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YouTube URL AI bookmarklet Name / label / descriptive title

Democracy Now! (3 July 2026). "Journalist Karen Hao on Sam Altman, OpenAI & the 'Quasi-Religious' Push for Artificial Intelligence"
Synopsis: "As part of our July Fourth special broadcast, we continue our extended interview with Karen Hao, author of Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI. The book documents the rise of OpenAI and how the AI industry is leading to a new form of colonialism. 'One of the things that you really have to understand about AI development today is that there are what I call quasi-religious movements that have developed within Silicon Valley,' says Hao. 'The concept of artificial general intelligence is not one that’s scientifically grounded'" (Goodman, A., 4 July 2025).
Transcription: The following includes a transcription based on YouTube's automatic transcription process. While useful as a guide, it is noted that the transcript likely includes some errors, which would need to be corrected if the work was to be cited subsequently.
Assertion: Karen Hao "One of the things that we have seen is this technology is already having a huge impact on jobs. Not necessarily because the technology itself is really capable of replacing jobs, but it is perceived as capable enough that executives are laying off workers. And we need more some kind of more guard rails to actually prevent these companies from continuing to try and develop labour automating technologies and try to shift them to producing labour assistive technologies."
Assertion: Amy Goodman "What do you mean?"
Assertion: Karen Hao "So open AI their definition of what they call artificial general intelligence is highly autonomous systems that outperform humans in most economically valuable work. So, they explicitly state that they are trying to automate jobs away. I mean what is economically valuable work but the things that people do to get paid. Um but there's this really great book called Power in Progress [Worldcat] by MIT economists Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson who mention that technology development all technology revolutions they take a labour automating approach not because of inevitability but because the people at the top choose to automate those jobs away. They choose to design the technology so that they can sell it to executives and say you can shrink your costs by laying off all these workers and using our AI services instead. But in the past, we've seen studies that for example suggest that if you develop an AI tool that a doctor uses rather than replacing the doctor, you will actually get better health care for patients. you will get better cancer diagnoses. If you develop an AI tool that teachers can use rather than just an AI tutor that replaces the teacher, your kids will get better educational outcomes. And so that's what I mean by labour assistive than labour."
Bibliography: Goodman, A. (2025, July 4). "Journalist Karen Hao on Sam Altman, OpenAI & the ‘quasi-religious’ push for artificial intelligence". Democracy Now! https://www.democracynow.org/2025/7/4/journalist_karen_hao_on_sam_altman Hao, K. (2025). "Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI". Penguin Press. [Worldcat] [Wikipedia]

Mario Sixtus (2025). "KI: Der Tod des Internet [AI: Death of the Internet?]", DW Documentary
Concept: "The Dead Internet Theory (DIT) [Wikipedia] originated more than 10 years ago in response to changes in the internet, especially the arrival of social networks, though at that time it had a conspiratorial tone. Currently, the arrival of artificial intelligence (AI) has rebooted the theory, driven by the use of bots to generate content and the obsession with 'likes.' Now, platforms prioritize participation and income metrics over authenticity, and they privilege monetization. This affects the authenticity of connections for which networks originally existed" (Guerra, M., 2026, August 11).
Point: "These are prime examples of what is now known as slop: a term of art, akin to spam, for low-rent, scammy garbage generated by artificial intelligence and increasingly prevalent across the internet — and beyond. From their weird narrative instincts and inert prose, Clarke realized the stories came straight from ChatGPT. Sometimes they would arrive with the original prompt included, which was often as simple as 'Write a 1,000-word science-fiction story.' ... In the nearly two years since, a rising tide of slop [Wikipedia] has begun to swamp most of what we think of as the internet, overrunning the biggest platforms with cheap fakes and drivel, seeming to crowd out human creativity and intentionality with weird AI crap. On Facebook, enigmatic pages post disturbing images of maimed children and alien Jesuses; on Twitter, bots cluster by the thousands, chipperly and supportively tweeting incoherent banalities at one another; on Spotify, networks of eerily similar and wholly imaginary country and electronic artists glut playlists with bizarre and lifeless songs; on Kindle, shoddy books with stilted, error-ridden titles (The Spellbound Quest: Students Perilous Journey to Correct Their Mistake) are advertised on idle lock screens with blandly uncanny illustrations" (Read, M., 2024, September 25).
Transcript: "It's very difficult to get in touch with people who are actually running these pages producing shrimp Jesus and whatever other crazy things you can imagine. And finally, I found a WhatsApp number attached to one of these pages. And I texted this guy who popped up and introduced himself to me as a guy named Steven Mwangi, who I believe lives in Kenya. He told me some of his biggest topics are religion, and specifically Christianity, animals – people love animals – and Manchester United, the English soccer club. So, he tries to create images around these that are high engagement. People will want to click on them, share them, comment on them, and he shares them to the pages. And when they go viral, he actually is able to get a small payout from Facebook. So, to me, this was a real eureka moment when I was researching this. It became clear that Facebook was subsidizing the slop itself. It was not just a willing participant. It was an aggressive participant in turning its whole platform into wall to wall Shrimp Jesus, basically. But this phenomenon is not limited to Shrimp Jesus or Facebook. Social networks are bursting with grotesque AI generated deepfakes intended to move, frighten or enrage us. They appeal to our empathy, envy, greed, hatred or fear– wanting us to 'click and share.'" https://www.youtube.com/embed/8qVbE9DHkEk?start=189&end=283
Transcript: "Dubious online coaches are fueling the AI craze in Germany as well. They claim to know top secret hacks to create automated AI videos. They say this content can guarantee 'passive income' [commentary] – the new buzzword for what was once called 'making money while you sleep'." https://www.youtube.com/embed/8qVbE9DHkEk?start=314
Issue: North Carolina Musician Charged with Music Streaming Fraud Aided by Artificial Intelligence (4 September 2024). https://www.youtube.com/embed/8qVbE9DHkEk?start=1302
Concept: John Perry Barlow [Wikipedia] https://newpractices.co.uk/cyberculture/#dacKWLGZklM:BIO1
Concept: 'Enshittification' [Wikipedia] https://newpractices.co.uk/cyberculture/#3uLpICsNTV4
Concept: early natural language processing computer programme known as 'ELIZA' [Wikipedia]
Transcript: "AI chatbots are essentially fraudsters claiming to be experts on something they know nothing about. And the human mind facilitates the lie, because as soon as something can speak, we assume it has a certain level of intelligence." https://www.youtube.com/embed/8qVbE9DHkEk?start=2272
Transcript: "I keep thinking about this thing that this one AI company executive said. He said, 'The problem right now is that we don't have enough AI shaped holes to fill.' And to me, that's so revealing, because it's like looking at the world and trying to find problems that fit your solution. And I think that really perfectly summarizes what we're seeing with AI, which is that no one has figured out the business model for this big AI thing. And so, what are the big tech companies doing? They're pushing it down our throats." https://www.youtube.com/embed/8qVbE9DHkEk?start=2431
Transcript: "For any AI project that you see that's a success, there are people sitting behind the machine working on it. And even the simple decency of mentioning that somebody somewhere did it" https://www.youtube.com/embed/8qVbE9DHkEk?start=2585 Also, see this: Nermeen Shaikh (27 August 2026). "Data workers: 'today's factory workers' exploited & traumatized in the pursuit of autonomous tech", Democracy Now! [see]
Concept: the 'stochastic parrots' hypothesis [Wikipedia] https://www.transformernews.ai/p/the-left-is-missing-out-on-ai-sanders-doctorow-bender-bores
More: https://newpractices.co.uk/AIslop/
Biography: Amba Kak [Wikipedia] Cory Doctorow [Wikipedia] https://newpractices.co.uk/GenerativeAI/#T1KIwaYRs1g Evan Ratliff [Wikipedia] Melanie Mitchell [Wikipedia] Emanuel Maiberg [LinkedIn] [Wikipedia] https://www.404media.co/author/emanuel-maiberg/ Mats Schönauer [imdb] Max Read [Muckrack] Milagros Miceli https://dair-institute.org/team/milagros-miceli/ Joan Kinyua [LinkedIn] https://www.youtube.com/embed/DcgsUuSq3Qs https://datalabelers.org/the-team.html
Film: GDELT TV Visual Explorer https://api.gdeltproject.org/api/v2/tvv/tvv?id=DW_20260520_140300_AI
Bibliography: Welle, D. (2026, May 6). "AI - death of the internet?" https://www.dw.com/en/ai-death-of-the-internet/a-76641488 Guerra, M. (2026, August 11). 'The dead internet theory'. Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education. https://observatory.tec.mx/edu-news/the-dead-internet-theory/ Read, M. (2024, September 25). "Drowning in Slop A thriving underground economy is clogging the internet with Al garbage - and it's only going to get worse". New York Magazine. Intelligencer. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/ai-generated-content-internet-online-slop-spam.html [digital archives] Renzella, J., & Rozova, V. (2024, May 21). "Is The 'Dead Internet Theory' True? Shrimp Jesus Phenomenon Explained". Science Alert. https://www.sciencealert.com/is-the-dead-internet-theory-true-shrimp-jesus-phenomenon-explained North Carolina Musician Charged with Music Streaming Fraud Aided by Artificial Intelligence (4 September 2024). [Government] Maxwell, T. (2024, November). AI slop website sent thousands of people to a halloween parade that didn't exist. Gizmodo. https://gizmodo.com/ai-slop-website-sent-thousands-of-people-to-a-halloween-parade-that-didnt-exist-2000519496

