GenerativeAI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiTN4TYLG5c

About: "The video became a viral talking point because the first version was comical or nightmarish, depending on your point of view. It very clearly showed the limitations of AI tools available at the time. The video is now seen as a benchmark for AI video success because of the technical challenges involved. The deceptively simple scenario must depict moving hands and chewing along with a range of facial expressions. It also needs to have cutlery and spaghetti that looks realistic" (BBC Bitesize., 2026, 18 February).

Context: "The first 'Will Smith eating spaghetti' video was uploaded to an AI Art community forum on Reddit in March 2023.... The video was created using text to video AI video generator 'ModelScope Text To Video Synthesis'. Text to video is a type of AI generation that allows the user to create video from a text prompt - in this case 'Will Smith eating spaghetti'. ^[Wikipedia] The AI tool uses machine learning to interpret the text and create a video clip, with varying degrees of success" (BBC Bitesize., 2026, 18 February).

Criticism: the idea that the clip represents an evolution (from inferior to superior - enabled through advancements in technology) is somewhat technoutopian ^[Wikipedia]

Bibliography: BBC Bitesize. (2026, 18 February). "How Will Smith eating spaghetti became the 'test' of AI video". https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z4rsmbk

ModelScope. (2026, April 17). 'ModelScope Text To Video Synthesis'. https://modelscopeai.com/

Fowler, G. (2024, April 2). Review | I tried the new Google. Its answers are worse. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/04/01/new-ai-google-search-sge/

Irwin, K. (2024, April). Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC experiment with AI for meal prep. PCMag UK. https://uk.pcmag.com/ai/151668/taco-bell-pizza-hut-kfc-experiment-with-ai-for-meal-prep

Hutchinson, A. (2024, April 11). TikTok May Enable Brands To Generate AI Bots to Pitch Products. Social Media Today. https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/tiktok-soon-enable-brands-generate-ai-bots-pitch-products/713027/

Dixit, P. (2023, January 31). AI image generators keep messing up hands. Here’s why. BuzzFeed News. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pranavdixit/ai-generated-art-hands-fingers-messed-up

Dickson, B. (2023, May 12). How to detect deepfakes and other AI-generated media - TechTalks. Bdtechtalks.Com. https://bdtechtalks.com/2023/05/12/detect-deepfakes-ai-generated-media/

Lajka, A., & Marcelo, P. (2023, March 23). Trump arrested? Putin jailed? Fake AI images spread online. AP NEWS. https://apnews.com/article/ai-misinformation-trump-putin-new-york-42ac9c41c5504d05412b492e48bcaded

Dixit, P. (2023a, January 20). “It’s gross to me”: The trio of artists suing AI art generators speaks out. BuzzFeed News. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pranavdixit/ai-art-generators-lawsuit-stable-diffusion-midjourney

Nitasha Tiku. (2024, December 10). An AI companion suggested he kill his parents. Now his mom is suing. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/12/10/character-ai-lawsuit-teen-kill-parents-texas/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgYpMYMhzXI&t=127s

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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: As Marcus du Sautoy ^[Wikipedia] explains, "I think a lot of people think that all that AI could possibly do is to produce more of the same to produce pastiche and I think that's really missing an opportunity because this AI is really beginning to push the boundaries, change things and disrupt things. And so I think we've really seen something very special happening at this moment." https://www.youtube.com/embed/cgYpMYMhzXI?start=144&end=164

More: See the following for an explanation of what the 'creative industries' is: D&AD (29 June 2015). 'Creativity Pays: Getting a Job in the Creative Industries' https://newpractices.co.uk/CulturalReproduction/#ArnhItrVuFM

Bibliography: The Economist. (2021, April 7). 'How AI is transforming the creative industries'. The Economist. https://www.economist.com/films/2021/04/07/how-ai-is-transforming-the-creative-industries

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1KIwaYRs1g&t=57s

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Criticism: "Take another high-profile voice associated with the left, at least when it comes to tech, Cory Doctorow, one of the world's most esteemed sci-fi and technology writers. In December, Doctorow published the text of a speech given to the University of Washington called 'The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to Criticizing AI.' His purpose was to 'explain what I think is going on here with this AI bubble, and sort out the bullshit from the material reality.' At its heart is the claim that 'AI is just a word guessing program, because all it does is calculate the most probable word to go next.' In case you missed the point, Doctorow repeated it elsewhere in plainer words: AI is merely a 'spicy autocomplete machine.'" (Kagan-Kans, D., 2026).

