIGITAL DAMAGE, is shipping on Oct 15 if ordered from the UAP website. You can preorder it now and the discount code “DAMAGE” will take 30 percent off the total price.

www.uapress.ua.edu/978081736219...

CAI SPECIAL SERIES CFP: FEEL THE AGI! GEN AI AND/AS RELIGION Special Topic Series in Critical AIFeel the AGI! On (Generative) AI and/as ReligionSeries Editor John Modern (Franklin & Marshall College) The language of religion courses through the AI hype m…

NEW CRITICAL AI SERIES CLUSTER, "Gen AI and/as Religion" - edited by @johnmodern.bsky.social
criticalai.org/2025/10/01/c...
Please share widely!

Getting Yelled at By Dumbasses The defining experience of fascism.

"This absurdity, in fact, is at the very heart of fascist violence. It is the final twist of the knife, the head-shaking feeling of disbelief right before you are tossed in the prison van. It’s not just that we are being destroyed, it’s that we are being destroyed for incredibly stupid reasons."

Teachable Readings - AGAINST AI Image: Bride of the Wind, Oskar Kokoschka

just the hugest shout-out to the site against-a-i.com/short-readin..., with a list of teachable readings that I could pull from for my class this semester

thanks to the team putting it together, led by @annakornbluh.bsky.social. What a service <3

a snippet of a mini-comic, at top - straight line stretches from point A to B. Immediately below, same dot at A, then becomes a curving, meandering line that winds through the page and ends at a point with rays and a question mark emanating from it. Text reads: "Nothing can do this for you - that robs you of experience and conflates answers with learning. Rather, it's all the decisions you make along the way, the mistakes, struggles, and surprises! These pathways you create - this is learning.

Pages from a mini comic

Pages from a mini comic

Pages from a mini comic

My drawn statement on Ai as standalone from my now finished minicomic as syllabus for new liberal studies class! As promised this is shareable, printable - all from my site, feel free to make use of it, cite me & let me know how it’s received. Share away all here! spinweaveandcut.com/fall-2025-sy...

a flyer for the book Remembering Jefferson, including text about the book's content, praise from reviewers, and a code for a discount and free shipping from the University Press of Kansas.

Good morning! Here's a flyer for Remembering Jefferson--use the code at the UP Kansas web site and get 30% off and free shipping. Just in time for the semisesquicentennial!

Something about the way LLMs build in the idea that to find something out, you shouldn't read an already existing text that other people have also read (ew!); you should get fresh text generated just for you. Each time, new disposable text.

I’m not saying anything novel, but I wake up every morning, struck anew with the realization that the worst possible behaviors are incentivized, the virtues I uphold have no market value, the most tragicomically incompetent ppl are in charge, + we’re gleefully flooding ourselves with toxic sludge.

The future of education is being built by people who skimmed Dewey’s Experience and Education—the title only— and then go on to install LED swings and ball pits and call it curriculum.

DOGE Developed Error-Prone AI Tool to “Munch” Veterans Affairs Contracts We obtained records showing how a Department of Government Efficiency staffer with no medical experience used artificial intelligence to identify which VA contracts to kill. “AI is absolutely the wron...

New: A DOGE staffer developed an AI tool to review Veterans Affairs contracts.

But there was a slight hitch.

It hallucinated the size of those deals.

For example, it concluded that more than a thousand contracts were each worth $34M, when in fact some were for as little as $35,000.

The roots of reactionary tech oligarchy and the need for radical democratic alternatives Abstract. The aim for this commentary is two-fold: first, we seek to outline how decades of liberal “post-democratic” hegemony—prevalent across liberal dem

'This moment urgently calls for bold, critical research and alliances across academia, journalism, and civil society and for those with privileged access to public discourse to take responsibility'

@jfarkas.bsky.social and I on the rise of reactionary tech oligarchy
academic.oup.com/ccc/article/...

