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Hagen Blix

@hagenblix.bsky.social

2.4K followers 2K following 1.8K posts

Linguist, Cognitive Scientist, Occasional AI Researcher, Immigrant in NYC, Co-Author w/ Ingeborg Glimmer of 'Why We Fear AI' - out now: https://bookshop.org/a/114797/9781945335174

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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · Jul 8

We wrote a book about AI, Class, and Capitalism!
*Why We Fear AI* argues that, fundamentally, AI is a tool of class war from above, a tool for surveillance, labor control, and wage depression. Get it from your local bookstore if you can!
A quick 🧵1/4

Why We Fear AI: On the Interpretation of Nightmares

On the Interpretation of Nightmares

bookshop.org

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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 45m

Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 10d

Advertisers know that what your friends think is far more important to your purchasing decisions than ads are. No wonder they're trying to substitute bots for your friends

Jathan Sadowski @jathansadowski.com · 10d

What an unsurprising decision by corporations that desperately need to make money with AI. If every other company with a chatbot isn't already doing this, then expect them to be following Meta's lead soon. The chatbot is not your friend; it's a corporate listening device. www.ft.com/content/22f7...

Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 45m

Nah, it's for *making everyone into people with no friends*

Steven Santos @stevensantos.bsky.social · 1h

This is just for people who have no friends and are disconnected from reality.

We already have enough of them.

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 1h

Solipsism as a service. www.wsj.com/tech/persona...

Reposted by Hagen Blix

Tom Scocca @tomscocca.bsky.social · 1h

Please nobody tell professional writer praising professional journalists Caitlin Flanagan what "out of whole cloth" means

Screenshot of text:

Not now but soon enough, there will be major stories about The Free Press being the creation of three female founders who constructed a hugely successful digital business out of whole cloth.

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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 1h

Idk, OP talks about "most young men", but perhaps things are more dire than I thought

Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 1h

Sure, if we're talking about fascists. But I thought we were talking about advice to young men who might experience self pity, and who the far right is clearly trying to recruit.

Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 2h

That may be a fine ethical position to stand on, but as a political tactic "maybe the people that the fascists are trying to recruit should just fix themselves instead of joining the fascists" doesn't look like a winner to me

Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 2h

Sure, plenty of them are just the political enemy - but your advice is good for the people they might be trying to recruit, and acknowledging & re-channeling pain seems like an essential aspect to get them to a point where they might be able to take your advice

Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 2h

Maybe couple it with some advice about how the world really is crushing people, including them, but it's because we subordinated everything to the drive for profit and the infantile desires and fragile egos of billionaires. Gotta transform that self pity into some righteous anger and solidarity

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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 5h

Anyway, looks like a nice lecture, thanks for sharing, gonna spend some of my Sunday on that I think!

Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 5h

Still sounds like first syllable stress to me! Tho I definitely agree that stress is on the penultimate syllable in the full word

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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 6h

Huh, I actually have a mild preference for ANtifa over antiFA in German, but I haven't lived there in a decade, so I'm sure your intuitions are more reflective of actual usage than mine

(Gotta think about the unstressed vs stressed uses of "anti-" in DE and EN, there's some interesting stuff there)

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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 7h

Nah, German goes for option #3 and has the stress on the first syllable 😅 (but that's because anti- in German always takes stress, and in English it doesn't)

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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 7h

Totally possible. I personally had only ever heard it stressed on the fa syllable before 2016, but then I wasn't living in the US before then, and I only talked about it with people on the left, so my personal impression may be totally off

Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 7h

I actually think that stress shift was introduced purposefully by the right because it makes it harder to access the compositional meaning

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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 1d

None of these people, from the top down act as if they expected the administration to change again

Reposted by Hagen Blix

Roland Meyer @bildoperationen.bsky.social · 1d

This is both fascinating & frightening. There is a demand for images that show and confirm what people already know and believe to be true, and AI slop meets that demand—with visual content that emblematically visualizes what the headlines report. One could call it synthetic hypervisualization
1/

Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 1d

That TikTok account has a few fake videos of reporters getting detained. They make these videos because it’s a big story in the news. Real reporters are getting arrested. And so people are making AI videos to get engagement on TikTok.

dontbeonline • 1d ago
Journalist gets detained while doing her job #ForYou, #viral, #foryoupage, #tikto... more
• Contains: Bad Boys (The...

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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 2d

Consultants truly are AI's most obvious replacement target

Reposted by Hagen Blix

Brian Goldstone @brian-goldstone.bsky.social · 2d

Today is World Homeless Day, and after years reporting on this crisis, I'll just say: homelessness is neither inevitable nor intractable. It's the result of choices—political, economic, moral—that can be unmade.

And this: how we treat the unhoused is a bellwether for the violence we will tolerate.

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Reposted by Hagen Blix

Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · Apr 8

Industrial production is coming to economic realms that have so far been resisting it, from driving to research, the law, or therapy. For the time being, that will probably take the IKEA model: compete not on quality (AI will continue to be unreliable), but on price. Leave the high end markets 1/n

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · Apr 8

“Community and a sense of belonging are essential. Technology fueled by consumerism cannot replace grounded and vulnerable human connection, which is what I think apps like this are trying to do."

Could AI replace your therapist? New research suggests the technology could play a role in mental health care

A chatbot created by Dartmouth University researchers significantly reduced symptoms for people with major depression, anxiety and eating disorders.

www.phillyvoice.com

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Reposted by Hagen Blix

Brian Merchant @bcmerchant.bsky.social · 10d

Hagen is the author of a great short book, Why We Fear AI, which argues, among other things, that AI should not be viewed as a productivity tool, but a *wage depression* tool.

www.commonnotions.org/why-we-fear-ai

Why We Fear AI — Common Notions Press

Fears about AI tell us more about capitalism today than the technology of the future.

www.commonnotions.org

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Reposted by Hagen Blix

Common Notions Press @commonnotions.bsky.social · 4d

"There’s a material reality in which AI really is a tool of control. But maybe there’s also another way of thinking about it..."

@hagenblix.bsky.social & @bcmerchant.bsky.social on how we talk about AI and alternative ways to frame the conversation.

"AI is an attack from above on wages": An interview with cognitive scientist Hagen Blix

The author of 'Why We Fear AI' on why he sees generative AI as "class warfare through enshittification."

www.bloodinthemachine.com

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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 4d

Nice! Let me know what you think, too!

Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 4d

Haha, you're welcome! Shannon Vallor also recommends it btw!

“Blix and Glimmer take the reader on a deeply engaging, funny, and provocative tour through our deepest anxieties and darkest fantasies of an AI-dominated future. Why We Fear AI offers profound insight into how AI and capitalism today work in mutually reinforcing lockstep to deskill and devalue humans, and what it will take to wake up from our worst AI nightmares and build a better world.”

— Shannon Vallor, author of The AI Mirror

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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 4d

Great recommendations! Obviously, I'd recommend ours, too ;)

uk.bookshop.org/p/books/why-...

Why We Fear AI: On the Interpretation of Nightmares

On the Interpretation of Nightmares

uk.bookshop.org

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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 4d

Download is for pictures and documents you don't want to keep, and also other things that you may or may not want to keep, so you can occasionally delete things you really didn't want to delete and also keep things indefinitely that you really don't need