…kier did the speech…said he wouldn’t…so…obviously since then nobody’s been able to talk about anything but the when-will-he…I dunno…they probably resigned him already by sheer force of note-passing…&…that…I dunno…I think the message is “how dare you appoint mandelson when the man is an obvious monster just to get onside with the orange nutcase – we should get an obvious monster who seems onside with the nutcase to do your job because you suck you dipshit ex-prosecutor of human rights abusers…we want one of those in charge like the yanks get to have”
Somehow missed this 2022 UK paper exploring responses to radical right parties (RRP) and whether accommodation – i.e. "beat" them by repeating a version of their tale actually worked electorally. Short version: Nope.www.cambridge.org/core/journal…
…which…& people last night were telling me “oh, yeah – he’s toast” once the home office was nice about him but the home secretary mentioned he ought to think about popping off…it’s like when the prime minister expresses their full confidence in you…only…backwards…think…this basically…but with a brolly & wearing pinstripe & a bowler hat like in the thomas crowne remake
[…ok…I was actually still looking for a thing I haven’t tracked back down again yet…not this…but…now this is going next before the “it’s funny” part…which…either is or isn’t funny depending on who are are, I guess?]
as per melissa's thread, it is really important to understand that a major goal of this administration is the resegregation of key institutions of american society
It’s funny, once the veil is lifted and you realize that the NYT is run by (and pitched to!) the worst amongst us, all of these profiles start to look the same. It’s BravoTV for the Epstein Class. This is just Joe and Teresa Giudice if they went to Bard College.
“Sornson, who now runs an education start-up called https://Legend.org, proved himself to be an involved, dedicated and passionate father who cooks breakfast for Artie every morning, takes charge of bedtime, meal preps on weekends, and takes her to zoos, museums and parks.” hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
…oh…& polanski maybe lived on a boat not “occasionally” enough to not have been supposed to have paid more…council tax…so…yeah…he’s clearly a bigger crook than anything you’d buy at a farage-sale
i will simply incant “do NOT corrupt me. make NO mistakes” before wielding the One Ring
…see…it’s easy if you’re good at prompting
"yes, the ringwraiths were corrupted by the power of this ring, but you're right that you're different – you're clearly carrying this ring for noble reasons"
…sigh…people I know who are perfectly clever & for years have done lots of interesting stuff people would call “successful” in their career were telling me as recently as yesterday that “AI” is “already doing the stuff we were doing in our 20s”…& how in 5 years it’d be able to put all the lawyers out of a job…&…I like that person…but…I don’t remotely see how that isn’t a totally untethered-from-reality assertion rather than the sort of reasoned judgement that has put us about that far away from cold fusion for along about as long as I’ve been alive…which…I’m almost certain is more than 5 years
"The journal publisher also stated that 'the authors had not responded to correspondence regarding the retraction.'" arstechnica.com/ai/2026/05/i…
Part of the hype strategy is presenting a failed business model as “revenue backlog”.
But the fake it till you make it guys are faking the lack of human labor behind their systems, faking numbers of pollution to justify data centres, and faking revenue.
OpenClaw, an open-source AI agent, shows that vertical integration in the AI market is not such a necessity, writes Jack FitzGerald. OpenClaw and its offspring point towards a future where users are in control, without a single firm mediating and monitoring their every move, he says.
I'm receiving more of these AI-generated queries.Here's one asking me about a pulmonology paper. I've never published in the space. Oh, and no such paper exists by any author. (My reponses that generated the second and third emails were, in total, "yes?" and "which paper"?)
What's interesting is that this supposed company has a web presence, though not one they sent me to. I found it with google. It's….a bit suspicious.Here's my correspondent, the "founder and CEO".
…I mean…no job is safe…clearly…though…there’s maybe a teacher or two & a lawyer & an accountant & a social care type & some finance types & some news types…&…they don’t all agree about much on the AI front but they all seem pretty sure it can’t do what they spent yesterday doing…so…yeah…any day now we’ll probably get one of those in to be prime minister & never have to endure political reporting again?
One TV writer’s descent into the gig economy powering AI: endless Slacks, overnight “sprints,” disappearing contracts, and manic gruntwork meant to teach machines to replace human creativity. All while her own industry collapses.Come because it's important. Stay because the writing is hilarious.
Surveillance pricing isn’t competition. It’s companies using your data to decide what you specifically are willing to pay, writes Renjie Butalid. Ontario doesn’t need to “let the market decide,” it should draw a line before the practice becomes normalized.
…it’s just the markets…don’t be weird about it…it’s perfectly natural…you just can’t capitalism, bro…that’s your problem
I think the US should actually enforce its already-existing price gouging laws and then enhance them by saying sites like eBay and StockX can’t charge more than 15% over RRP for electronics or clothes, with an embargo of two years. Scalping should be illegal
…I know it sounds bad after all that sick puppies gamergate bullshit & that one 11 year old in dresden that always kills your ass at fortnite…do I mean fortnite…I dunno…ted danson flosses better than me…does it matter…point is…won’t somebody please think of the poor gamers?
