José Marichal

Good study on the current state of the political influencer industry Paid to Post: Mapping the Political Influencer Industry cdt.org/insights/pai...

Cheesecake Factory is where all the god fearin' hardworkin' hedge fund folk cut loose after a long day of arbitraging.

Great meditation from @sunhahong.bsky.social in @techpolicypress.bsky.social on how the AI buildout is "cannibalizing the future" by closing out future possibilities... it begs the question, what other futures could we be building instead? www.techpolicy.press/tech-hype-is...

New OA publication! ✨ Digital Democracy from Below is a collection of 34 essays exploring where less obvious democratic levers are hiding in the digital age. We present democracy as a form of government, a way of living and a skill that can be collectively practiced. Here: doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We moved in recent years from what I'd call "sockpuppet politics" to just straight up identity theft. Stealing the identity of an organization to stoke up resentment against it is the real election fraud. www.texastribune.org/2026/10/20/t...

Lots of great examples of what @yanisvaroufakis.bsky.social calls technofeudal "cloud rent"

No matter where you shop, you're getting screwed by Amazon. Amazon has found a way to make everything you buy - at Target, at a mom-and-pop shop, even direct from the manufacturer - more expensive. And they're not the only one: Expedia's done the same thing, but for hotel rooms.

Was recently in the Ontario Art Museum during an exhibition of model boats. It strikes me that our age of constant algorithmic distraction is ill suited for the painstaking concentration and attention necessary to build such intricate replicas with meticulous detail.

Whatever happens this cycle, Dems are doing something different. From Troy Jackson running an ad telling Mainers where to get help with heating oil costs to Angie Nixon and Abdul El Sayed's ability to "clap back" with wit... Don't know if it bears results, but at least it isn't the same ol'

Why aren't more Democrats running against tech oligarchs? If it's money, they're not going to get tech money anyway apnews.com/article/musk...

Following our investigation into the White House's secretive ALPR database, Sen. Wyden is demanding a privacy review / more details: www.404media.co/following-40...

Actually a great point

Proposed cover from the publisher for my forthcoming book... Kinda dig the cybernetic glowing orb vibe!!! Nice job!! @intellectbooks.bsky.social @uchicagopress.bsky.social

Anyone else attending the 4S conference in a couple of weeks? It'll be my first time along to it and I'm excited but won't know ANYONE. It's like the first day of school all over again. If you're attending and interested in talking STS then PLEASE drop me a line!

Who else in the Blueskyverse is also going to @4sweb.bsky.social's 4S conference this October? #4Sconference #STS

I’ll be presenting on research from my new book project for the first time at the 4S conference in Toronto. Stop by Saturday to hear my take on recent efforts to restrict medication abortion in U.S. via claims of water pollution, or reach out so we can grab a coffee. Hoping to catch up w/ STS folks!

At sea in the #4S conference program, but if you have hot picks (including for your open panels/papers) then LMK. I know two places I'll be...

Then for @ntnsndr.in's panel at #4S on Wednesday, I'll be hosting a short session to critique a co-op protocol/living bylaws demo I 'built'. If you're attending this behemoth of a gathering/confrence, please come!

We’re exhibiting at the 50th 4S Annual Conference, 8–10 Oct in Toronto! 📚Use INTELLECT30 for 30% off online book purchases. Discover our journals and chat to us about publishing with Intellect. 📩 james@intellectbooks.com 👉https://www.intellectbooks.com/4s26 Society for Social Studies of Science

This is so good! Especially the section that illustrates how generative AI art fits into predictable aesthetic motifs... Generative AI doesn't engage in the spontaneous, exploratory process of aimless creating that sparks new forms.

Riot Women is a fun watch, but as much fun has been remembering how great Hole's "Live Though This" album is! www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yyn9...

More people should see this short doc on the pressure to plead guilty to avoid languishing in jail awaiting trial youtu.be/47mUlbUflao?...