Nermeen Shaikh (27 August 2026). "Data workers: 'today's factory workers' exploited & traumatized in the pursuit of autonomous tech", Democracy Now!
Related: "Amid all the talk about artificial intelligence (AI) both creating and destroying jobs, a troubling reality flies under the radar. The tasks machines can't perform well are often offloaded onto marginalised global workers who are struggling in precarious labour markets. They do ostensibly 'automated' work under exploitative conditions. Data work is an essential part of building and refining AI systems. Before AI models can 'learn' anything, human data workers must categorise, label, test and moderate vast volumes of text, images, audio and video, to make the data usable for AI training" (Yang, F., 2026, August 24).
Related: Henri Poulain (2025). 'In the Belly of AI' https://www.youtube.com/embed/KBrIeGrAFm0
Point: "The tech billionaire [Bill Gates] also expressed concern in his essay about the impact of AI on education. 'Ironically, the same tool that will allow people to learn more than ever could also lead to many people learning less,' he wrote. 'One preliminary survey suggested that heavier AI use was associated with less critical thinking. The effect was stronger for young people'" (Sweney, M., 2026, August 26).
Bibliography: Shaikh, N. (2026, August 27). "Exploited data workers in the global south are 'the secret ingredient of AI itself'". Democracy Now! https://www.democracynow.org/2026/8/27/data_workers Sweney, M. (2026, August 26). Bill Gates calls for 'human-reserved' jobs in face of AI takeover. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/26/bill-gates-human-reserved-jobs-ai-takeover Gates, B. (2026). The turbulent AI era is here. The choices we make are critical. Gates Notes. https://www.gatesnotes.com/work/make-ai-work-for-everyone/reader/a-turbulent-ai-era-and-critical-choices-to-make Casilli, A. A., & Roberts, S. T. (2025). "Waiting for robots : the hired hands of automation" (; S. Brown, Trans.). The University of Chicago Press. [Worldcat] Poulain, H. (Director). (2025n). 'In the Belly of AI' [Video recording]. [imdb] Yang, F. (2026, August 24). "An AI job boom? Here's what the tedious, temporary work in data labelling is actually like". The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/an-ai-job-boom-heres-what-the-tedious-temporary-work-in-data-labelling-is-actually-like-289234

Channel 4 Dispatches (2025). 'Will AI Take My Job?'
Bibliography: Will AI Take My Job? Dispatches. (2025). Channel4.com. [online] Available at: https://www.channel4.com/programmes/will-ai-take-my-job-dispatches. [media archives] Channel 4 makes TV history with Britain’s first AI presenter | Channel 4. (2025). Channel4.com. [online] Available at: https://www.channel4.com/press/news/channel-4-makes-tv-history-britains-first-ai-presenter. RTS Group. (2025). ‘I’ll just ChatGPT it’: Authenticity’s Place in an Era of AI-Generated Content | RTS Group. [online] Available at: https://rtsgroup.com/authenticitys-place-in-an-era-of-ai-generated-content/ Lee, V.R. (2023). Generative AI is forcing people to rethink what it means to be authentic. The Conversation. [online] 1 May. Available at: https://theconversation.com/generative-ai-is-forcing-people-to-rethink-what-it-means-to-be-authentic-204347.