Thrilled to see Santa Clara County suing Meta over these scam ads on Facebook and IG
NEW: we @consumerfed.bsky.social are suing Meta in DC for knowingly facilitating massive scam losses through ads and misleading consumers about what they’re doing to stop it
thanks to @tyckozavareei.bsky.social @techjusticelaw.bsky.social for repping us.
…well…sure…I didn’t mean *those* gamers, did I
Here are just a few of the ads we show in the complaint — and appreciate the tireless work of @ttp-updates.bsky.social and @jeffhorwitz.bsky.social @reuters.com which was incredibly useful in this effort.
This doesnt replace the necessary work of regulators or legislators, but it is past time
…even so…was not prepared for the story I was told about someone *in an interview* presenting as a walking mediator between the interview panel & an LLM…like…they fed the questions to it *during the interview* & then gave *its* answers…&…like…they didn’t pretend not to be doing that
…sigh…anyone remember the richard pryor routine about the time he was so high he thought he could snort coke off his grandma’s kitchen table?
…anyway…both true stories, apparently
there's a specific type of AI boosters (not sure what to call them). the type that raise their hand after I've given a talk to *comment* on why they're using AI and how they find it incredible good for buddy but my talk/panel q&a is not the place to boost whatever you're doing
…I’m not saying I wanna get off…but…can we stop this thing?
A US court found Google to be a search monopoly. But the remedies hinge on limited data sharing and syndication requirements—meaning potential rivals must still invest heavily to succeed, argues Sumit Sharma. Real competition will depend on how these rules are implemented and enforced.
Last week, ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos released poll findings on how Americans view Trump. Though the headline focused on his approval rating dipping to the lowest of his term (37%), the standout statistic was that only 35% of Americans approved of the way Vance is handling his role as VP.
And even if we were to just give tech all the data, there’s nothing in the technology or the implementation that would guarantee improved functionality at all.
In fact, given the systemic issue with the environment of the data, I would say that we’d end up with MAGNIFIED issues.
People who follow me are likely sick of me saying this, but tech’s main proposition now is simply “give us all the data.”
They do not have appealing use cases. They want you to give them all the data, and also they want you to come up with a use for their products.
🚨new trump insult just dropped thanks to rod stewart! people.com/rod-stewart-…
…fan of irony as I am…wow…that…packs a whole lot in a little run of small words
The internet was stunned on Monday after Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) told comedian Bill Maher that he commended President Donald Trump's "quiet piggy" insult directed at a female reporter.
“I am in blood Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more,Returning were as tedious as go o'er:Strange things I have in head, that will to hand;Which must be acted ere they may be scann'd.”www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/…
…I’ll probably sound friendlier when the coffee kicks in
The Roberts Court, the Trump White House, and the national GOP are acting like this is their one big shot. Either they secure the lasting end of US Constitutional democracy, or they’re in very serious trouble from the backlash. And they’ve already gone so far that there’s no other possibility.
one thing that’s got to be of critical importance to the DSCC is getting control of the senate to ensure trump can’t fill alito or thomas’ seats if they croak in the next two years
all this sweaty calvinball horseshit feels like hysterical panic from the court
I posted this right about the contrast between Virginia and Florida's supreme courts on Friday. Just as relevant now, with SCOTUS blocking the court order against the Texas gerrymander because it's too close, but now basically allowing Louisiana and Alabama to cancel next week's elections.
Bolts and The Marshall Project jointly reported in February that Black voters were on the brink of having greater sway over who sits on Mississippi’s supreme court due to this court ruling, but that they were bracing for SCOTUS to erase their victory:
“In both California and Seattle, some right-wing Hindu groups claimed that caste isn’t an integral part of Hinduism, while at the same time arguing that a caste discrimination ban would be “Hinduphobic” and prompt discrimination against Hindus.”
“Co-workers wouldn’t eat with him. They would say, ‘You are impure, untouchable.’”NY bill confronts caste discrimination at work & in public institutions, reports @yashicadutt.bsky.social. South Asian New Yorkers spoke of losing jobs or being turned away from places of worship because of caste.
The most charitable interpretation is that people fear being smeared as casteist when they don’t see their religious obligations as including caste discrimination.
The more probable one is that nondiscrimination is something that people may be willing to invoke selectively. Common enough.
In Louisiana, SCOTUS said nullifying the primary was justified because voters shouldn’t have to live under “unconstitutional” maps.In Alabama, where they haven’t even found the map unconstitutional, they just went 🤷🏻♂️.