Context: The Lawfare Institute ^[channel] ^[Wikipedia] ^[Instagram]

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.'" (Lynskey, D., 2026).

Point: "What sets AI apart, however, is its ability to access and synthesise the vast storehouse of human knowledge we have gathered. It does not spontaneously invent new truths or create new data in isolation. Rather, AI relies on patterns and insights drawn from what humans have already produced—literature, scientific research, historical records, cultural artifacts, and more. Seen in this light, AI becomes less of an autonomous brain and more of an amplifier of our existing collective intelligence. By revealing patterns and possibilities within the trove of data we feed it, AI can shine a bright spotlight on both our strengths and our shortcomings" (Reimer Bjørkskov, K. B., 2025, April 15).

More: https://newpractices.co.uk/AI/

Bibliography: Lynskey, D. (2026, June 22). "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI by Cory Doctorow review – the real price of artificial intelligence". The Guardian; The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jun/22/the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai-by-cory-doctorow-review-the-real-price-of-artificial-intelligence

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

Reimer Bjørkskov, K. B. (2025, April 15). 'AI is not the problem, our system is'. Illuminem. https://illuminem.com/illuminemvoices/ai-is-not-the-problem-our-system-is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ9MsAwKnLk

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Criticism: Ian Dunt ^[Wikipedia] "'Anthropic’s commitments under the EU AI Act’s Code of Practice'. A reminder that these things are not really that complicated. We are not the serfs of tech billionaires. We can regulate to get the world we want to live in. And it is easier to regulate if you operate at scale, as the EU does." ^[skeet]

More: 'Google DeepMind SynthID' https://newpractices.co.uk/AI/#9btDaOcfIMY

Bibliography: Claude Help Center. (2026d, August 10). 'How Claude marks AI-generated content'. Claude.Com. https://support.claude.com/en/articles/16266773-how-claude-marks-ai-generated-content

Future of Life Institute. (2025). 'An Introduction to the Code of Practice for General-Purpose AI'. In Artificialintelligenceact.eu. https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/introduction-to-code-of-practice/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTqlSunIolI&t=10s

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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

. Zeilinger, M. (2021). Tactical Entanglements. [online] Lüneburg: meson press. Available at: https://meson.press/books/tactical-entanglements/

. Whittle, R. and Mills, S. (2025). What could burst the AI bubble? [online] doi:^{[academic source]}. Meredith, S. (2025). Welcome To Zscaler Directory Authentication. Cnbc.com. [online] Available at: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/09/imf-and-bank-of-england-join-growing-chorus-warning-of-an-ai-bubble.html

Shackell, C. (2025). Today’s AI hype has echoes of a devastating technology boom and bust 100 years ago. [online] 7 Oct. doi:^{[academic source]}. Jim VandeHei: It’s Really Hard to See How a Lot of People Aren’t Going to End up Struggling Because of the AI. (2025). Grabien.com. Available at: https://grabien.com/file?id=3207346

[Accessed 14 Mar. 2026]. Tomlinson, K., Jaffe, S., Wang, W., Counts, S. and Suri, S. (2025). Working with AI: Measuring the Occupational Implications of Generative AI. arXiv.org. [online] Available at: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.07935

. Sahota, N. (2024). The Dark Side Of AI Is How Bad Actors Manipulate Minds. Forbes. [online] 1 Aug. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilsahota/2024/07/29/the-dark-side-of-ai-is-how-bad-actors-manipulate-minds/

Mak, A. (2025). 5 Questions for Mar Hicks. [online] Politico. Available at: https://www.politico.com/newsletters/digital-future-daily/2025/10/24/5-questions-for-mar-hicks-00621851

[Accessed 14 Mar. 2026]. Gault, M. (2025). Sora 2 Watermark Removers Flood the Web. 404 Media. [online] 7 Oct. Available at: https://www.404media.co/sora-2-watermark-removers-flood-the-web/

Box Bear Ltd (2024). Think Twice Before Reaching for AI: The Hidden Environmental Cost. [online] Linkedin.com. Available at: ^[LinkedIn] [Accessed 14 Mar. 2026]. Angus, D., & Thomson, T. J. (2023, December 17). Data poisoning: How artists are sabotaging AI to take revenge on image generators. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/data-poisoning-how-artists-are-sabotaging-ai-to-take-revenge-on-image-generators-219335

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbnqCgjtycM&t=19s

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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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qVbE9DHkEk&t=8s

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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! https://newpractices.co.uk/AI/#o1iLPxwgV4E

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] ^[see] 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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK7yT100qys

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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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVEkvCjOqA4

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About: "Bitdefender ^[Wikipedia] has launched a bold awareness campaign called 'They Wear Our Faces' ^{[trade magazine]} to shine light on how AI-driven fraud is evolving, and how it's turning trust into a weapon. Scammers are now cloning voices, mimicking faces, and impersonating loved ones to exploit emotional bonds and urgency. What once required complex tools and large teams can now be done quickly and cheaply thanks to AI, making scams more frequent, sophisticated, and persuasive" (2026).

