Just Plain Kris

Hey there! Interested in the intersection of marketing, psychology, tech, and sociopolitical issues? Check out my new page, The Caffeinated Chronicle on Substack. I try to keep writings short and digestible. Oh and it's free! justplainkris.substack.com

Does Moms for Liberty’s new AI tool M4L AWARE look like “malware” to anyone else? Bold branding choice. It’s built to scan public school board agendas in 13,000+ districts. As an elected board member, I know those agendas are written locally by volunteers and staff. Looks like surveillance to me.

5/5 I don't think enough people understand what it means to have AI weighing in on strategy. A human advisor answers for their advice. Grok doesn't, and it sounds just as confident either way.

4/5 The sycophancy risk compounds this, since a system tuned to give confident, agreeable answers earns trust fastest when it tells people what they already expect to hear.

3/5 Someone who comes away from that thinking the tool is ingenious will likely weight its answers more heavily next time, including on questions where it has no special basis for confidence.

2/5 According to officials, Trump asked Grok how Venezuelans would react if the U.S. captured Maduro → Grok predicted many would celebrate → the mission happened → celebrations followed → Trump came away thinking Grok was ingenious.

1/5 I read the TIME article about Trump yesterday, and so many things in it are problematic and concerning. But because I focus a lot on AI, the AI passage bothered me a lot.

Frontier AI companies asking to regulate themselves is no different than when Big Tobacco pushed self-regulation to shield themselves from government oversight. Same story, different industry. 🚬 = 🤖

Claude using the term slog to describe all the tech CEOs manifestos on AI had me LOFL. 🫳 🎤

Kylie Jenner x Meta AI glasses are still surveillance tech. Glamour doesn't cancel out the camera.

On 3/31/2026 the Trump regime ordered the most devastating dismantling of the U.S. Forest Service in 121 years. All 10 regional offices gone, 57 research stations closed, and 193 million acres handed to political appointees. A few brands have spoken out, but more need to. Take action at saveusfs.org

As policymakers regulate rapidly changing chatbot technology and research like ours illuminates the nuances of users' experiences, it's important for legislative efforts to adapt and respond, Policy Manager @serena124.bsky.social writes. datasociety.net/points/prote...

Yesterday a NM jury ordered Meta pays $375M for enabling child exploitation. On the same day, OpenAI kills Sora and Disney exits. The accountability pressure on Big Tech is building, while the proposed federal AI framework clears the path for industry.

Trust has become a commodity. This thought keeps coming up for me. In the age of AI, trust feels less like something built through relationship and accountability, and more like an economic resource extracted, traded, and spent by people and systems that don’t bear the risk when it’s misplaced.

Authors reportedly reached a $1.5B deal with Anthropic to delete millions of scraped books and pay writers. But, even if data is deleted, wouldn't its influence still live inside trained models? How do we prevent this next time? #AIGovernance #Copyright #EthicalAI #ResponsibleAI #TechPolicy

I miss the internet when “coding” meant editing your MySpace profile in HTML, not decoding what’s real. Sora 2 and Vibe just remind me how far we’ve drifted. Quick reflection → substack.com/home/post/p-...

Language today on HUD.gov website. This is not consistent with federal neutrality standards.

I've compiled verified Gaza aid resources—will keep growing as more are shared. Palestinian-led initiatives + established orgs providing water, food, medical supplies, shelter. Share widely. Send me more verified resources to add. justplainkris.substack.com/p/gaza-aid-r...

RFK Jr. promoted a food company he says will make Americans healthy. Their meals are ultraprocessed - AP News apnews.com/article/rfk-...

AI fatigue is real—we're watching AI replace workers while execs hype AGI. 55% of companies regret AI layoffs. Klarna is rehiring after AI couldn't handle conversation nuances. Good AI (healthcare, climate) doesn't get headlines, but "AI replaces everyone" does. open.substack.com/pub/justplai...

To every parent folding laundry while watching the protests, making breakfast while the news breaks your heart, tucking kids in while worrying about their future, you're not alone. The weight you're carrying is real. It's okay to not be okay right now. open.substack.com/pub/justplai...

Don’t let the GOP fool you who said they didn’t know what was in the budget bill because they didn’t read it and wouldn’t have approved it. It’s bull. They know exactly what is in that bill, their staff told them, their co-workers told, I mean it was posted everywhere on the web what was in it.

RFK Jr.'s 'gold standard' health report drops with 21+ fake citations, classic AI hallucinations. If government experts can't spot AI-generated fake studies, how can we trust them with health policy? justplainkris.substack.com/p/maha-repor...

Happy Saturday, and thank goodness for coffee. Reports that DOGE is using Grok in federal agencies without approval while Congress considers banning state AI regs for 10 years? This is how you create regulatory capture. open.substack.com/pub/justplai...