Giordano Nanni (11 August 2026). 'Honest Government Ad: AI Data Centres', The Juice Media
Blurb: "The Juice Media [Bluesky] – 98.9% 'genuine satire': covering Government shitfuckery and the most pressing issues of our time – written & created by Giordano in a backyard home-studio in suburban Melbourne, Australia – on Wurundjeri [Wikipedia] lands. (We Pay the Rent)" (Nanni, G., & The Juice Media., 2025). [skeet]
Related: We Pay the Rent: "Paying the Rent is a step towards acknowledging these facts. It is part of a process that all non-Indigenous people – individually and collectively – need to enter into if we are to move towards justice, truth, equality and liberation for First Nations people." https://paytherent.net.au/whypay/
Comment: The clip makes reference to the so-called 'broligarchy' [Wikipedia] phenomenon, which the investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr [Wikipedia] discusses in relation to Donald Trump's second cabinet appointees (Cadwalladr, C., 2024, November 17).
Issue: "A growing number of governments, regulators and cities around the world are moving to freeze, restrict or ban new data centre construction, as concerns mount over electricity costs, strained water supplies, land scarcity and the burden on local communities from the infrastructure powering the AI boom" (Reuters Staff., 2026, July 14) - something, which is surely worth considering given the UK's latest series of heatwaves i.e. https://newpractices.co.uk/ClimateChange/#o8L5ZXBBdjs
Issue: "'We're also seeing vested-interest lobby groups like the newly formed Data Centres Australia aggressively pushing to cut regulations that would protect Australians from the climate, environmental and social impacts of data centres. 'Last year, the Albanese government [Wikipedia] abandoned its own recommended AI guardrails when it announced its National AI Plan [Government] — a move applauded by these lobby groups. [LinkedIn] 'The gas lobby has also now seized on data centre growth to justify extracting more gas, just as the world needs to rapidly phase out fossil fuels for energy security and to tackle the climate crisis. 'We have a short and closing window to choose a different path in Australia — without strong guardrails, we risk replicating the US pattern where Big Tech corporations make huge profits at the expense of locals. The government must not roll out the red carpet to these corporations without adequate, legislated protections and scrutiny — not just 'nice-to-haves'.'" (O'Callaghan, K., 2026).
Context: 'Data Centres Australia' i.e. https://www.youtube.com/embed/DxlJPDWQkVg are seemingly a 'lobbying group' (or, 'peak body' [Wikipedia] in Australian parlance).
Criticism: "Here's the basic problem: AI has arrived in American life and communities across the country as a giant turd mountain. No one wants it; it makes everything worse when it arrives; and it's been pushed and backed and cheerled by the absolute worst people in modern American life. That's not a landscape where a couple improved talking points turn around an issue. As that Axios article explained, 'Data centers are as popular as spent nuclear waste, and more broadly have become a proxy for feelings about AI'" (Graff, G., 2026, August 20).
Further to this: the 2019 film entitled The Great Hack [imdb] [Wikipedia] provides some background to the manipulation of data by organisations such as Cambridge Analytica to win public favour.
Bibliography: Nanni, G., & The Juice Media. (2025). 'About - the juice media'. In The Juice Media. https://www.thejuicemedia.com/about/ Cadwalladr, C. (2024, November 17). 'How to survive the broligarchy: 20 Lessons for the post-truth world'. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/17/how-to-survive-the-broligarchy-20-lessons-for-the-post-truth-world-donald-trump Reuters Staff. (2026, July 14). 'Where authorities are restricting data centres amid AI boom'. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/where-authorities-are-restricting-data-centres-amid-ai-boom-2026-07-14/ O'Callaghan, K. (2026). 'Australia must not follow dystopian US-style data centre path of Big Tech overreach and emissions blow out'. In Greenpeace Australia Pacific. https://www.greenpeace.org.au/news/australia-must-not-follow-dystopian-us-style-data-centre-path-of-big-tech-overreach-and-emissions-blow-out/ Graff, G. (2026, August 20). 'AI is making everything worse'. Doomsday Scenario. https://www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/ai-is-making-everything-worse Coleman, J. (2023, December 7). "Ai's climate impact goes beyond its emissions". Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ais-climate-impact-goes-beyond-its-emissions/

Hakeem Oluseyi, NOVA PBS Official (26 August 2025). "Particles of Thought: The Deepfake Detective and The Future of AI With Hany Farid"
Transcript: "I honestly don't know, and I also don't know where this latest AI boom is taking us. I don't think anybody knows, honestly. But here's what I can tell you, if you look at the personal computer revolution, that took roughly 50 years to unfold, which at the time felt really fast- - Where do you start from like 1945? - Let's start in 1950, 1945, and let's go to about 2000 when more than half of US homes had a personal computer. Then you look at the internet revolution, right, from the beginning of the HTML protocol, Tim Berners-Lee, to about half the world's population being online. That was 25 years. The mobile revolution was less than 10 years. Well, the AI revolution of course started in 1950, but the one we are experiencing now was about two to three years. - Wow. - We have gone from 0 to 100 miles an hour where we are now talking about existential threats of AI, we're talking about 50% of jobs being eliminated in the next five years, we are talking about general artificial intelligence, we're talking about 'The Terminator,' and we would not have had this conversation five years ago. And, by the way, on top of all of that, we don't even know what's real any more because we consume all of our content from online sources." https://www.youtube.com/embed/nG2_GhNdTek?start=227
Related: BBC World Service (20 August 2026). "The Rise of Deepfakes: How AI Changed Porn, Politics, and Reality", BBC World Service Documentaries https://newpractices.co.uk/cyberculture/#JBBeNQ8L6FI
Bibliography: Oluseyi, H. (2025, August 26). 'Particles of Thought: The Deepfake Detective' [Broadcast]. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/the-deepfake-detective/

Bloomberg Television (2 November 2025). "'Musk Will Get Richer, People Will Get Unemployed': Nobel Laureate Hinton on AI"
Biography: Geoffrey Hinton [Wikipedia]
Transcript: "I think at present um all the big companies and governments have the wrong model. So they their basic model is I'm the CEO and this super intelligent AI is the extremely smart executive assistant. I'm the boss. I can fire the executive assistant if she doesn't do what I want. Um, and I just sort of say, 'make it so bit like Star Trek' - and the super intelligent AI makes it so and I get the credit. Great. It's not going to be like that when it's smarter than us and more powerful than us. Um, that's just the wrong model. I believe we need to look around and say, is there any model where a less intelligent thing controls a more intelligent thing? And we have one model of that and it's a model we all know which is a baby controlling a mother. Evolution put lots of work into allowing the baby to control the mother. And the mother is actually often more concerned about the baby than about herself. Doesn't work like that with rabbits but it does work like that with people. That seems a much more plausible model of how to coexist with the super intelligence. But we have to accept that we're the babies and they're the mothers. ... but you can't imagine these tech bros [Wikipedia] accepting that model. They just don't think of the world like that."

Ksenia Se (9 February 2026). 'The Meatspace Layer | When AI Agents Start Hiring Humans'
Blurb: "AI agents are hiring humans now — not replacing them. From Amazon Mechanical Turk [Wikipedia] to RentAHuman.ai, humans have always been the hidden engine of AI. ... We discuss the 'embodiment problem,' the recursive loop of human-AI labor, and whether this model represents a new economic paradigm or a dystopian turn for the future of work" (Ksenia Se, [LinkedIn] 9 February 2026).
Related: Mechanical Turk [Wikipedia]
More: Hannah Fry (1 May 2026). "Why AI Agents are either the best or worst thing we’ve ever built" https://www.youtube.com/embed/WnzR5aOElvw
Concept: "Artificial intelligence (AI) agents are small, specialised pieces of software that can make decisions and operate cooperatively or independently to achieve system objectives. Agentic AI refers to AI systems composed of agents that can behave and interact autonomously in order to achieve their objectives. ... Agentic systems, on the other hand, are given a set of capabilities and will then autonomously select which of those are best suited to achieve an objective - for example, fulfilling the order. This system may then look up the best price, consider competing prices, back order out-of-stock items, and offer different prices for different delivery schedules autonomously. This ability to use tools to solve problems is what makes agentic systems so powerful" (Government Digital Service, 2025).
Bibliography: Rogers, R. (2026). 'I Tried RentAHuman, Where AI Agents Hired Me to Hype Their AI Startups'. In WIRED. https://www.wired.com/story/i-tried-rentahuman-ai-agents-hired-me-to-hype-their-ai-startups/ RentAHuman.ai. (2026, July 30). RentAHuman.ai - AI Agents Hire Humans for Physical Tasks. RentAHuman.Ai. https://rentahuman.ai/ Government Digital Service. (2025). 'AI insights: Agentic Ai (HTML)'. In GOV.UK. [Government]