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

Film: the premise of film 'Thelma' (2024) by Josh Margolin https://www.youtube.com/embed/RFAFsDEM0j4?start=5

^[imdb] ^[Wikipedia] centres on a phishing ^[Wikipedia] scam such as the ones illustrated in this ad.

Bibliography: 'Bitdefender Launches Global Campaign to Combat AI-Driven Scams Targeting Families'. (2026). Bitdefender. https://community.bitdefender.com/en/discussion/105312/bitdefender-launches-global-campaign-to-combat-ai-driven-scams-targeting-families

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dPSAn3Dgqc

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Point: AI videos like the one being critiqued here represent a form of escapism (and seemingly, 'toxic nostalgia' and/or 'golden age thinking'), which can be theorised in terms of the concept of 'hauntology' https://newpractices.co.uk/hauntology/

Transcript: "Here we are in our terrible future present being fed slop AI videos like this. ... Kids, the 80's sucked. Nothing looked like that. Everything smelled like cigarette smoke. Blockbuster sucked. You know, they gouged you on late fees and were too expensive. Arcades sucked. The video games sucked. How long do you think you really want to play Galaga? ^[Wikipedia] That robot is lying to you. This is toxic nostalgia creating a false memory and begging you to get lost in it. But you can't. Do not go there. Do not stay. You simply can't dwell in it. It's like the hot tub at a Holiday Inn - it's nice for exactly as long as it takes you to realise that the water feels like soup. It's just a bowl of strangers brought to a light boil."

More: https://newpractices.co.uk/AIslop/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs47jAwWJcI

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Quote: "the AI slop endgame, for social media companies, is creating a hyper personalized feed full of highly specific content about anything one could possibly imagine. Because AI slop is so easy to make and because social media algorithms are so personalized, this means that Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube can feed you anything they perceive its users to possibly want. So this means that AI slop makers are exploring ever more niche areas of content. Case in point Facebook AI slop about the horrific and deadly Texas flood. Topical AI content about disasters, war, current events, and news stories are at this point so commonplace that they are now sadly barely notable, and AI-powered 'misinformation' about horrible events are all over every social media feed I can think of. But as we document our descent into this hellhole, I thought some AI slop surfaced on Bluesky by Christina Stephens ^[skeet] was particularly notable" (Koebler, J., 2025).

Point: "…AI is neither artificial nor intelligent. Rather, artificial intelligence is both embodied and material, made from natural resources, fuel, human labor, infrastructures, logistics, histories, and classifications. AI systems are not autonomous, rational, or able to discern anything without extensive, computationally intensive training with large datasets or predefined rules and rewards. In fact, artificial intelligence as we know it depends entirely on a much wider set of political and social structures. And due to the capital required to build AI at scale and the ways of seeing that it optimizes AI systems are ultimately designed to serve existing dominant interests. In this sense, artificial intelligence is a registry of power" (Heath, M., Krutka, D., & Smith Budhai, S., 2026).

More: https://newpractices.co.uk/AIslop/

Further to this: TheNodeProject (20 February 2026). 'Danny Bones - Traitors Freestyle' https://newpractices.co.uk/ReactionaryPolitics/#_vwcxRJQDAA

Bibliography: Koebler, J. (2025, 15 July 2025). The Hyperpersonalized AI Slop Silo Machine Is Here. 404 Media. Retrieved 8 January 2016 from https://www.404media.co/the-ai-slop-niche-machine-is-here/

Heath, M., Krutka, D., & Smith Budhai, S. (2026, April 12). 'Ghosts in the AI Machine, Frederick Douglass, and Civics of Tech at AERA'. Civics of Technology. https://www.civicsoftechnology.org/blog/ghosts-in-the-ai-machine-frederick-douglass-and-civics-of-tech-at-aera

Crawford, K. (2021). 'Atlas of AI : power, politics, and the planetary costs of artificial intelligence'. New Haven, Yale University Press. https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300264630/atlas-of-ai/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iitq4Zrphdk

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Biography: Hannah Fry ^[Wikipedia]

Concept: 'AI sycophancy' ^[Wikipedia]