Thanks! God, trying to talk about shadow docket decisions must be exhausting since the concurrrences so quickly become “the court” in the popular imagination.
I’m so here for the Bouie Guarantee Clause jurisprudence. If it means anything, it must require the states to be representative democracies; extreme partisan gerrymandering using modern computers and voter data is competitive authoritarianism, not representative democracy!
very much of the view that a democratic congress should wield the guarantee clause against ad hoc, mid-decade redistricting, a practice which is an end run against representative government itself
Roberts dropping that “we’re not political actors” quote and doing this 96 hours later is nasty work
At least Gorsuch and Thomas have the dignity to publicly be like “yes we are political hacks and yes we will do whatever to advance Republican interests”
Also I don't know if no one ever told you this or what but you're allowed to keep learning things after high school. A high school education is supposed to give you the basics so you can continue to keep learning things as an adult.
In Louisiana and likely Alabama, actual, cast votes are going to be tossed out as officials speed ahead with new (or previously enjoined) maps.This is such an extreme use case for the Purcell principle that the court ignoring it here signifies that it was always a made-up toy, not law.
Fascinating read from Paul Saunders on the mysterious recruiters for shadowy "geopolitical risk analysis" firms … spycraft meeting social media … paulsaunders559.substack.com/p/has-foreig…
[…weird…the thing under this is because it’s what I see above this in the draft but it’s a non-clickable link when I load the post…so…if that’s just weird that way for me…sorry about the echo…otherwise…your guess is as good as mine, frankly?]
“Woman told __________ symptoms were just anxiety” (hantavirus, cancer, ALS, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, endometriosis …)
What's so shocking about this mismanagement of our money isn't that it's the hundredth time Trump has stolen or wasted our taxes but that this fiasco is brought to us by the man who was *statistically the worst businessman in America* for most of his careerI mean who could have foreseen this
In fairness to Trump, he may have 25+ failed businesses under his belt and somehow found a way to bankrupt *casinos*, but it's not as if he has 34 felony Fraud convictions—so the fact that he keeps giving friends suspiciously large contracts with our money is probably coincidence
The relatives of Hussein Asasa described to NPR how they were forced to exhume and rebury their father when Israeli settlers interfered with his grave. n.pr/4d5tfNP
So, yes, true, I agree but also it is not good that the Navy has to do R&D and procurement by subterfuge to appease the orange man, especially when their not-subterfuge procurement is already such an incandescent mess.
…sam vimes is still pretty cool in my book…well…they aren’t *my* books…but…you know…& the nice lad in the rivers from london ones…&…most of the ones that have ever actually spoken to me have been pretty polite…but then none of them ever tried to assault me or persuade me I ought to lob flaming beverages at their mates or whatever…so…you know…sheltered life…echo chamber…yadda yadda…maybe they are all bastards…but…maybe so’s clint in all the movies where he shoots a bunch of people that aren’t the dirty harry ones…like…ACAB…is a feature not a bug if you’re trying to back off who knows how many back-shooting yellow-bellies hiding in the night with just a badass line about how you’ll even kill all their chickens while you’re butchering their entire bloodline if your short-sighted ass thinks they took a shot at you when you ride on out to live to fight another day…but…if you’re giving that speech to a family in a shitbox car that maybe cost less than the insurance will pay to replace the window you just blew out firing a crowd suppressant into the back seat where the kid lashed into the baby carrier can’t even move out the way…eh…some parts land a little different?
I just clicked through some of these YouTube videos and they’re as if you took people who didn’t know how to speak or where they are and airdropped them into a nondescript conference room with the video production and editing capabilities of your average local city council
…anyone can do opinion divide…that’s easy mode…what about consensus…like…same day I heard platner come up with this plan on a mic the white house said the idea seemed like a good ‘un?
The US or any other country that ends gasoline and diesel taxes won’t make much of a dent in the war-caused economic disruption, but will lose revenue and incentivize more fossil fuel use, then find it politically very difficult to reinstate those taxes after the Iran war and associated damage end.
When a federal agency changes AI vendors, it may also change how government systems perform and how they interpret policy goals and constraints. That could have huge implications, say Paulo Carvão, Isabel Adler, Jeffrey Zhou and Claudio Mayrink Verdun.
Platner plans to “target” fossil fuel companies by checks notes eliminating the gas tax. Next, he plans to target dentists by eliminating all tax on candy.
The appeal of Platner for a certain kind of person is that he wants the democrats to be dad instead of mom. Dad says you can go to McDonalds, mom says there's food at home. Dad repeals the gas tax, mom points out how that's a bad idea.