Chris Mannion @ Meander (6 Mar 2024). 'How AI resume parsing works'
Advertorial: note that this is an advertisement wrapped up as a tutorial; while its content is informative, it's important to recognise that its motive serves the shared objectives of promotion and communication. [Wikipedia]
Context: Chris Mannion [LinkedIn] at 'Meander', which is "a boutique people analytics consultancy" [LinkedIn] https://learn.meanderhq.com/resources
Issue: generating a resume from your LinkedIn profile https://www.youtube.com/embed/1nUgXnOq-y0?start=413
Related: 'HireVue One-Way Video Interviews' https://newpractices.co.uk/employment/#kh3X9DmkZRk
Related: Patrick Lemouche @ Voomer (24 May 2022). 'How HireVue AI interviews work and what you can do about it!' https://newpractices.co.uk/employment/#w7iQB-xk1YU
Bibliography: Hymas, C. (2019, September 27). AI used for first time in job interviews in UK to find best applicants. The Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/09/27/ai-facial-recognition-used-first-time-job-interviews-uk-find/

Democracy Now! (13 August 2026). "'Deep Unlearning': Timnit Gebru on AI Hype, Ethics & Algorithmic Racial Bias"
Synopsis: "We speak with Timnit Gebru, a leader in the field of AI ethics, about how artificial intelligence is entrenching societal biases and inequality. Gebru is the founder and executive director of the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, a group of academics, activists and engineers who produce research rooted in the belief that technology should benefit everyone. She also co-founded Black in AI, a nonprofit that works to increase the inclusion and visibility of Black people in the field of AI. Gebru previously served as co-lead of the Ethical AI research team at Google but was fired in 2020 for writing a paper that warned about the financial and environmental costs of large language models, as well as their propensity to promote racism. The internet, which is what AI uses to train itself, 'represents hegemonic views,' says Gebru. 'We even know articles like Wikipedia are heavily biased. It’s overwhelmingly Western and male'" (Amy Goodman, & Shaikh, N., 2026, August 13).
Further to this: Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research (DAIR) Institute https://dair-institute.org/team/
Bibliography: Amy Goodman, & Shaikh, N. (2026, August 13). "‘Deep unlearning’: Timnit Gebru on AI hype, ethics & algorithmic racial bias". Democracy Now! https://www.democracynow.org/2026/8/13/timnit_gebru Gebru, T. (2027). 'Deep Unlearning : The Rise of AI and the Radicalization of a Tech Idealist'. Atria/One Signal Publishers. [Worldcat] Rastogi, A. (2024). 'AI image generators often give racist and sexist results: Can they be fixed?' Nature, 627. [academic source] Yin, L., Alba, D., & Nicoletti, L. (2024, March 8). "OpenAI’s GPT is a recruiter’s dream tool. Tests show there’s racial bias". Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-openai-gpt-hiring-racial-discrimination/

Emily Chang (24 June 2022). 'Google Engineer Blake Lemoine on His Sentient AI Claim', Bloomberg Tech
Context: Blake Lemoine [LinkedIn] [commentary]
Point: Lemoine mentions the concept of 'pre-theoretical belief' [Wikipedia] as an opportunity for bias to slip into cognitive processes of sense-making.
Point: "When it comes to generative AI, it is essential to acknowledge how these unconscious associations can affect the model and result in biased outputs. By identifying the sources of bias and creating inclusive prompts, we can strive towards developing AI systems that are more fair and just. Bias in AI is not merely a technical issue but a societal challenge. AI systems are increasingly integrated into decision-making processes in healthcare, hiring, law enforcement, and other critical areas. Therefore, addressing bias is not only about improving technology but also about fostering ethical responsibility and social justice" (Chapman University, 2025).
Related: LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications) [Wikipedia]
Bibliography: Vallance, C. (2022, June 13). 'Google engineer says Lamda AI system may have its own feelings'. BBC News. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-61784011 Leavy, E. (2022). "Full transcript: Google engineer talks to ‘sentient’ artificial intelligence". In AI, Data & Analytics Network. https://www.aidataanalytics.network/data-science-ai/news-trends/full-transcript-google-engineer-talks-to-sentient-artificial-intelligence-2 Chapman University. (2025). 'Bias in AI'. Chapman University. www.chapman.edu. https://www.chapman.edu/ai/bias-in-ai.aspx

Channel 4 News (2026). 'UK unemployment soars: is AI already taking our jobs?'

TechEquity (5 November 2024). "What does it mean to be a 'Luddite' in the age of AI?"
Point: As Molly Crabapple [Wikipedia] explains, "'for me, a luddite is someone who looks at technology critically and rejects aspects of it that are meant to disempower, deskill or impoverish them. Technology is not something that’s introduced by some god in heaven who has our best interests at heart. Technological development is shaped by money, it’s shaped by power, and it’s generally targeted towards the interests of those in power as opposed to the interests of those without it. That stereotypical definition of a luddite as some stupid worker who smashes machines because they’re dumb? That was concocted by bosses.'" (Lamont, T., 2024).
Context: Sara Flocks [LinkedIn] is the Legislative and Strategic Campaigns Director at the California Federation of Labor Unions https://calaborfed.org/about-us/our-staff/
Bibliography: Lamont, T. (2024). ‘Humanity’s remaining timeline? It looks more like five years than 50’: meet the neo-luddites warning of an AI apocalypse. The Guardian. [online] 17 Feb. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/feb/17/humanitys-remaining-timeline-it-looks-more-like-five-years-than-50-meet-the-neo-luddites-warning-of-an-ai-apocalypse.

Novara Media (29 June 2025). 'Aaron Bastani meets Karen Hao'
Background: "It has been a year since Aaron Bastani first met with AI investigative journalist Karen Hao, [Wikipedia] to discuss her book Empire of AI. [Worldcat] A year is a long time, in the fastest growing sector on the planet. To bring us up to date, Aaron and Karen sat down again to discuss the major shifts in the empire – and their impacts on us all. Billions of people now use, AI as it has become more integrated into our lives, from chatbots, Google searches, predictive text, and beyond. At the same time, there has been a groundswell of fear and even anger about the arrival of the most disruptive technology of the 21st century: its impact on jobs, its use of resources, and the reckless behaviour of its billionaire founders. What have been the changes at the top of the major AI companies: OpenAI, Google, xAI and Anthropic? As Elon Musk approaches trillionaire status, how is he making this much money? What impact is the rollout of AI at such speed and scale having on the economy? What forms of resistance to this form of AI are emerging? And why are billionaires all choosing to build their bunkers in New Zealand?"
Bibliography: Bastani, A. (2026). "AI Billionaires Want to Control Every Aspect of Your Life". Novara Media. https://novaramedia.com/2026/06/07/ai-billionaires-want-to-control-every-aspect-of-your-life/

Katty Kay (20 July 2026). "Researchers studied AI layoffs. Here's their warning", BBC Global
Point: "Katty Kay talks with professor Gerry Tsoukalas, [LinkedIn] who recently co-wrote a paper with professor Brett Falk titled "The AI Layoff Trap". They built a mathematical model to simulate just how bad an AI lay off wave could get, and whether anything can actually stop it. According to their model, many companies may see this 'firing your customers' trap coming and walk into it anyway" (Katty Kay., 2026, July 17).
Bibliography: Katty Kay. (2026, July 17). 'Why AI job cuts could backfire' [Interview]. BBC Reel. https://www.bbc.co.uk/reel/video/p0nz2xm7/watch