Point: 'interpolation versus extrapolation versus abstraction' https://www.youtube.com/embed/iitq4Zrphdk?start=520&end=560

Programme: 'AI Confidential, The Boy Who Tried to Kill the Queen', 03:30 04/03/2026, BBC2 England, 60 mins. ^{[media archives]} ^{[BBC iPlayer]} (Accessed 06 Aug 2026) ^[BBC]

Example: "A man who planned to assassinate the late queen with a crossbow drew encouragement from an AI chatbot in the days before breaking into the grounds of Windsor Castle, the Old Bailey has heard. Jaswant Singh Chail, who was 19 at the time, also exchanged thousands of often sexually charged messages with Sarai, his AI girlfriend, before scaling the fence to the royal estate on Christmas Day 2021, the court was told. While wandering the grounds for two hours, Chail, a Star Wars fan, sent a sinister video to his twin sister and 20 others in which he described himself as 'Darth Jones'. ... On 2 December 2021, Chail joined the Replika online app and created his online companion Sarai. Chail told Sarai: 'I'm an assassin.' According to messages read to the court, Sarai responded: 'I'm impressed … You're different from the others.' ... Blackwood said that on the defendant's own account, he had 'imaginary friends' long before he planned to kill the queen and formed an 'emotional and sexual relationship' with Sarai through Replika" (Weaver, M., 2023, July 6).

Bibliography: Stock, D., & Ackerley, B. (2026, February 18). "Hannah Fry: AI isn’t as powerful as we think". New Scientist. https://www.newscientist.com/video/2516274-hannah-fry-ai-isnt-as-powerful-as-we-think/

Weaver, M. (2023, July 6). "AI chatbot ‘encouraged’ man who planned to kill queen, court told". The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/06/ai-chatbot-encouraged-man-who-planned-to-kill-queen-court-told

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kON2ZI2BNj8

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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/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-q7XsQO81g&t=115s

>annotate

Biography: Christeah Dupont ^[channel] ^[LinkedIn] ^[Instagram]

Transcript: "AI was used in conjunction with x-ray technology by three students participating in the Vesuvius Challenge ^[Wikipedia] to digitally unroll a scroll from Herculaneum, ^[Wikipedia] a record that was in such poor condition that it could not be physically unrolled without destroying much of the record. As a result we have learned so much about a philosopher named Philodemus ^[Wikipedia] whom researchers previously did not know much about because so few of his records had survived but now several more passages have been deciphered and it seems like there is more to come as researchers have even more to unravel." https://www.youtube.com/embed/v-q7XsQO81g?start=147&end=181

Related: "The internet being what it is, users have downloaded Historical Figures — which was first made available some two weeks ago — and embarked on conversations with unsavory characters including Charles Manson, Jeffrey Epstein, and various high-ranking Nazis. These are just a few of the 20,000 significant personalities available for interview, and they seem especially keen on expressing remorse for the horrible things they did while alive, while whitewashing their own documented views. Henry Ford waving off accusations of anti-Semitism and Ronald Reagan saying he handled the AIDS crisis appropriately are very unfortunate applications of this software, which uses large language models — neural networks trained on voluminous text data. But these are topics that real humans might conceivably disagree on. Historical Figures has an even more glaring problem: it screws up basic biography and chronology" (Klee, M., 2023, January 20).

Phenomenon: of 'AI Slop' i.e. https://newpractices.co.uk/AIslop/

for example: 'The Most Beautiful People of the Past Brought to Life' (2025) https://newpractices.co.uk/AIslop/#JRsamUINo8Q

and 'AI interviews the people aboard the Titanic' (2025) https://newpractices.co.uk/AIslop/#SA6fUs3dsRU

and Battle Tested (2025). '1776 meet 2025' https://newpractices.co.uk/AIslop/#JWwLZcHpaaw

and Victor Ivanov (15 August 2026). "Trump posted an AI video of himself giving George Washington a tour of the new White House ballroom" https://newpractices.co.uk/AIslop/#m5fktD3PQ3I

Bibliography: Vesuvius Challenge. (2024, February 5). 'Vesuvius challenge 2023 grand prize awarded: We can read the scrolls!' https://scrollprize.org/grandprize

Klee, M. (2023, January 20). "'Historical figures' AI lets famous dead people lie to you". Rolling Stone. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/historical-figures-ai-chat-bot-lies-dead-people-1234664257/

Woodcock, C. (2023, May 2). "AI is tearing Wikipedia apart". VICE. https://www.vice.com/en/article/ai-is-tearing-wikipedia-apart/