Hagen Blix
@hagenblix.bsky.social
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
Pinned
Hagen Blix
@hagenblix.bsky.social
· Jul 8
Why We Fear AI: On the Interpretation of Nightmares
On the Interpretation of Nightmares
bookshop.org
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* 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
Denial isn't a political strategy
this is a bluesky bubble opinion. 800M+ people use chatgpt every week. I hate Facebook and Instagram and I wish they didn’t exist, but 3B and 2B people use them every month, respectively. it’s very hard to picture a mass or even a niche left backlash against them
i think tech and ai positive people are going to be in for a big shock when anti tech and anti ai sentiment becomes a major part of leftwing politics going forward especially as datacenters continue to destroy communities and raise electricity bills
November 27, 2025 at 3:01 PM
Denial isn't a political strategy
Reposted by Hagen Blix
Come the fuck on
The New Cliff Facing Higher Ed and How AI Might Help Solve It
There is a new “cliff” in American higher education, and it is not the demographic cliff. Rather, it is the dramatic cliff in math knowledge, skills and abilities. https://bit.ly/4rlwkhN
There is a new “cliff” in American higher education, and it is not the demographic cliff. Rather, it is the dramatic cliff in math knowledge, skills and abilities. https://bit.ly/4rlwkhN
November 26, 2025 at 10:09 PM
Come the fuck on
Reposted by Hagen Blix
This is also a fantastic follow-up to Schüll!
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* 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
November 26, 2025 at 10:03 PM
This is also a fantastic follow-up to Schüll!
Reposted by Hagen Blix
There is so much violence in their rhetoric, generally; the explicit non-consensual ‘gAI is here, you need to use it whether you want to or not,’ and then this kind of abusers’ logic ‘you have to use our tech but we aren’t responsible for anything that our tech does to you’
"Actually, you harmed us by using our chatbot in a way that made us look bad" is straight out of the abuser's handbook
ChatGPT firm blames boy’s suicide on ‘misuse’ of its technology
OpenAI responds to lawsuit claiming its chatbot encouraged California teenager to kill himself
www.theguardian.com
November 26, 2025 at 9:51 PM
There is so much violence in their rhetoric, generally; the explicit non-consensual ‘gAI is here, you need to use it whether you want to or not,’ and then this kind of abusers’ logic ‘you have to use our tech but we aren’t responsible for anything that our tech does to you’
Reposted by Hagen Blix
PROMOTE YOUR BOOKS! EVERYONE WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR PUBLISHED BOOKS!
gonna be reposting your books because hoo you made a book!
www.versobooks.com/products/303...
gonna be reposting your books because hoo you made a book!
www.versobooks.com/products/303...
November 26, 2025 at 9:49 PM
PROMOTE YOUR BOOKS! EVERYONE WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR PUBLISHED BOOKS!
gonna be reposting your books because hoo you made a book!
www.versobooks.com/products/303...
gonna be reposting your books because hoo you made a book!
www.versobooks.com/products/303...
Reposted by Hagen Blix
i agree with this
People are calling this “lazy” which I think is kind of missing what’s going on here. Increasingly convinced that the comparable technology, in how it interacts with the human nervous system, is the slot machine.
November 26, 2025 at 9:25 PM
i agree with this
Reposted by Hagen Blix
variable reinforcement learning, that's the term
Also works the other way around, when you think about AI as a tool for political terror, used by the police, the state department, etc. Terror works better when unpredictable.
We've got a section on the variable reinforcement learning you describe & AI in that context in Why We Fear AI, too
We've got a section on the variable reinforcement learning you describe & AI in that context in Why We Fear AI, too
November 26, 2025 at 9:47 PM
variable reinforcement learning, that's the term
Reposted by Hagen Blix
"Actually, you harmed us by using our chatbot in a way that made us look bad" is straight out of the abuser's handbook
ChatGPT firm blames boy’s suicide on ‘misuse’ of its technology
OpenAI responds to lawsuit claiming its chatbot encouraged California teenager to kill himself
www.theguardian.com
November 26, 2025 at 8:54 PM
"Actually, you harmed us by using our chatbot in a way that made us look bad" is straight out of the abuser's handbook
Reposted by Hagen Blix
If a product caused harm, or death, to a single person who was using it correctly, the person responsible for that product should be in a state of distress for what they did.