The House just passed the “Big, Beautiful Bill”, a budget that cuts Medicaid, Medicare, and SNAP while adding $3.8T to the deficit for billionaire tax breaks. It now heads to the Senate. Here’s what you can do to stop it: substack.com/home/post/p-... #KillTheBill

I stand with Rep. LaMonica McIver. This is a political stunt—point blank.

Cutting SNAP funding hurts us all. Every $1 in SNAP benefits generates between $1.50 - $1.79 in economic activity: boosting grocery stores, farmers & small businesses. When SNAP is cut, states lose billions, tax revenue drops, tens of thousands of jobs are lost & kids go hungry #MomSky

It’s Friday night and Elon Musk’s Grok AI this week pushed a debunked conspiracy theory unprompted. Not a glitch, but an unauthorized change. This isn’t just tech drama. It’s a serious AI oversight issue. Read why this matters justplainkris.substack.com/p/what-groks...

I love that ChatGPT refers to X as “Twitter/X”. Just saying.

Don’t be fooled. The Republicans who opposed the "Big, Beautiful Bill" today did so not to protect the public, but because they want even deeper and faster cuts to programs like Medicaid and food assistance. Cuts that fall on everyday Americans. Meanwhile, the wealthiest still get tax breaks.

Happy 43rd b’day to “Combat Rock” — the iconic LP by @theclash.com that featured “Rock the Casbah”. When writing, Joe Strummer said, “I started to think about what someone had told me .. that you get lashed for owning a disco album in Iran." (Hence the line, “Shareef don’t like it.”)

The “Big, Beautiful Bill” is a major attempt to centralize power over AI, banning state-level regulations for the 10 yrs. But that’s not all. It also includes $880B in Medicaid cuts & billions in tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy. Here’s what’s at stake: justplainkris.substack.com/p/the-one-bi...

The AI jobs crisis raises big questions about “what kind of jobs we want people to be able to do, what kind of work and which institutions we think are important as a society, and what we’re willing to do to protect them,” @bcmerchant.bsky.social writes. www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-ai-job...

✔️ In 2022, Biden passed a law letting Medicare cut drug prices. ❌ In 2025, Trump canceled it before savings kicked in. 🔁 Now he's bringing back a similar plan and claiming it's new. He killed the fix, then took credit for solving the problem he caused.

Massive from US Copyright Office!! "…commercial use of vast troves of copyrighted works to produce expressive content that competes with them in existing markets, especially … through illegal access, goes beyond established fair use boundaries." www.copyright.gov/ai/Copyright...

This Mother’s Day, I Won’t Say “Happy.” substack.com/home/post/p-...

Just published a new piece: AI at the Crossroads: Governance, Sovereignty, and Human Judgment. Reflections from Philly Tech Week on 4 key tensions shaping AI's future, beyond just tech fixes: Ethics, Sovereignty, Regulation, Human judgment open.substack.com/pub/justplai...

Kilmar Abrego García is being wrongfully detained despite legal protections. This isn’t just about him, it’s about all of our rights. I made it easy to contact your senators. Take 2 mins to speak up. justplainkris.substack.com/p/the-tate-b... #JusticeForKilmar #BringThemHome #DefendOurRights

Today, free speech dies. The U.S. is using immigration law to silence dissent. That’s not justice, that’s authoritarianism. This is a grave violation of constitutional rights. www.reuters.com/world/us/us-...

Senator Jim Banks (R) isn’t sorry he told a fired federal worker “he probably deserved it”. He went on to say the worker was “complaining about losing a left-wing woke job in the federal government that should have never been a job to begin with”. The job was helping people with disabilities.

@booker.senate.gov just broke the record for the longest U.S. Senate speech. The record he broke? It was set by Strom Thurmond—a racist and segregationist who filibustered to block civil rights. That feels historic. Thank you Cory Booker.

Please email your members of congress via the link below. This is not ok. actionnetwork.org/letters/rest...

The new Klarna-Uber Eats partnership raises serious questions about turning our everyday needs into financial products. What are your thoughts on this troubling trend? Basic necessities are increasingly being turned into payment plans and debt. open.substack.com/pub/justplai...

This is disgraceful and un-American. The Trump administration defended its removal of articles highlighting the achievements of minority service members, including Navajo code talkers, Marines at Iwo Jima, and famed Black baseball player Jackie Robinson.

Musk: “weakness of western civilization is empathy.” Also Musk: “I thought the left, the democrats, was supposed to be the party of empathy.” Fuck right of Musk. Yes we are empathetic. Just not empathetic toward you.

“I never thought the leopard would eat *my* judiciary” thehill.com/regulation/c...

"Until this weekend..." www.nytimes.com/live/2025/03...

Libraries saved me, and I’ll fight to save them. Without libraries, we lose access to knowledge, safety, and the tools to fight for everything else. In my latest post, I share my story and a template to contact your reps. Please use it and help protect our libraries! substack.com/home/post/p-...

A YES on cloture is a YES for the bill. Do not let anyone play games with you.