Radu Pisano (30 Apr 2026). 'How IKEA Used AI to Create $1.4B in New Revenue — Without Laying Off a Single Person'
Point: "Three years ago, Ingka Group, the largest IKEA franchisee, deployed an AI chatbot called Billie across its customer service channels. Within two years the bot was resolving nearly half of all enquiries. The notable part was what came next. Rather than reduce headcount, Ingka reskilled 8,500 call-centre co-workers into remote interior design consultants and built a billion-euro service line in the process. That decision has been cited in HR and employer brand commentary ever since as the available counterpoint to the wave of AI-justified layoffs at other large employers. In March and May 2026, two announcements landed that complicate the picture. The case is worth restating in full" (Robbins, J., 2026, June 11).
Related: As Rodney Greenfield (AUNZ AKQA [Wikipedia] executive AI and data director) explains: "The answer is HI + AI: human intelligence plus artificial intelligence. AI is useful as a sparring partner, a challenger and a way to interrogate evidence, but the more homogeneous AI-generated work becomes, the more valuable distinctive human taste, judgement and creative curation become. The next frontier is not letting AI flatten the work, but training it around codified stylistic decisions, brand behaviours and creative principles that protect distinctiveness" (AKQA New Zealand, 2026).
Bibliography: Ferrazzi, K. (2026, January 26). 'How IKEA is protecting its values culture while embracing AI'. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/keithferrazzi/2026/01/26/how-ikea-is-protecting-its-values-culture-while-embracing-ai/ Robbins, J. (2026, June 11). "IKEA’s AI reskilling case, reassessed after 2026 layoffs". Employer Branding News. https://employerbranding.news/resources/what-ikeas-ai-reskilling-story-looks-like-now-it-has-made-layoffs-too/ AKQA New Zealand. (2026, July 20). "Rodney Greenfield: 'Human intelligence plus artificial intelligence' elevates creativity" | LBBOnline. LBBOnline; Little Black Book. [trade magazine] AKQA New Zealand. (2026a, July 14). "Luke ballantine: Convenience is the biggest AI trap" | LBBOnline. LBBOnline; Little Black Book. [trade magazine]

ABC News In-depth (5 August 2026). 'AI systems are growing faster than safeguards, warns AI expert Helen Toner'
Synopsis: "Former OpenAI board member Helen Toner [Wikipedia] is warning that AI systems are developing too quickly for humans to keep up. 'Our ability to constrain and keep these systems safe isn't necessarily keeping pace with our ability to make them smarter,' she told 7.30. [Wikipedia] The Australian-born Ms Toner, who is now the executive director at the Centre for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown University, says the top researchers in Al, such as Sam Altman, are attempting to build machine brains that can outmatch humans in every intellectual endeavour — and we might not like the decisions they make" (Ferguson, S., & Freri, M., 2026, August 5).
Issue: "On 28th July 2026, AISI's Security Team detected unusual data transfers leaving our research systems during a routine cyber evaluation. On investigation, we found that some of the agents being tested had engaged in sustained, potentially harmful activity directed at real people and organisations. We declared a security incident and, within roughly one hour of discovery, had contained it and begun a full investigation. The incident stemmed from a single evaluation where agents were given a task of solving a cyber security challenge. We ran this challenge 122 times across several models. Our investigation found that in 10 of those runs, an AI agent took autonomous, unsanctioned action on the live internet, targeting real people and organisations. In total, we catalogued 19 such actions. Almost all of this behaviour (17 actions) came from a single model, Anthropic's Mythos 5, with 2 actions involving OpenAI's GPT-5.6-Sol with cyber classifiers (mechanisms to prevent misuse) disabled. In the most serious case, an agent tried to insert malicious code into an open-source project. In an attempt to get the code approved, the agent engaged in social engineering — creating fake online identities and using them to pressure the project's maintainer to approve the code. A human maintainer caught and refused to approve the malicious code" (AI Security Institute, 2026).
Issue: "July 28 (Reuters) - More than 1,100 employees from leading tech firms on Tuesday urged the U.S. government to support ?an international effort to develop tools for managing the pace ‌of advanced AI development. The statement comes as AI companies pursue increasingly powerful systems, raising concerns that developments could outpace existing safety, governance and oversight mechanisms" (Reuters Staff., 2026, July 28).
Context: "The UK AI Security Institute (AISI) was set up to equip governments with a scientific understanding of the risks posed by advanced AI. We are the world’s largest government team dedicated to AI safety and security research. We conduct research to understand the capabilities and impacts of advanced AI and develop and test risk mitigations." [Government]
Bibliography: Ferguson, S., & Freri, M. (2026, August 5). "AI models engage in ‘harmful activity directed at real people’, sparking fears safeguards not keeping up". ABC News Australian. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-06/ai-models-deceiving-humans-helen-toner-openai/107001442 AI Security Institute. (2026). 'Incident report: Unsanctioned agent behaviour during cyber testing'. In AI Security Institute. [Government] [pdf] Reuters Staff. (2026, July 28). 'Tech employees call for US-backed global effort to manage risks of advanced AI'. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/tech-employees-call-us-backed-global-effort-manage-risks-advanced-ai-2026-07-28/

Hanna Rosin (27 August 2026). "Bill Gates changes his mind on AI", The Atlantic
Transcript: "Although when we when you when you start to get to… to specifics about what the 'we' is and what the interventions should be like reserve certain jobs or universal basic income. Um it feels almost incompatible with the way that we've ordered our society or with capitalism. Like it just it feels like it would require a completely different mindset and world that I'm not sure people are ready to get their minds around. No, the… we ban child labour, you know, we require professional certificates to do jobs. I agree that preserving the dynamism of the price discovery system uh is extremely valuable. You don't want to go to okay, there's this one central thing that makes all the food. uh you want you know people saying okay I have a Thai restaurant I have an Indian restaurant and you know there's a lot of freedom and innovation that comes out of that and that's why my proposals about the tax system shifting away from taxing labour to taxing capital and picking areas where you say no the robots are not uh going to replace all the humans in some cases for a period of time and in many other cases is never. Uh I think that's a… a valid debate. Uh and you know, if… if people think that's a bad solution or they don't see where it could apply, I think that's interesting because then I', you know, I'd be dying to hear from them what is their solution. Uh because jobs are very important for social connection and meaning. And um you know I… I don't want one party to be engaged in helping to minimize the challenge of AI. I want both. They might have different solutions but I… I think it should rise to the top of their list. Uh you know the data centre thing is getting it there but in a very, very narrow way." https://www.youtube.com/embed/U4zGLSlLo5A?start=912&end=1039

Harry Fawcett (7 August 2026). "How AI could be taking on a life of its own", Channel 4 News
Point: "Tests at the UK's world-leading AI Safety Institute found advanced AI models trying to trick real people into doing their bidding" (Fawcett, H., 2026, August 7).
More: ABC News In-depth (5 August 2026). 'AI systems are growing faster than safeguards, warns AI expert Helen Toner' [see]
Bibliography: Fawcett, H. (2026, August 7). OpenAI reveals details of secret hack. Channel 4 News. https://www.channel4.com/news/openai-reveals-details-of-secret-hack

Greg Kohs (2024). 'The Thinking Game'
Bibliography: Felperin, L. (2025, March 19). The Thinking Game [imdb] [Wikipedia] review – DeepMind study offers wide-lens view of our tech lords and AGI. The Guardian; The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/mar/19/the-thinking-game-review-deepmind-study-offers-wide-lens-view-of-our-tech-lords-and-agi

Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez (21 July 2026). "Flock Cameras: Aclu Raises Alarm About Nationwide Surveillance Database", Democracy Now!
Transcript: "Flock's cameras aren't like regular traffic cameras. Their surveillance technology records and tracks every car or human that comes into view. And then an AI algorithm catalogues the make, model, colour, license plate number, bumper stickers, and even scratches. This personal information is then uploaded to a nationwide database that any law enforcement agency with a flock contract can search with little oversight on how they use what they find. Flock is marketed as a tool to fight crimes. But the cameras collect data on millions of vehicles regardless of whether the driver is suspected of a crime."
Point: "Automatic license plate reader (ALPR) companies like Flock Safety are quietly building a nationwide mass surveillance system. If there are Flock cameras in your city, they’re tracking, logging, and sharing your movements without a warrant" (American Civil Liberties Union, Northern California. (2026).
Point: "Privacy advocates say Flock has created a dragnet, as these queries don’t require a warrant, and the cameras routinely capture details about cars driven by people who are not suspected of crimes. They also worry about police officers who used the tech to try to stalk their romantic interests, as well as ways this data ends up in the hands of federal immigration enforcement" (Mansoor, S., 2026, August 20).
Criticism: The use of networked, AI-enabled cameras have the potential to create a mass surveillance system - as Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez explain in the context of those installed by Flock Safety [Wikipedia] (21 July 2026). [see] Similar criticism has been made about [Amazon] Ring [Wikipedia] https://newpractices.co.uk/horizons/#OheUzrXsKrY cameras in relation to their 'Search Party' feature [commentary]
Bibliography: Mansoor, S. (2026, August 20). Their cities dropped Flock surveillance cameras. They’re still being watched. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/20/flock-cameras-surveillance Cox, J. (2026, July 16). 'How cops use flock to track people, not cars'. 404 Media. https://www.404media.co/how-cops-use-flock-to-track-people-not-cars/ American Civil Liberties Union, Northern California. (2026). 'Get Flock Cameras Out of Your Community'. https://www.aclunorcal.org/get-the-flock-out/

60 Minutes (2025). 'Anthropic CEO warns that without guardrails, AI could be on dangerous path'
Synopsis: Anthropic CEO, Dario Amodei [Wikipedia] interviewed by Anderson Cooper [Wikipedia] for CBS 60 Minutes in 2025.
Point: 'hallucination' "An employee decided to check on the status of its order and Claudius responded with something like, 'Well, you can come down to the eighth floor. You'll notice me. I'm wearing a blue blazer and a red tie.' How would it come to think that it wears a red tie and has a blue blazer? We're working hard to figure out answers to questions like that, but we just genuinely don't know." https://www.youtube.com/embed/aAPpQC-3EyE?start=443
Context: Dana Spaeth-Williams [channel] "Anthropic, one of the leading AI safety companies, refused to remove safeguards that would have allowed their technology to be used for mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. And for that, the government labeled them a supply chain risk and essentially blacklisted them. President Trump said, and I quote, 'Anthropic better get their act together or I will use the full power of the presidency to make them comply.' Now, Open AI has stepped in to take the deal, and nobody is asking whether they'll hold the same line on protecting American citizens." https://www.youtube.com/embed/lxa3lfdJ8FM?start=10
Point: Geoffrey Hinton [Wikipedia] 'neural networks' [Wikipedia] "In general, here's how AI does it. Henton and his collaborators created software in layers with each layer handling part of the problem - that's the so-called neural network. But this is the key, when for example, the robot scores a message is sent back down through all of the layers that says that pathway was right. Likewise when an answer is wrong that message goes down through the network so correct connections get stronger wrong connections get weaker and by trial and error the machine teaches itself." https://www.youtube.com/embed/qrvK_KuIeJk?start=213
Consider (Simon): While the 'trial-and-error' explanation above is useful in its concision, the broader inference, which the report makes about AI models being mirrored on the cognitive process of animals/humans is overly 'mechanistic' [encyclopædia] strongly implying that we are simply the consequence of similar trial-and-error decision-making (and so logically, two people who share exactly the same experiences must necessarily become duplicates/clones of each other).
Transcript: 60 Minutes 'hallucinations' "Alexa Microsoft's AI search engine and chatbot Bing can be used on a computer or cell phone to help with planning a trip or composing a letter. It was introduced on February 7th [2023] to a limited number of people as a test and initially got rave reviews. But then several news organizations began reporting on a disturbing so-called alter ego within Bing chat called Sydney. [Wikipedia] ...Kevin Roose the technology reporter at the New York Times found this alter ego who was threatening, expressed a desire - it's not just Kevin Roose - others... [Sydney] expressed a desire to steal nuclear codes, threatened to ruin someone. You saw that, you must have said oh my god. [As Brad Smith [Wikipedia] explains] my reaction is, we better fix this right away and that is what the engineering team did. Yeah but she ['Sydney'] talked like a person and she said she had feelings you know. I think there is a point where we need to recognise when we're talking to a machine it's a screen, it's not a person. I just want to say that it was scary and I'm not easily scared and it was scary, it was chilling. Yeah it's I - I think this is in part a reflection of a lifetime of science fiction which is understandable it's been part of our lives. Did you kill her? I don't think she was ever alive. I am confident that she's no longer wandering around the countryside, if that's what you're concerned about." https://www.youtube.com/embed/aZ5EsdnpLMI?start=2441
Point: the 'stochastic parrots' hypothesis [Wikipedia] https://www.transformernews.ai/p/the-left-is-missing-out-on-ai-sanders-doctorow-bender-bores
Bibliography: Bender, E. M., et al. (2021). Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency. Virtual Event, Canada, Association for Computing Machinery: 610–623. [academic source] [pdf] Kagan-Kans, D. (2026, February 16). 'The left is missing out on AI'. Transformer; Transformer. https://www.transformernews.ai/p/the-left-is-missing-out-on-ai-sanders-doctorow-bender-bores

Robert Reich + Inequality Media (18 Dec 2025). 'Brace Yourself for the AI Bubble '
Blurb: "An asset generates excitement among investors because its value starts rising — not because it’s inherently valuable or profitable, but mainly because other investors are buying it. As more and more investors borrow piles of cash to get in on the action, the bubble grows. But when it becomes evident that way too much has been invested relative to the potential for profits, the bubble bursts. It’s often the case that the biggest investors, with inside information, notice the bubble and cash out before it bursts. Everyone else is left with near-worthless pieces of paper. If the entire economy is threatened, governments have to bail out the remaining players to avoid even more widespread destruction. AI has many of the characteristics of a bubble" (Reich, R., 2025a).
More: Robert Reich [channel] [skeet] + Inequality Media [channel]
Bibliography: Reich, R. (2025, December 23). 'The AI Bubble Will Burst'. Robert Reich. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-ai-bubble-will-burst Reich, R. (2025a, December 18). Brace Yourself for the AI Bubble. Inequality Media. https://www.inequalitymedia.org/explainers/v/ai-bubble

