Who's Who of AI

Neil Turkewitz

88 trust critic @neilturkewitz.bsky.social · 2,217 followers
Culture, work & education
Why they matter

Critic with public evidence across Culture, work & education.

AI signals
31
past 30d
Sources
22
distinct domains
Discussions
40
past 30d
Latest signal
1d ago
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I write mostly about the intersection of tech & art/culture which these days means I spend nearly all my time trying to address the exploitation underlying current AI models. A secular humanist interrogating modern religions.
What they're sharing

Articles & links

The most depressing definition of books in history, c/o ISBNdb: “The world's best AI training data is sitting on a shelf. Books represent curated, peer-reviewed, domain-specific human knowledge, structured in a way no web crawl can replicate. Dense, edited, authoritative.” Boo…

AI Companies Are Buying Tons of Old Books Because They're Free of AI Slop 404media.co
AI Weekly's analysis →
  • ISBNdb is brokering bulk purchases of printed books published before 2022, pitching them as training data structurally guaranteed to be free of AI-generated slop.
  • The service advertises strict NDAs on every engagement, conceding that 'AI company destroys two million books' is not a sympathetic headline.
  • Judge William Alsup already ruled that Anthropic's practice of buying, scanning, and destroying print books was 'clearly transformative' fair use.
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View on Bluesky · ♥ 8 ↻ 0 ↩ 0 · 12 from the directory shared this · 7d ago

“Our goal has always been to help people create original new music.” —Suno But that goal is impossible. AI models are wholly dependent on their training data, incapable of generating something “original.” A novel remix of the past perhaps, but always literally derivative. @jas…

Hack Reveals Suno AI Music Generator Scraped YouTube, Deezer, and Genius 404media.co
AI Weekly's analysis →
  • Leaked logs quantify scraping per platform: 2M+ YouTube clips, 62,117 Pond5 hours, 12,287 Deezer hours, 17,615 Genius hours, and roughly 1M podcast hours.
  • Suno publicly called the breach 'limited' and 'quickly contained' while withholding notification from customers whose emails, phone numbers, and Stripe records were exposed.
  • TechCrunch flags a distinct DMCA angle: deliberately circumventing YouTube's anti-scraping protections is a separate violation from copyright infringement in the underlying suits.
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View on Bluesky · ♥ 7 ↻ 3 ↩ 0 · 10 from the directory shared this · 13d ago

“People say technology is just a tool that you can do good things or bad things with. That often is said to hide the ways in which technology makes certain realities more or less likely. So when you design tools in particular ways, there are foreseeable uses of those tools.” @…

Please Stop Making Me Opt Out of AI wired.com
View on Bluesky · ♥ 14 ↻ 6 ↩ 1 · 5 from the directory shared this · 12d ago

“The public seems to agree that DATA CENTERS ARE GIANT, UGLY, SMELLY ALTARS TO INDUSTRIAL-SCALE HOSTILE ARCHITECTURE.” Brava @tressiemcphd.bsky.social That’s perfect. And this “hostility” isn’t limited to physical architecture. AI is hostile to our very humanity, borne of stri…

Opinion | This Could Be the Winning Issue for Democrats nytimes.com
View on Bluesky · ♥ 4 ↻ 1 ↩ 0 · 5 from the directory shared this · 45d ago

“Selene Kelley describes her group of friends as ‘art kids that love to draw or act & stuff like that,’ & finds it ‘disheartening’ that AI is trained on the creative work of real people. As an aspiring writer, she worries that if she releases a novel or a TV series, it will ‘j…

Some Kids Will Never Think AI Is Cool wired.com
View on Bluesky · ♥ 3 ↻ 0 ↩ 0 · 5 from the directory shared this · 3d ago

Meta Is Charging a Subscription for Smart Glasses Features. Welcome to the New Era of Consumer Tech* *Nudify feature not included in basic subscription. Nudify plans start at as little as $9.99/month. So get skin in the game. You won’t have to use your imagination to see your …

Meta Is Charging a Subscription for Smart Glasses Features. Welcome to the New Era of Consumer Tech | WIRED wired.com
AI Weekly's analysis →
  • Meta One Premium costs $20 a month and lifts the Conversation Focus cap on its smart glasses from three hours to fifteen hours monthly.
  • Conversation Focus uses the glasses' beam-forming microphones and onboard hardware to amplify a nearby speaker, with no cloud connection required.
  • Even paying subscribers hit a fifteen-hour ceiling, and unused hours reportedly cannot be rolled over into the next billing cycle.
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View on Bluesky · ♥ 3 ↻ 0 ↩ 0 · 3 from the directory shared this · 26d ago

A panel of “experts” gives us advice about the future of AI, c/o @nytimes.com Problem is, no one challenging the status quo is included. No artists leading the fight against unauthorized use of creative works to train AI. No leaders of the AI resistance. Noone from GenZ—the gr…

Who Will Actually Thrive in the Hybrid A.I.-Human Work Force nytimes.com
View on Bluesky · ♥ 0 ↻ 1 ↩ 0 · 4 from the directory shared this · 47d ago

Hey @nytimes.com, can we have a private chat? I’d love to know what motivated you to publish this piece that breaks no new ground & attacks an obvious strawman—particularly given @agsulzberger.bsky.social recent 🔥 speech. Shiller wants us to believe AI has a PR problem. It has…

Opinion | A.I. Doomaxxing Is Bad for Our Economy nytimes.com
View on Bluesky · ♥ 8 ↻ 0 ↩ 0 · 3 from the directory shared this · 36d ago
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Recent commentary

This screenshot of yesterday’s @nytimes.com tech newsletter is a wonderful illustration of the meaningless of “AI” & how this meaningless can lead to a nonsensical debate about its utility. We need to just start talking about the automation of certain functionality. AI is many things, not A thing.

View on Bluesky · ♥ 4 ↻ 1 ↩ 1 · 14d ago

A visual representation of the AI resistance we’ve seen from college graduates these past weeks.

View on Bluesky · ♥ 3 ↻ 1 ↩ 0 · 69d ago

The world offers endless opportunities. Why would anyone abandon their agency and let AI chart their path based on inferences drawn from statistical probabilities? Find your own beach…metaphorically, & possibly literally too.

View on Bluesky · ♥ 2 ↻ 1 ↩ 0 · 49d ago

Famine Memorial Dublin Ireland 🇮🇪 Statues by Dublin sculptor Rowan Gillespie Photos ©2026 Neil Turkewitz Any AI use strictly prohibited 🚫

View on Bluesky · ♥ 1 ↻ 0 ↩ 1 · 55d ago

San Diego California Temple (and no, this is not AI generated. I took this photo from a car traveling at 70 mph on the freeway!)

View on Bluesky · ♥ 2 ↻ 0 ↩ 0 · 41d ago
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