🚨 I'm happy to see this published. My analysis of Trump's alt-media strategy in the 2024 election challenges purely technological & economic explanations of the right's online success.

Mostly writing this here to
keep track of claims, succinctly. Curious if this resonates/tells a compelling story. In that spirit…

Some points about crypto, a.i., and the motivations for bringing about recession/depression/economic apocalypse:

Caddie Alford–Witnessing Corecore as an Epideictic Call to Care This text is published as part of a special b2o issue titled “Critique as Care”, edited by Norberto Gomez, Frankie Mastrangelo, Jonathan Nichols, and Paul Robertson, and published in honor of our b2o ...

Honored to be in this b2o “Critique as Care” special issue. 1. It’s b2o + 2. it’s in memoriam of my late colleague David Golumbia. This is a rhetorical studies piece on TikTok’s corecore + LIVE. Come for the contributions; stay for the vulnerable end. #TeamRhetoric
www.boundary2.org/2025/05/cadd...

Its the ease with which universities have suddenly the money to pay for AI subscriptions, AI professorships, AI workshops, AI everything while they reassure us that "there is no money" to pay grad students and precarious faculty living wages.

Donald Trump’s nonstop news-making can be exhausting, making it harder for people to scrutinize his presidential actions Overwhelming people with a deluge of announcements makes it difficult to easily track and understand what is happening in the White House.

The communication strategy is the message. The message is to dominate. I explain: theconversation.com/donald-trump...

Gov-tech as capture: public infrastructures under data capitalism This paper examines the U.S. ‘gov-tech' market, focusing on firms that partner with government agencies to redesign digital public infrastructures. Through interviews with founders and chief techno...

I have a new article @icsjournal.bsky.social on the ways gov-tech firms try to reshape public services—turning public data into private assets and redefining state capacity—and use capture, rather than surveillance, as a guiding principle.

www.tandfonline.com/eprint/EBNZK...

I loved this conversation with @thebigrhet.bsky.social for their Keystone Perspectives collection. We talk all things my book--Entitled Opinions--along with ongoing questions and pedagogical implications, co-directing the AI Futures Lab, and forthcoming work.

tinyurl.com/4z674spz

#TeamRhetoric

Finland ends homelessness and provides shelter for all in need - scoop.me In Finland, the number of homeless people has fallen sharply. Why? The country applies the "Housing First" concept agains homelessness.

“In Finland, the number of homeless people has fallen sharply. Those affected receive a small apartment & counselling with no preconditions. 4 out of 5 people affected make their way back into a stable life. And all this is CHEAPER than accepting homelessness.”

Hang this in the Louvre

“The US of AI,” public draft of a talk given yesterday at Princeton.

drive.google.com/file/d/1O2qk...

Why does 25% AfD among young men spark a thousand "what is going on with young men?" posts yet Die Linke 34% among young women generates...nothing at all?

Yes, young men voting for the radical right is an important phenomenon. But so is young women going rad left *at even higher rates*.

If you are at an event where someone on stage gives a Hitler salute and that person is not dragged off by security and kicked out, you are at a Nazi rally.

Donald Trump Brings Back “Degenerate Art” The president’s obsession with cultural control is evidence of a continued fascist creep, and not just another joke exercise in narcissism.

"Just as Hitler drew upon all of the creative energies of 🇩🇪 culture to evil result, so too could only the 🇺🇸 produce a Trump — a carnival barker + medicine man, shock jock + pornographer, reality show star and pro-wrestler. The Nazis traded in German kitsch, and so MAGA will trade in Americana."

Outstanding Academic Titles 2024: Technology, AI, and Social Media - Choice 360 Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles recognize the best new books in 2024. Check out this selection of books on tech, social media, and more.

@choicereviews.bsky.social named Entitled Opinions 1 of 5 Outstanding Academic Titles 2024 in Technology, AI, and Social Media!
www.choice360.org/libtech-insi...