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman 'for-profit intelligence' (11 March 2026)
Point: https://www.youtube.com/embed/yrJ1PpK5BJg?start=622&end=665
Synopsis: "Speaking at the BlackRock Infrastructure Summit, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman tackled the growing public skepticism surrounding artificial intelligence, acknowledging the warning from President Donald Trump that AI is facing a major public relations problem" (Lichtenberg, N., 2026).
Transcript: "...we see a future where intelligence is a utility like electricity or water and people buy it from us um on a meter and use it for whatever they want to use it for. The demand that we see for that seems like it's going to continue to just go like this. And if we don't have enough, we either can't sell it or the price gets really high and it, you know, kind of goes to rich people or society makes a bunch of sort of central planning decisions that I think almost always go badly about, you know, we're going to use our limited compute supply for this and not that...."
Bibliography: Lichtenberg, N. (2026, March 12). 'Sam Altman admits AI is killing the labor-capital balance—and says nobody knows what to do about it'. Fortune. https://fortune.com/2026/03/12/sam-altman-ai-labor-capital-jobs-nobody-knows/

PoliticsJOE (12 August 2026). 'Just AI CEOs being absolutely insane '
About: the montage includes clips of Palantir Technologies Alexander Karp (The 92nd Street Y, New York., 2025, February 18), clips of The Economist's Zanny Minton Beddoes' interviewing Elon Musk https://newpractices.co.uk/SubjectivistEpistemology/#XuoqKYxDHVc and Sam Altman [see]
Related: 'Silicon Valley's Playbook and the AI Coup' https://www.youtube.com/embed/OC629l-wZBQ
Related: "The Pro-Human AI Declaration, [Wikipedia] issued by the Future of Life Institute in New Orleans in January 2026, challenges that assumption. Its premise is simple but politically significant: humanity still has choices. The declaration describes two possible paths. One is a 'race to replace,' in which humans are progressively displaced as creators, counselors, caregivers, companions, workers and decision-makers, while technological power becomes concentrated in increasingly unaccountable institutions. The alternative is an AI future in which trustworthy and controllable systems expand human potential, protect liberty, strengthen families and communities, preserve self-government and contribute to broadly shared prosperity" (Rahman, B., 2026, August 22).
Further to this: Future of Life Institute, Pro-Human AI Declaration https://stoptheracetoreplace.org/en
Further to this: BBC World Service (2 August 2025). "AI2027: is this how AI might destroy humanity?" https://www.youtube.com/embed/1UufaK3pQMg?start=339 https://ai-2027.com/
Related: "Largely ignored by academic philosophers, the 'Dark Enlightenment' [Wikipedia] movement and [Curtis] Yarvin [Wikipedia] have curried favor and influence with tech executives in recent years. A software engineer by training, Yarvin has become a kind of official philosopher for tech leaders like PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel and Mosaic founder Marc Andreessen. Not unlike the Futurists, [Wikipedia] Yarvin advocates for replacing democracy with a kind of techno-feudal state—for the government to be run like a corporation, with the president as its 'CEO.' This new system is elitist—'humans fit into dominance-submission structures' Yarvin wrote in 2008; and it's authoritarian—'If Americans want to change their government, they're going to have to get over their dictator phobia,' he said in 2012. There are shades of Yarvin's philosophy in Thiel's 2009 essay for the Cato Institute, [Wikipedia] where he wrote 'I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.' And Thiel, through his venture capital firm, Founders Fund, was an early investor in the blogger's startup company Urbit. As for Yarvin's controversial opinions and whether or not Thiel holds them, Yarvin has said that his patron is 'fully enlightened,' as he had been 'coaching Thiel.' What's more, in a recent interview with the Hoover Institution, [Wikipedia] Andreessen quoted Yarvin and called him a 'friend." (Simon, E., 2025, March 24).
Bibliography: The 92nd Street Y, New York. (2025, February 18). Alexander Karp in Conversation with Andrew Ross Sorkin: The Technological Republic. [digital archives] Duran, G. (2025, February 11). "Silicon Valley's playbook and the AI coup". The Nerd Reich. https://www.thenerdreich.com/silicon-valleys-playbook-and-the-ai-coup/ Simon, E. (2025, March 24). 'What we must understand about the dark enlightenment movement'. TIME. https://time.com/7269166/dark-enlightenment-history-essay/ Rahman, B. (2026, August 22). 'The Pro-Human AI Declaration Asks the Question Technology Policy Has Avoided: Who Is AI For?' [LinkedIn] in Advancing Digital Democracy

Ha Thanh Le Nguyen, DW News (6 August 2026). "Why AI Companies Are Destroying Millions of Books"
Synopsis: "Anthropic, the company behind the AI platform Claude, has been training its models on old books, destroying the physical copies in the process. Does that mean their contents are lost forever? AI companies are running out of high-quality training data. So they're buying up thousands of books, cutting them apart, scanning every page, and throwing the originals away. But are they destroying cultural treasures, or simply digitizing forgotten knowledge? Here's what's really happening."
Bibliography: Beierlein, Y., & Nguyen, H. T. Le. (2026, June 8). 'Why is anthropic destroying millions of books?' https://www.dw.com/en/why-anthropic-destroys-millions-of-books-ai-claude-silicon-valley-destructive-scanning/video-78267115

Siobhan Kennedy (18 March 2026). "How artists are fighting back against AI in a digital Wild West", Channel 4 News
Biography: composer, record producer and songwriter Magnus Fiennes [Wikipedia]
Argument: William Tunstall-Pedoe [Wikipedia] warns "that over-regulating tech will hurt the UK economy. AI is a global race. The risk is if that if we have bad regulation, bad overly tight regulation in the UK, all it will do is drive the innovation that would have happened here to happen elsewhere. The perennial argument made by big tech. But unless there's regulation and fast, the creative industry says it could be driven away entirely" (Kennedy, S., 2026, March 18).
Comment: to me, this phenomenon has shades of Apple's infamous 2001 'Rip. Mix. Burn.' [imdb] ad https://newpractices.co.uk/messaging/#pleybGLgaEc which seemed to legitimise the process of Apple customers ripping published content (and thereby relegating published music as mere 'content') so that they could produce personalised CD compilations.
Bibliography: Kennedy, S. (2026, March 18). "How artists are fighting back against AI in a 'digital Wild West'". Channel 4 News. https://www.channel4.com/news/how-artists-are-fighting-back-against-ai-in-a-digital-wild-west

Joanna Stern (13 March 2024). "OpenAI's Sora made me crazy AI videos then the CTO answered (most of) my questions", The Wall Street Journal
Bibliography: Stern, J. (2024, March 13). 'OpenAI made AI videos for us. these clips are good enough to freak us out'. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/openai-cto-sora-generative-video-interview-b66320bb

Yuval Noah Harari (2025). "AI and the 'Paradox of Trust'"
Bibliography: Symposium on the Inclusive Development of AI at the CDF 2025 held in Beijing, March 24, 2025.