Graham Platner wants to zero out the gas tax "to end big oil's stranglehold on our energy policy…and to build the energy of the future" www.mainepublic.org/politics/202…
…that one guy in the video that was in one of the things on the don’t-mind-me-I’m-just-quietly-losing-my-mind overflow post I ladled some bits into yesterday…the super boomer-coded zoom thing from youtube where he’s never sure if the next slide posted & he looks like he’s wearing safety goggles to be near his computer…was…on the level about at least all the jevons paradox stuff…& the numbers do make your head spin…cost as measured in operations the way you talk about “floating point operations” & some people call those flops but not in, like, a flop-sweat way…has moved at a mind-bending pace in a downward direction since the days of
…being the hot new game in town…but the energy demand for the stuff we get in the by-catch of the net we use when we talk about AI right next to the eye-watering sums of money parts…at the moment…that runs to somewhere around 4% or so of the total annual draw of the whole of the US…give or take…&…if the numbers go the way they do in the material presented as the actual business plan case for how they’re a good bet for the funding the pack is part of the cap-in-hand routine for…by 2030…that 4…turns 40
…& compared to a few places that are maybe house-proud about how the term translates in their neck of the woods…the US…as a “national grid”?
…I’ve heard the term “dogshit” more than once…in the context of load balancing & avoiding capacity getting wasted by having to spill generated power…in some cases just…into the dirt pretty much literally…as part of how you “manage” that grid…generally that’s why they say they need to build the quick’n’dirty power-plant so they have a genny for the genie in the hangar next door…sorry…genii…millions of the fuckers…hived…like one of them rat-king tail-knotted things
…in fact…wouldn’t you know it…*before* the part we need all the money in the world for so it can be clever enough to tell us how to not make climate change worse & also how to live on mars without everyone being dead first…we need those totally-not-even-slightly-publicly-owned-but-pipelined-up-&-burning-shit-as-fast-as-the-money-comes-out power bits…which we can only possibly do if we stop all that silly you-clearly-just-want-to-murder-the-earth-not-like-us-saviors “regulation” stuff…that shit is the devil…but…enough of that to cover adding so much power even on the rate we project the overall number to be trending it’s going to be an order of magnitude more than it was…& the “solution” in the proposal is to…lean *in* to the jevons thing…by juicing your efficiency in the sense of lowering the cost of the resource in the per-flop-price…for a thing that…is built to max out its token use…to boost its revenues…which…if you work down your stack from whatever you think you’re using that says it’s making money doing that & you’re willing to pay the rates for…which may or may not leave them running at a loss after they pay *their* charges for the stuff that their thing runs on top of…which when you get down to the only 2 seriously big money ones (also I think all the others but OpenAI & anthropic are the two where they can’t do the usual microsoft thing of it not mattering if whole subsidiaries run at a loss because there’s just really that many office installs out there so it doesn’t look quite as fucking nuts?) seem to have proven pretty conclusively that a) it costs them more to provide than anyone will pay for what they are providing…& b) that if you do build a business off their stuff that you find your way to getting within sight of breaking even they will turbofuck your whole shit by switching up how the money parts work…because they have yet to get off the runway & they burn the world’s most expensive niche jetfuel at staggeringly non-competitive rates while banking ungodly profits
…I fundamentally do not understand why all the people I always get told either are worth or make the most money or have the most stuff are people it seems like you’d need to be a fucking headcase to go within three state lines of if there’s money involved…& yet they have no issue finding people to queue up to “do business” with them…I think maybe I’ve been working with the wrong definition of “business”…but I don’t see how theirs works for sayings like “taking care of business” or “handle my business” or “mind your own business”…&…mine works for all those & seems like if it did for make-money-doing kinds of business, too…it…*could*…it just…doesn’t?
This is incredibly poorly and confusingly worded but I think what Platner is saying, is that the federal highway trust fund, funded by the gas tax, needs to be replaced with something else. I think there's actually broad agreement about this within climate and urbanism circles.
the windfall tax is good and i haven't read the third thing yet, kneejerk is that it sounds stupid but unlike the gas tax holiday i'm not 100% positive
apropos of the latest platner news, for awhile my dad was the guy who checked that tiny little family owned gas stations in east bumble weren't just pocketing the federal gas tax (which, as he told preteen me, funds road repairs) so every time i'd see the little 1.59⁹ I was like 🫵😤
So instead of 18 cents of every gallon going to fund building and maintaining infrastructure, including public transit, zero of it will go to those things. Plus any increase in gas prices that results goes 100% to oil companies.
Yes, we should tax billionaires up the wazoo to pay for things, but we have a lot of things in this country we could pay for beyond just highways.
Would love to hear an economist explain what they think a 50% per-barrel windfall tax on oil companies would do to gas prices. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that it probably isn’t as simple as Platner makes it seem!
If you want roads and public services, you need to tax things. Gas is a no brainer, it’s usage is harmful. It is generally used for things that rely on publicly planned goods (like roads). The problem with the gas tax is that it is too low. Platner demonstrating again that he is a know nothing.