Although we don't think of it this way, this deep "ontological enclosing" of ourselves is a radical (and deeply illiberal) political act. "The share of adults who say they regularly have friends over has declined dramatically since 1975."

A US News and World report, but colleges are ranked on whether graduates go on to "live well"

Some-one has to do a study that localizes the independent effect of "clap-back ability" in political campaigns.... Angie Nixon may not win, but her "clap back" game is solid.

Fantastic from @jeffsharlet.bsky.social .. This resonates completely with my experience teaching undergraduates.. "They used AI because it was there, because their classmates use it, because they fear if they don’t use it they’ll fall behind." www.chronicle.com/article/my-s...

Imagine how Fox would have covered this if Obama rolled out the red carpet to Xi at the same time this news story came out...

AI agents are going to kill us in our sleep, but also.... x.com/PopCrave/sta...

Tech CEO's want liberal internationalism in an increasingly hyper-realist world... “(Amodei's ideas include" evaluation and verification systems so countries can verify each other’s commitments, and common global standards for testing AI along with a notification system for AI security incidents.”

This is how ppl lose faith in liberal democracy... the legislative opposition party refuses to support legislation intended to address a problem because they want to use it as a campaign issue.. R's did this on immigration in 2024. Now it's the Dems turn... www.semafor.com/article/09/2...

IR heads, did the US get anything out of this agreement that they could not have gotten with garden variety diplomacy? www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

So while governments (and the AI companies themselves) around the world are freaking out about misaligned agent swarms, Meta is making agents available to everyone in cute Tamagochi form??

Competitive authoritarianism test incoming....

The entire global economy is being supported by an AI buildout.... that is posting a serious security threat to governments around the world. Feels like two incommensurate positions.. which one gives first? www.cnn.com/2026/09/23/b...

Great article @marcwatkins.bsky.social on the ability of Jev to automate assessment... I expect lots of new university platforms to be build on Jev that will automate grading. marcwatkins.substack.com/p/what-happe...

Using AI in many cases means sending your most sensitive and intimate thoughts to a server where they can be exploited as training data, sold to ad brokers, or even handed to law enforcement. So I assembled this guide to using AI with your privacy intact. www.wired.com/story/how-to...

Great, as always, from @himself.bsky.social on our era of global instability and the inability of single focus theories to explain it all. Reminds me a bit about Harold Lasswell's policy sciences approach.. create meta frameworks designs to uncover "blindspots" instead of striving for parsimony.

I have an idea for a Mystery Science Theater 3000 reboot 🤔

Sarah Engelberg-Nolan, Emma Haberman, and Nicole Brosnan map out the legal questions raised by ICE's use of Palantir's Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement (ELITE) targeting tool, from Fourth Amendment search issues to due process and standing hurdles.

Effective altruism strikes me as a weird target to go after, no? I don't get the angle?

Make this kid a college dean! “It’s mathematics and physics that develop your brain the most after four years of education. With AI, that development is what matters more,” he said. “Because if you can think more creatively and more rigorously on your own, you’re able to actually use the AI better"

This is grim AF

Color my cynical, but third party evaluators that will get access to determine model safety based on "common safety standards" can be read as code for safety = "closed weight/closed source" models not from China. techcrunch.com/2026/09/12/a...

Two things can be true at the same time: the concerns about unsupervised AI can be legitimate AND there are trillions of dollars riding on the future growth of this technology, so calls for a slowdown can also be a financially strategic decision interestingengineering.com/ai-robotics/...

Unintended consequenes of AI destroying human relationality -- the market of humans from the global south helping privileged college students cheat is getting decimated by non human AI. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/05/t...

Good reminder of what the stakes are if we allow this rights based global order to go sideways

The Multiracial Democracy Project at @gwlaw.bsky.social, the @gwclt.bsky.social and @cdt.org are hosting a symposium on the Impacts of AI on Multilingual and Multiracial Democracy. Sept 28, 2026 (9am to 2pm) in Washington DC, with a remote option. Please join us! www.eventbrite.com/e/impacts-of...