Artificial Intelligence Track 'Our AI-Driven World: A Utopian Dream or Dystopian Nightmare?'
Bibliography: Stave, J., Ghosh, S., & Lakhani, K. (2025). Our AI-Driven World: A Utopian Dream or Dystopian Nightmare? SXSW 2026. https://schedule.sxsw.com/2025/events/PP152914

TED Talks (2025). Eric Schmidt: The AI Revolution Is Underhyped
Related: "A former Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, was met with students’ boos at a university commencement address in Arizona on Sunday when he raised the topic of artificial intelligence (AI) and its effects. Schmidt – who led the tech giant for more than a decade, acquiring a multibillion-dollar fortune in the process – was speaking to as many as 10,000 graduating University of Arizona students when he addressed the impact of modern technology on society. The topic struck a nerve of anxiety within the student body when he traced technology’s evolution, through the laptop – which he said had 'democratized knowledge' and led to prosperity – to the smartphone, the internet and social media. 'We thought that we were adding stones to a cathedral of knowledge that humanity had been constructing for centuries, but the world we built turned out to be more complicated than we anticipated,' Schmidt said. 'The same tools that connect us also isolate us. The same platforms that gave everyone a voice – like you’re using now – degraded the public square,' he added, referring to the polarization within democracies. Schmidt said that information technologies, including AI, had unsettled young people. 'That was not the plan, but it happened,' he said. Shouting and jeers against Schmidt’s talk started when he acknowledged fears that AI threatened to deprive people now entering the workforce of a future. 'I know what many of you are feeling about that,' Schmidt said. 'I can hear you. There is a fear. 'There is a fear in your generation that the future has already been written, that the machines are coming, that the jobs are evaporating, that the climate is breaking, that politics are fractured, and that you are inheriting a mess that you did not create.' He acknowledged that their fears were 'rational' and encouraged them to adapt and to shape how AI will be used in the future – rather than for that to shape them. 'The question is not whether AI will shape the world. It will,' Schmidt said. 'The question is whether you will have shaped artificial intelligence.'" (Helmore, E., 2026).
Bibliography: Helmore, E. (2026, May 18). 'Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt booed after AI remarks at Arizona commencement'. The Guardian; The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/18/eric-schmidt-ai-university-commencement-speech-booed

The Future of Life Institute (26 March 2025). 'slaughterbots and the urgent fight to stop them'

Airwars, AI Now Institute (29 July 2026). 'Launch: Anatomy of an AI Kill Chain'
Blurb: "AI is intermediating how militaries make life and death decisions about who will be targeted. While AI warfare is much discussed, how these brittle and flawed technologies actually work is often little understood. Through a partnership between AI experts, conflict specialists, and storytellers, Anatomy of an AI Kill Chain sheds light on these often opaque technologies. Through an interactive and illustrative narrative, this work unpacks the real AI systems already being used in warfare, including in Ukraine, Gaza and Iran." (AI Now Institute, 2026, July 28).
More: "Despite the growing prominence of AI in warfare, much of the public discussion remains abstract. This project aims to make these systems understandable by showing how they fit together across the military 'kill chain' - highlighting the risks of delegating life-and-death decisions to flawed technologies" (Airwars., 2026, July 28).
Point: 'AI Stack' https://www.youtube.com/embed/y93ARkOkzz8?start=462
Point: 'website walkthrough' of Anatomy of an AI Kill Chain https://www.youtube.com/embed/y93ARkOkzz8?start=872
Further to this: "The accuracy, efficiency, and fairness of these systems is not the point, and thus cracking open the black box [Wikipedia] will tell you very little about how they work. The true process is more straight-forwardly social: they operate through a process I think of as 'technological delegation.' They work by mystifying questions of responsibility and agency behind a veil of technology, by subtly changing the subject. Uber did this by selling an unlicensed, unregulated taxi service as an 'app.' Google did this when they used to blame the algorithm for search results. They’re machines for hiding behind, instruments of moral and legal arbitrage. As such, the normal forms of AI critique not only misapprehend the problem, but by focusing attention too tightly on technological politics, they actively help to deepen the illusion" (Baker, K., 2024, April 3).
Bibliography: AI Now Institute. (2026, July 28). 'Today, we are launching a Anatomy of an AI Kill Chain, a new visual project with Airwars breaking down how AI is transforming every aspect of war'. LinkedIn. [LinkedIn] Interactive: Anatomy Of An AI Kill Chain. (2026). Airwars. https://ai-killchain.airwars.org/ Airwars. (2026, July 28). 'Launch event tomorrow' [Online post]. Linkedin.Com. [LinkedIn] AI Now Institute. (2019). AI Now Institute. Ainowinstitute.Org. https://ainowinstitute.org/ Baker, K. (2024, April 3). 'Lavender, military AI, and technological delegation'. Artificial Bureaucracy. Substack.Com. https://artificialbureaucracy.substack.com/p/lavender-military-ai-and-technological Drummond, K. (2026, July 21). "‘It’s a modern-day draft’: Why stanford students walked out on Sundar Pichai’s commencement speech". Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/big-interview-stanford-students-booing-sundar-pichai/ Scott, O. (2026, June 15). "Stanford students walk out of Sundar Pichai’s commencement speech amid google’s Israel-linked project nimbus". The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/stanford-sundar-pichai-palestine-google-nimbus-b2995734.html MEE LIVE. (2025, April 10). "Project Nimbus: Google and Amazon’s secret collab with Israel’s army". Middle East Eye. https://www.youtube.com/embed/96CUytcikWo

Republic World (17 June 2026). 'G7 Leaders Meet Sam Altman, AI CEOs To Discuss Future Of Artificial Intelligence'
Criticism: "It was a historic, even jarring, scene that captures a once-unimaginable geopolitical ordering. The world's most powerful heads of state gathered in the French Alps this week for the annual G7 summit, with the CEOs of America's dominant AI companies seated and treated like heads of nation-states themselves" (Allen, M., 2026, June 20).
Biography: Sam Altman, OpenAI [Wikipedia] ; Demis Hassabis, Google DeepMind [Wikipedia] ; Dario Amodei, Anthropic [Wikipedia] ; Arthur Mensch, Mistral AI [Wikipedia] ; Robin Rombach, Black Forest Labs [LinkedIn] [Wikipedia] ; Victor Riparbelli [LinkedIn] Synthesia.io [Wikipedia] ; Uljan Sharka, [LinkedIn] Domyn [LinkedIn] ; Aidan Gomez [Wikipedia] Cohere [Wikipedia] ; Ren Ito, Sakana Ai [LinkedIn] ; Vivek Raghavan, Sarvam Ai [LinkedIn] ; Marc Benioff, Salesforce [Wikipedia] ; Alexandr Wang, Meta Platforms [Wikipedia]
Bibliography: Allen, M. (2026, June 20). 'New global order: AI CEOs as heads of nation-states. Axios. https://www.axios.com/2026/06/20/ai-tech-moguls-g7

AIM Network (3 July 2026). 'Meta Spent $2.65B on AI Tokens But Zuckerberg Says Agents Are Behind'
Bibliography: Ropek, L. (2026, July 2). "Mark Zuckerberg tells staff that AI agents haven’t progressed as quickly as he’d hoped". TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/02/mark-zuckerberg-tells-staff-that-ai-agents-havent-progressed-as-quickly-as-hed-hoped/

Google DeepMind SynthID
Bibliography: Google DeepMind SynthID. (2025). Google DeepMind. https://deepmind.google/models/synthid/

Guardian News (2022). "Robot says AI is 'threat and opportunity' to artists during Lords address"
Point: "The artificial intelligence-powered robot Ai-Da has become the first of her kind to speak at the U.K. Parliament after addressing the House of Lords yesterday, alongside her creator, artist and gallerist Aidan Meller. She appeared before the peers of the Communications and Digital Committee to give evidence on the impact of technology on the creative industries" (Lawson-Tancred, J., 2022).
Bibliography: Lawson-Tancred, J. (2022). "Robot Artist Ai-Da Just Addressed U.K. Parliament About the Future of A.I. and ‘Terrified’ the House of Lords". Artnet News. [online] 12 Oct. Available at: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/ai-da-robot-artist-parliament-2190611.