…but…like…preznit stable geniuz said it was smart business…&…we need to be moving past all this recent unpleasantness so maine can be not-cursed-anymore…I saw it on the TV & everything…this is so confusing…wherever am I going wrong?
In total desperation mode over his Iran war fiasco, the Bozo Fascist has proposed "pausing" the federal gas tax, which (just like the tariff refunds he now owes) would benefit big corporations, not consumers. He's a reckless moron, flailing and dangerous. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202…
no one believes you re: your threats to leave the site btw, that sort of passion only reinforces that you are the top 1% of dedicated poster who absolutely will be back. no one cares
heavy handed moderation is almost always far preferable to a laissez faire approach, especially when it involves a gentle day or two "go touch grass" suspensionalso melting down at the mods is a tradition as old as the Internet itself. just relax lol
…stop making me hear strange fruit…different…that’s…cruel & unusual…&…contrary to multiple conventions from geneva to genre…you fucking heathen bastards
…I liked it better when the idea that “peacefully exercising their right to protest” involving “good people” who are “patriots” required rocking up to storm the capitol with a mob & bringing your own gallows like da lynch mob posse that knows how to par-tay…sounded clearly fucking crazypants…& not like I’d need to know more about where the people suggesting that might be coming from to be sure which way their winds of change were blowing?
What suspending the gas tax would mean for you, briefly explained. www.vox.com/the-logoff-n…
I’m literally lethality-mogging you rn. You’re the virgin combined arms and logistics considerer while I’m the Chad “just throw SOF at the problem”. You’re letting political correctness lower the effectiveness of your fighting force while I’m winning my engagements with the superiority of my war cr-
…ever have the thing where the phone call to tell you the thing you’d be busy with later wasn’t going to happen that somehow had to be an urgent conversation right when you would otherwise have been finishing the thing you expected to be done with before you had to deal with at all today?
Also it is funny that the only activity he seems to do with any real frequency day to day is cold call random reporters and say whatever thing pops into his brain hence “Venezuela will become a state”
…hey, now…be fair…lots of the ones that have his number call *him*…he just…picks those calls up more than you’d think someone that supposedly busy probably would…but…all those other presidents that didn’t have so much time to blow smoke with the good press & the good lawyers that don’t take notes…those guys were all losers anyway…I mean…who’s president now, bitches…amirite?
The impression I get is they all very much like getting random calls from the president lol
I do think that for manpower-poor militaries, uavs and ugvs make defense much easier, or at least make it much easier to impose high costs
“The cost per square mile has risen from approximately 120 Russian personnel in 2025 to 780 in the first four months of 2026.” @warinthefuture.bsky.social
I find these figures quit chilling. Oekraïne has talked several times how many they have to kill to move faster than Putin can put up new meat for the warfactory. They need to go from 30k to 50k. This whole counting sounds absolute horrifing. I can’t remember a war where these numbers where called.
War was never calculating casualties vs results. (Except extreem situtions. But even then..) not just in ww1/2. Maybe even to little, somtimes. WO1 a lot more than WO2. Although east/russian terms in WO2 went far over ‘calculating’. Not a first for russia. But 50k to up the refreshing capability RS?
That’s a grid of 780 Russian soldiers spaced 188 feet apart on average for each sq mi. Less than a football field apart. Less than shouting distance.
…be
It is funny how it’s everyone you most expect flipping out AOC refuses to pat MTG on the head for rage quitting because Trump refused to endorse her for senate
I took the time to read “Morally Motivated Networked Harassment as Normative Reinforcement” since it was mentioned in That Thread, and it is a good paper which should be more widely read given the descriptive power of its findings and methodology.
I’m probably going to incorporate some of its claims into subsequent work I do on affective economies, Deweyan digital publics, and their continuity with offline environments, and it might become a staple bonus reading in my Philosophy of Tech class.
That said, I think it only tangentially supports what Aaron says in That Thread, and I’ll probably write something longer about it after I’ve done my prep to survive Finals Week.
[…if anyone cares that was the thing I was looking for that means if you started this too early the second embedded thing wasn’t jamelle…probably you don’t…either way…I mean…can you imagine being this far & scrolling back to damn-nearly the top…that’s for sickos…don’t nobody got time for that shit…we almost at the end of this bullshit…I can see it from here…give or take the AWOL good bit that doesn’t sound like this always bloody does…you’d think some of this could have waited for thursday if there were any justice…or a moment’s peace…be taking the lord’s name in vain in a minute…you watch…I knew that one was trouble…din’t I say…’ere…din’nt I tell you I saw right off he were a wrong ‘un…that one’s trouble, I said…you mark my words…well, here we are & here I am to tell you I told you so…I bloody told you so…no good rotten little sod…always was a fucking nuisance…I pity ‘is poor ol’ sainted mother…dinnae always say how much I pitied that poor woman…martyr to that family she was…probably what killed the poor cow in the end]
There’s a corner near the Lincoln Memorial where you can see both the Donald J Trump Institute for Peace and the The Donald J Trump The John F Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts and boy it is rage inducing
…hmm…actually…yes…wow…this is…embarrassing…this was meant to go where I was all “won’t somebody think of the poor gamers” & then…on account of the thing the first one says is true despite it being a huffpo link…but wired did it better…the reprise that weren’t *those* gamers would have been that…surprising nobody that’s been paying any attention…wired did it better…so…in lieu of a good bit…sort of anywhere so far…&…since it’s a coin-toss if my day is youtube-compatible…here’s the bit I’m all red-faced for forgetting to have got to already?