Doesn't matter about the scale of the product.
If they didn't say how to use it correctly, they are no less liable.
Doesn't matter about the scale of the product.
If they didn't say how to use it correctly, they are no less liable.
Nothing is more revealing of the character of Mark Zuckerberg than this
November 23, 2025 at 7:35 PM
If a product caused harm, or death, to a single person who was using it correctly, the person responsible for that product should be in a state of distress for what they did.
Doesn't matter about the scale of the product.
If they didn't say how to use it correctly, they are no less liable.
Doesn't matter about the scale of the product.
If they didn't say how to use it correctly, they are no less liable.
"Actually, you harmed us by using our chatbot in a way that made us look bad" is straight out of the abuser's handbook
ChatGPT firm blames boy’s suicide on ‘misuse’ of its technology
OpenAI responds to lawsuit claiming its chatbot encouraged California teenager to kill himself
www.theguardian.com
November 26, 2025 at 8:54 PM
"Actually, you harmed us by using our chatbot in a way that made us look bad" is straight out of the abuser's handbook
Reposted by Hagen Blix
What we're talking about when we say "Abolish Gender" certainly includes this
So many men go through life like that. You can play poker because it's right-coded, you can't enjoy fruity alcoholic drinks because they're women-coded, you can't lick an ice cream cone because it's gay-coded. All day, every day, choosing and judging things based on coding for narrow norms.
November 26, 2025 at 4:10 PM
What we're talking about when we say "Abolish Gender" certainly includes this
Reposted by Hagen Blix
Please listen to this amazing episode with Stefanie Felsberger @flsbrgr.bsky.social
shows.acast.com/the-data-fix...
shows.acast.com/the-data-fix...
Tracking, with Stefanie Felsberger | The Data Fix with Dr. Mél Hogan
shows.acast.com
November 24, 2025 at 6:45 PM
Please listen to this amazing episode with Stefanie Felsberger @flsbrgr.bsky.social
shows.acast.com/the-data-fix...
shows.acast.com/the-data-fix...
In so many of our systems of power, violence and dull conformity are predicated on each other👇
I have often seen masculinity, conventional version, as a constant renunciation, in return for corrosive power. All the things you're not allowed to like, enjoy, do, say, wear, but (metaphorically speaking) this straitjacket comes with a gun.
November 26, 2025 at 4:25 PM
In so many of our systems of power, violence and dull conformity are predicated on each other👇
What we're talking about when we say "Abolish Gender" certainly includes this
So many men go through life like that. You can play poker because it's right-coded, you can't enjoy fruity alcoholic drinks because they're women-coded, you can't lick an ice cream cone because it's gay-coded. All day, every day, choosing and judging things based on coding for narrow norms.
November 26, 2025 at 4:10 PM
What we're talking about when we say "Abolish Gender" certainly includes this
Reposted by Hagen Blix
Virginia Eubanks' Automating Inequality has a fascinating discussion of the Scientific Charity movement that details, among other things, its involvement with eugenics. One can't help notice the recurrence of all these themes with the Effective Altruism movement today - has anyone written on this?
November 25, 2025 at 7:29 PM
Virginia Eubanks' Automating Inequality has a fascinating discussion of the Scientific Charity movement that details, among other things, its involvement with eugenics. One can't help notice the recurrence of all these themes with the Effective Altruism movement today - has anyone written on this?
Reposted by Hagen Blix
A sample from "Why we fear AI?"
The first chapter is great.
The first chapter is great.
Yeah, it's from the first chapter! Here's the rest of the chapter if you want to take a look!
