Dani Shanley
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danishanley.bsky.social
Dani Shanley
@danishanley.bsky.social
assistant prof in philosophy @ maastricht university. thinking about ethics and politics (human factors) of new tech. critical of the hype and critical of the critics.
Reposted by Dani Shanley
Omar El Akkad, winner of the 2025 National Book Award for non-fiction for his book “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This” about the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza, speaking tonight at the awards gala in New York City where he accepted the award.

#NationalBookAwards
November 20, 2025 at 3:28 AM
Reposted by Dani Shanley
Racism is not justified by immigration levels or rising poverty, unemployment or crime.

It is not justified, period.

I see the rising wave of voices & arguments justifying the rising levels of racism as the most sinister political development in 2025 on the British landscape.
The Home Secretary explaining that the rise in racist violence is, actually, the natural response to higher levels of immigration is a state of affairs that can't exist without the government having largely decided that racist violence is, if not legitimate, at least understandable.
November 22, 2025 at 11:20 AM
Reposted by Dani Shanley
sts researchers: :spend decades tracing the way well-intentioned design choices constrained by culture, capital, and the material environment can have negative outcomes in aggregate:

ai companies: lets put a chatbot in a doll that tells kids to set fires

futurism.com/artificial-i...
AI-Powered Toys Caught Telling 5-Year-Olds How to Find Knives and Start Fires With Matches
AI-powered toys are flying off the shelves -- but they're engaging in horrifically inappropriate conversations with children.
futurism.com
November 13, 2025 at 2:34 PM
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Evergreen.
August 8, 2025 at 7:12 PM
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“Housing shortage – Jews to blame," letter sticker, German Reich, 1938

zwangsraeume.berlin/en/context
November 14, 2025 at 2:16 AM
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Exactly the same for AI products
If you need me, tap me on the shoulder. I’ll be happily working all day listening to this on a loop.
November 14, 2025 at 10:48 PM
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NEW from me: a new report found that national resistance to data centers skyrocketed between March and June of this year—especially in red states like Georgia and Indiana:
The Data Center Resistance Has Arrived
A new report finds that local opposition to data centers skyrocketed in the second quarter of this year.
www.wired.com
November 14, 2025 at 4:46 PM
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👇👇
November 14, 2025 at 7:01 PM
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November 12, 2025 at 10:25 PM
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Many modern technologists and computer scientists are very cogent systems thinker because any sufficiently advanced technology *is people*, all technical systems are socio-technical. The capital T Tech dipshits talking about “alpha” are mainly cosplaying finance people, regardless of their training
This is absolutely the case. Tech Guys of previous generations, to the extent that that category can be read back into the 19th and 20th centuries, were shockingly well-read by modern standards
it’s also notable how the techbros of today really don’t read *books* anymore - this was really not the case for the Tech Guys of earlier generations, far as I’ve been able to tell
November 12, 2025 at 2:13 AM
Reposted by Dani Shanley
100% true. Some of the best critics of AI are computer scientists or engineers with a holistic intellect: people who truly understand the tech and therefore its limits — eg @cloudquistador.bsky.social. It’s not a matter of tech experts versus intellectuals. The AI cultists do not understand tech!
Many modern technologists and computer scientists are very cogent systems thinker because any sufficiently advanced technology *is people*, all technical systems are socio-technical. The capital T Tech dipshits talking about “alpha” are mainly cosplaying finance people, regardless of their training
This is absolutely the case. Tech Guys of previous generations, to the extent that that category can be read back into the 19th and 20th centuries, were shockingly well-read by modern standards
November 12, 2025 at 7:38 PM
Reposted by Dani Shanley
What an amazing essay from the former chair of Africana Studies at Bowdoin. I'll share a few sections in the reply but seriously, read the whole thing. It's all insightful and beautifully written.

lithub.com/maybe-dont-t...
Maybe Don’t Talk to the New York Times About Zohran Mamdani
It’s remarkable, the people you’ll hear from. Teach for even a little while at an expensive institution—the term they tend to prefer is “elite”—and odds are that eventually someone who was a studen…
lithub.com
November 8, 2025 at 7:11 PM
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November 7, 2024 at 12:59 PM
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Something I've really noticed among institutional "responses" to generative technologies is that "DO NOT USE THIS TOOL, IT'S COMPLETELY INAPPROPRIATE" is fudamentally erased from any possibility of ever being an option

Often paired with fatalist stuff like "this isn't going away"
November 8, 2025 at 10:15 PM
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one day i will learn that i need to finish my stack of unread books before reserving more from the library but today is not that day
November 7, 2025 at 6:49 PM
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In 2008, a blogger named Curtis Yarvin called for a future president to kill foreign aid programs as part of a plan to replace democracy with dictatorship.

Now 600,000 people are dead—and 14 million will die by 2030, according to the Lancet. This is the running death toll of tech fascism.
One analytical model shows that, as of November 5th, the dismantling of U.S.A.I.D. has already caused the deaths of 600,000 people, two-thirds of them children. https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/jUzNSc
The Shutdown of U.S.A.I.D. Has Already Killed Hundreds of Thousands
The short documentary “Rovina’s Choice” tells the story of what goes when aid goes.
newyorkermag.visitlink.me
November 7, 2025 at 10:28 PM
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A List of Things Said to Have Been Ruined by Women

🧵
November 6, 2025 at 8:43 PM
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Also at @mozilla.org Fest, check out this AMAZING interactive installation, a visual database of AGI hype discourse, created by a group of talented students: hype-arenas.xyz It’s beautiful to see how one’s own research can step beyond academic language and become this ⬇️
AGI Hype arenas
A visual database of AGI hype discourse mapped into six key dimensions of uncertainty using qualitative research methodologies. Shown at the Mozilla Festival 2025.
hype-arenas.xyz
November 7, 2025 at 10:42 AM
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the question nobody with a soul is asking, answered by people nobody wants to hear from
November 6, 2025 at 12:58 PM
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me at the end of class: here's a little speculative exercises; imagine you wake up from cryosleep in 2085. what's the kind of tech-society r/ship you'd like to see around you?

students: no AI

I honestly think students' views are missing from the 'should AI be integrated in classrooms' discussion
November 6, 2025 at 6:32 AM
Reposted by Dani Shanley
Getting ready to my talk on Artificial General Intelligence as a form of both Deep Hype and as Futures Governance instrument at @mozilla.org Fest. Come by if you around! schedule.mozillafestival.org/session/159
November 6, 2025 at 12:02 PM
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“I wish Andrew Cuomo only the best in private life”
November 5, 2025 at 4:22 AM
finally some good news to wake up to
This is a landslide. The last NYC mayoral candidate to clear 1 million votes was John Lindsay—over 50 years ago. It will be dismissed by pundits saying it can only happen in New York. That's garbage. Think pledging to freeze rent and offer childcare won't resonate in Nevada? Wisconsin? Texas?
November 5, 2025 at 6:46 AM
Thanks for the shout-out, Brian! (and this zine looks amazing. Definitely going to print out some copies for our event) You can still submit today or DM me!
October 31, 2025 at 7:03 AM
Reposted by Dani Shanley
📣 I am hiring a postdoc! aial.ie/hiring/postd...

applications from suitable candidates that are passionate about investigating the use of genAI in public service operations with the aim of keeping governments transparent and accountable are welcome

pls share with your networks
October 30, 2025 at 7:51 PM