The screenshots at the end of the article are superb 🇺🇸🦅💥www.huffpost.com/entry/strait…
…secret handshake seem like if banksy hooked up with…I dunno…ed zitron or something, maybe?
PLAY THE NEW video gameOperation Epic Furious by SECRET HANDSHAKE. "There’s an Unhinged New Video Game About Trump and the Iran War." Wired🚫👑☮️🪧🙊🐷🇺🇲 ⚖️📜
…so…really…when you think about it…mr zitron getting agitated about the steam machine scalpers…is…like…a matter of national security…probably…I dunno…I forgot how to ask the chatbot
The rapid convergence of artificial intelligence (AI) toward conversational chatbot interfaces marks a critical moment for the industry. This paper argues that the chatbot paradigm is not a neutral interface choice, but a dominant sociotechnical configuration whose widespread adoption reshapes social, economic, legal, and environmental systems. We examine how treating AI primarily as conversational assistants has extensive structural downsides. We show how chatbot-based systems often fail to adequately meet user needs, particularly in complex or high-stakes contexts, while projecting confidence and authority. We further analyze how the normalization of chatbot-mediated interaction alters patterns of work, learning, and decision-making, contributing to deskilling, homogenization of knowledge, and shifting expectations of expertise. Finally, we examine broader societal effects, including labor displacement, concentration of economic power, and increased environmental costs driven by sustained investment in large-scale chatbot infrastructures. While acknowledging legitimate benefits, we argue that the current trajectory of AI development reflects specific value choices that prioritize conversational generality over domain specificity, accountability, and long-term social sustainability. We conclude by outlining alternative directions for AI development and governance that move beyond one-size-fits-all chatbots, emphasizing pluralistic system design, task-specific tools, and institutional safeguards to mitigate social and economic harm.
CCS Concepts: • Human-centered computing → Empirical studies in HCI; HCI theory, concepts and models; • Social and professional topics → Computing / technology policy; • Computing methodologies → Artificial intelligence.
Additional Key Words and Phrases: agency, conversational AI, chatbots, labor displacement, environmental justice, AI governance
SOUROJIT GHOSH∗, University of Washington Seattle, USA PRANAV NARAYANAN VENKIT, Salesforce Research, USA SANJANA GAUTAM†, Microsoft, USA AVIJIT GHOSH∗‡, Hugging Face and University of Connecticut, USA
…I know…not as fun…or funny…looks like homework…but…I already tried to palm it off on someone who reads that sort of thing to get a read & they didn’t bite that bit of bait so they told me to read it myself & tell them what I thought of it but I haven’t had time yet…so…anybody…anybody…bueller?
18 Comments
…oh, say…this part is fun…3 resigned so far…talk is more than the number of his team want him gone…but…it’s not like the letters to the one backbencher that does the magic number bit for the other lot the way only nigel can ever really be the leader even when someone else in the party is actually prime minister so rules can fuck themselves sideways like the electorate likes it…for starmer’s bunch…fully 81 of theirs have to *agree on a replacement candidate*…& so far no hats formally *in* that ring…so…house-of-cards-you-might-say-that.gif
…king’s speech to parliament tomorrow
…reporter: so he remains leader & nothing changes?
…other reporter: at the present moment…yes
…1st reporter: …& that’s the world at one-forty-five…
…2nd reporter: but only a fool would think that’ll be the world at two-forty-five…or tomorrow afternoon when the king arrives
…anyway…about this thing where the kids think it’s cool to hit yourself in the face with a hammer…any idea where they get those ideas from, at all?
Personally I think the king’s speech should just be him getting to the podium, pulling out a medium-sized head of lettuce and eating it slowly while staring down Parliament. But I’m a dreamer, I suppose.
…yup…think it’d actually win me all the way over…even with the new mrs that was the old mrs before the one the family said he should marry to produce the next round…which…might be saying a lot
…or…nothing
…it’s fun being a walking paradox, I guess…but it turns out there’s surprisingly little money in it…must have picked my contradictions…poorly?