And totally agreed on the unbounded nature of production for profit, that's exactly where we start!
And totally agreed on the unbounded nature of production for profit, that's exactly where we start!
hagenblix.github.io
November 26, 2025 at 9:12 AM
A sample from "Why we fear AI?"
The first chapter is great.
The first chapter is great.
Reposted by Hagen Blix
"Is this political attack on the possibility of good faith discourse enabled by hype? Would things be better if the models were improved, or the advertisement toned down? Or is it rather the case that the models’ inability to distinguish words from the world is precisely..."
"Fascism ... is committed to a play of power and aesthetics that regards a desire for truthfulness as an admission of weakness. It loves a bullshit generator, because it cannot conceive of a debate as anything but a fight for power..."
Great piece from @hagenblix.bsky.social and Ingeborg Glimmer.
Great piece from @hagenblix.bsky.social and Ingeborg Glimmer.
Deflating “Hype” Won’t Save Us
The problem with AI isn’t hype. The problem is who and what it’s useful for.
www.liberalcurrents.com
November 26, 2025 at 3:38 PM
"Is this political attack on the possibility of good faith discourse enabled by hype? Would things be better if the models were improved, or the advertisement toned down? Or is it rather the case that the models’ inability to distinguish words from the world is precisely..."
Reposted by Hagen Blix
You know it's a bubble when...
November 25, 2025 at 5:36 AM
You know it's a bubble when...
Is this the negative dialectics version of family abolition..?
one of the more bleak aspects of ai chatbots is it’s starting to blow up real marriages
November 26, 2025 at 3:18 PM
Is this the negative dialectics version of family abolition..?
Wrote a thing about this question a while back - I think in a lot of domains AI will shift quality and cost downward, and outcompete the mid-quality of things (not without irony, given @tressiemcphd.bsky.social's astute observations about AI's mid-ness)
hagenblix.github.io/posts/sats-a...
hagenblix.github.io/posts/sats-a...
November 25, 2025 at 11:45 PM
Wrote a thing about this question a while back - I think in a lot of domains AI will shift quality and cost downward, and outcompete the mid-quality of things (not without irony, given @tressiemcphd.bsky.social's astute observations about AI's mid-ness)
hagenblix.github.io/posts/sats-a...
hagenblix.github.io/posts/sats-a...
Reposted by Hagen Blix
Yes, and also, we already have a real "paperclip maximizer" that is no thought experiment, but a real here and now problem: Capitalism.
November 25, 2025 at 2:10 PM
Yes, and also, we already have a real "paperclip maximizer" that is no thought experiment, but a real here and now problem: Capitalism.
Reposted by Hagen Blix
This meme never gets old
November 18, 2025 at 1:39 PM
This meme never gets old
Virginia Eubanks' Automating Inequality has a fascinating discussion of the Scientific Charity movement that details, among other things, its involvement with eugenics. One can't help notice the recurrence of all these themes with the Effective Altruism movement today - has anyone written on this?
November 25, 2025 at 7:29 PM
Virginia Eubanks' Automating Inequality has a fascinating discussion of the Scientific Charity movement that details, among other things, its involvement with eugenics. One can't help notice the recurrence of all these themes with the Effective Altruism movement today - has anyone written on this?
"Why We Fear AI" has shown up in the usual shadow libraries
Just wanna say a) well, download it, b) if you can, buy a physical copy regardless, and c) please ask your local library to get a copy either way!
Just wanna say a) well, download it, b) if you can, buy a physical copy regardless, and c) please ask your local library to get a copy either way!
November 25, 2025 at 3:27 PM
"Why We Fear AI" has shown up in the usual shadow libraries
Just wanna say a) well, download it, b) if you can, buy a physical copy regardless, and c) please ask your local library to get a copy either way!
Just wanna say a) well, download it, b) if you can, buy a physical copy regardless, and c) please ask your local library to get a copy either way!
Reposted by Hagen Blix