Yeah, one of the things about someone like a Platner is that not only does he have the reddest of red flags on a personal level — once again, for the people in the back, the number of Nazi tattoos that is too many is any number larger than zero — too many people have seen the type of person who talks like he does at one point eventually turn into your Jilanis, your Greenwalds, your Fettermen.
Also ending tax on gas is the dumbest fucking policy, as are tax cuts, and apparently the Democrats are real horny for it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It’s incredibly stupid. It’s 18 cents a gallon, which would be fairly significant, but they can’t guarantee the savings would get passed on to consumers. So maybe 5 cents a gallon? But the oil companies can elect to keep it, so guess what’s going to happen?
Not even just the mechanics — which you are fully correct about not ultimately helping consumers much anyway — but simply the idea of eternally fighting the battles on the front decided by the opposition.
You can’t out-tax cut Republicans! You can’t! They’ll let poor and old people starve and say “but we cut middle class taxes by 1.7%!” You’re already ceding them the ground if you say “but WE’LL cut middle class taxes by 1.2% and fewer people will starve!” No! Fight the war of “why are Social Security taxes capped?” and “why do people have to starve?”
(This is also why people are mad at VA Dems for not going nuclear on the court. Either Trump is a grave threat to democracy or he isn’t! You can’t tell me he is and then when you hit a roadblock say “but norms” because either you’re lying to me about his threat level or you’re cowards.)
…y’all heard me when I said I was sorry…fam’…how many times I gotta say I’m sorry
…damn, blood…you all out here actin’ like I done something when I wasn’t never even there when that shit happened…& I still said sorry…that’s cold, bruv
…how you gonna do a brother like that…I ain’t even called julius…& ides done been march past already
…whaddya want I should do?
[…I mean…fair…&…you could answer…but who needs to see me post boy george that bad on a tuesday…really…when you think about it…aren’t we all just hurting ourselves?]
…btw…in case this part got lost in the mix…you…don’t need to go there if you can do an online secret handshake click a link?
Someone installed a functional arcade game at the DC War Memorial called Epic Furious.Play battles against schoolgirls, and threats like DEI or the Pope, and collect Trump-style trophies.The best part is you don't have to travel to DC to play:epicfurious.com
…many people are saying you could finish it in two weeks, two weeks is what they're saying. Just the other day a general came to me and said, "…sir! I'm stuck trying to find the real Melania in the earlier levels". He could only find stand-in Melanias. I told him lemme see that controller…)
…and I did it. Speedrun, easy. No one else could do it. Other Presidents, they couldn't do it. These are low-IQ people. The trick is easy—the Real Melania is *also* a paid stand-in. But she's the only one who frowns."
…speaking of…iirc the wired thing says if you ask melania to hold your hand around when the burn the files option pops up…that ends your game right there…but…it’s not the winning it’s about, is it?
…let’s say…hypothetically…someone…not mark that was that luke with the bad dad with good in him a son could feel…someone…else…on behalf of a…3rd party…posted something…that…@’d mr hamill…&…say…looked like…this?
…hypothetically…someone…not the guy that voiced the animated joker…oh…& skeletor…&…the trickster…&…arnim zola…&…the hobgoblin…who’s…basically norman “dr jeckyll” osborne’s mr hyde…although…you can see how he has a history as the bad guy…but…someone…got their hands on a coat the 1st lady sported…&…had a friend…with a camera?
…let’s see if the URL from the image that says it got deleted still embeds…or I’ll come back for a pass post a quick screenshot…of more than the cropped one in the post that I’d need to not accidentally re-load?
…but…let’s say…for funsies…that those two things we real things & you squeezed them side by side & posted them online…someone…who…for a bit…might have…seemed like they’d been someone you might have heard of…or heard…& they didn’t say this bit so you could hear it in their voice…but…I…might hear it in their voice in my head?
An honor I will treasure FOREVER.
…in a world where we get to have nice things…like mark hamill seems to be…maybe that would be a nice thing…& you’d think…say…that looks like a thing to share with nice people…hey…I know some nice people…why don’t I…anyway…the saddest words & such
…there but by the grace we cannot find…goeth…all of us probably…I can’t find a hatch to this hand-cart, anyway?
…oh, say…this part is fun…3 resigned so far…talk is more than the number of his team want him gone…but…it’s not like the letters to the one backbencher that does the magic number bit for the other lot the way only nigel can ever really be the leader even when someone else in the party is actually prime minister so rules can fuck themselves sideways like the electorate likes it…for starmer’s bunch…fully 81 of theirs have to *agree on a replacement candidate*…& so far no hats formally *in* that ring…so…house-of-cards-you-might-say-that.gif
…king’s speech to parliament tomorrow
…reporter: so he remains leader & nothing changes?
…other reporter: at the present moment…yes
…1st reporter: …& that’s the world at one-forty-five…
…2nd reporter: but only a fool would think that’ll be the world at two-forty-five…or tomorrow afternoon when the king arrives
…anyway…about this thing where the kids think it’s cool to hit yourself in the face with a hammer…any idea where they get those ideas from, at all?
Personally I think the king’s speech should just be him getting to the podium, pulling out a medium-sized head of lettuce and eating it slowly while staring down Parliament. But I’m a dreamer, I suppose.
…that…could make me a believer
…yup…think it’d actually win me all the way over…even with the new mrs that was the old mrs before the one the family said he should marry to produce the next round…which…might be saying a lot
…or…nothing
…it’s fun being a walking paradox, I guess…but it turns out there’s surprisingly little money in it…must have picked my contradictions…poorly?
Yeah, one of the things about someone like a Platner is that not only does he have the reddest of red flags on a personal level — once again, for the people in the back, the number of Nazi tattoos that is too many is any number larger than zero — too many people have seen the type of person who talks like he does at one point eventually turn into your Jilanis, your Greenwalds, your Fettermen.
Also ending tax on gas is the dumbest fucking policy, as are tax cuts, and apparently the Democrats are real horny for it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It’s incredibly stupid. It’s 18 cents a gallon, which would be fairly significant, but they can’t guarantee the savings would get passed on to consumers. So maybe 5 cents a gallon? But the oil companies can elect to keep it, so guess what’s going to happen?
Not even just the mechanics — which you are fully correct about not ultimately helping consumers much anyway — but simply the idea of eternally fighting the battles on the front decided by the opposition.
You can’t out-tax cut Republicans! You can’t! They’ll let poor and old people starve and say “but we cut middle class taxes by 1.7%!” You’re already ceding them the ground if you say “but WE’LL cut middle class taxes by 1.2% and fewer people will starve!” No! Fight the war of “why are Social Security taxes capped?” and “why do people have to starve?”
(This is also why people are mad at VA Dems for not going nuclear on the court. Either Trump is a grave threat to democracy or he isn’t! You can’t tell me he is and then when you hit a roadblock say “but norms” because either you’re lying to me about his threat level or you’re cowards.)
Stable genius.
Bro.
Bruh.
…but…like…homies
…y’all heard me when I said I was sorry…fam’…how many times I gotta say I’m sorry
…damn, blood…you all out here actin’ like I done something when I wasn’t never even there when that shit happened…& I still said sorry…that’s cold, bruv
…how you gonna do a brother like that…I ain’t even called julius…& ides done been march past already
…whaddya want I should do?
[…I mean…fair…&…you could answer…but who needs to see me post boy george that bad on a tuesday…really…when you think about it…aren’t we all just hurting ourselves?]
Brohan.
“Democrat hell holes!”
https://popular.info/p/violent-crime-plummets-in-democrat
Time to stock up again people!
https://www.wonkette.com/p/south-carolina-republicans-let-them
…btw…in case this part got lost in the mix…you…don’t need to go there if you can do
an online secret handshakeclick a link?…&…the thing is clearly a labor of love
…speaking of…iirc the wired thing says if you ask melania to hold your hand around when the burn the files option pops up…that ends your game right there…but…it’s not the winning it’s about, is it?
…it’s the taking part
I gotta play that when I have a spare 2 hours to … burn.
Truthfully, this one does seem like it’s about the friends we made along the way.
…hmm…how did I not find somewhere to put this this morning?
https://bsky.app/profile/markhamillofficial.bsky.social/post/3mllybc4kpc2r
…ah…because it got deleted…shame…was funny, too
…let’s say…hypothetically…someone…not mark that was that luke with the bad dad with good in him a son could feel…someone…else…on behalf of a…3rd party…posted something…that…@’d mr hamill…&…say…looked like…this?
…hypothetically…someone…not the guy that voiced the animated joker…oh…& skeletor…&…the trickster…&…arnim zola…&…the hobgoblin…who’s…basically norman “dr jeckyll” osborne’s mr hyde…although…you can see how he has a history as the bad guy…but…someone…got their hands on a coat the 1st lady sported…&…had a friend…with a camera?
…let’s see if the URL from the image that says it got deleted still embeds…or I’ll come back for a pass post a quick screenshot…of more than the cropped one in the post that I’d need to not accidentally re-load?
…but…let’s say…for funsies…that those two things we real things & you squeezed them side by side & posted them online…someone…who…for a bit…might have…seemed like they’d been someone you might have heard of…or heard…& they didn’t say this bit so you could hear it in their voice…but…I…might hear it in their voice in my head?
…in a world where we get to have nice things…like mark hamill seems to be…maybe that would be a nice thing…& you’d think…say…that looks like a thing to share with nice people…hey…I know some nice people…why don’t I…anyway…the saddest words & such
…there but by the grace we cannot find…goeth…all of us probably…I can’t find a hatch to this hand-cart, anyway?