Erin Lockwood
@erinkaylockwood.bsky.social
Assistant professor of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine | researching and teaching IPE, financial politics, global inequality | fan of plants, birds, snacks, sci-fi, quilting | she/her
Pinned
Hello! I'm a political scientist at the University of California Irvine researching + teaching IR/IPE and interested in the politics of risk and uncertainty as they relate to financial regulation, AI, and climate intervention. I also work on the politics of global economic inequality.
Reposted by Erin Lockwood
the nuzzi story is fun and all but at the center of it is the elevation of a man who has dedicated his life to making children catch preventable diseases to a position where he can enact harm at enormous scale
CDC has overhauled its website to assert that “the claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim”
November 20, 2025 at 3:19 AM
the nuzzi story is fun and all but at the center of it is the elevation of a man who has dedicated his life to making children catch preventable diseases to a position where he can enact harm at enormous scale
Reposted by Erin Lockwood
From the people who brought you the financial crisis, Theranos, and Juicero: say hello to data center financial engineering!
I'm pretty nervous about this ending badly, but everyone's dug in because AI is the only pulse in the economy.
prospect.org/2025/11/19/a...
I'm pretty nervous about this ending badly, but everyone's dug in because AI is the only pulse in the economy.
prospect.org/2025/11/19/a...
The AI Bubble Is Bigger Than You Think - The American Prospect
It’s not just OpenAI that looks overhyped. There’s a whole mountain of sketchy financial engineering underneath.
prospect.org
November 19, 2025 at 2:37 PM
From the people who brought you the financial crisis, Theranos, and Juicero: say hello to data center financial engineering!
I'm pretty nervous about this ending badly, but everyone's dug in because AI is the only pulse in the economy.
prospect.org/2025/11/19/a...
I'm pretty nervous about this ending badly, but everyone's dug in because AI is the only pulse in the economy.
prospect.org/2025/11/19/a...
The leading theory seems to be that they're cannibalizing their own business to stay ahead (where "stay ahead" = "do AI stuff"), but I think "tech industry high on its own supply" is an underappreciated explanation for the irrational and often self-undermining incursion of AI into everything.
So this ad revenue metric is indicative of such a fascinating and weird set of business decisions by Google to inexplicably kill of SEO-- and I honestly don't get how they think this is going to pay off for them in the long run.
🧵
1/
🧵
1/
Stereogum says Google's switch to AI Overviews reduced its ad revenue by *70 percent* www.theverge.com/entertainmen...
November 19, 2025 at 5:02 AM
The leading theory seems to be that they're cannibalizing their own business to stay ahead (where "stay ahead" = "do AI stuff"), but I think "tech industry high on its own supply" is an underappreciated explanation for the irrational and often self-undermining incursion of AI into everything.
Reposted by Erin Lockwood
Whatever your faith persuasion, or even if you have none at all, I promise this interview goes hard.
‘It’s as if Jesus Is Locked Up in Broadview’
I interviewed @revdrmichaelwoolf.bsky.social about his violent arrest by Illinois State Police while demonstrating against 'torture' at the ICE facility outside Chicago last week.
I interviewed @revdrmichaelwoolf.bsky.social about his violent arrest by Illinois State Police while demonstrating against 'torture' at the ICE facility outside Chicago last week.
‘It’s as if Jesus Is Locked Up in Broadview’
A reverend violently arrested at Chicagoland’s ICE facility speaks out
open.substack.com
November 18, 2025 at 9:00 PM
Whatever your faith persuasion, or even if you have none at all, I promise this interview goes hard.
Reposted by Erin Lockwood
1/This week has seen a blitz of what looks like corruption sandals: Saudi development deals for US military tech, Pakistani payments to Trump insiders for tariff relief, Swiss gold bars for a trade deal. Far from a payoff, this is a reordering of internat'l system.
www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/mxthh...
www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/mxthh...
www.dropbox.com
November 18, 2025 at 1:59 PM
1/This week has seen a blitz of what looks like corruption sandals: Saudi development deals for US military tech, Pakistani payments to Trump insiders for tariff relief, Swiss gold bars for a trade deal. Far from a payoff, this is a reordering of internat'l system.
www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/mxthh...
www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/mxthh...
This is a really excellent article on AI in academia, written by a Yale undergrad.
Inside Yale’s Quiet Reckoning with AI | The New Journal
Amid ChatGPT's rising popularity and a computer science cheating scandal, Yale students, professors, and administrators wrestle privately with the proper role of AI in education. What happens when eve...
thenewjournalatyale.com
November 17, 2025 at 11:34 PM
This is a really excellent article on AI in academia, written by a Yale undergrad.
my face when reading each subsequent sentence of the Nuzzi excerpt
November 17, 2025 at 4:30 PM
my face when reading each subsequent sentence of the Nuzzi excerpt
My friend asked her to stop chewing on his sock.
November 16, 2025 at 11:05 PM
My friend asked her to stop chewing on his sock.
We ... are? And if you're not in those networks, you may want to examine your choices and think about why.
1. If America were fascist right now, I would not be posting here. Neither would you.
Instead, I - and you - would be trying to build networks of people *offline* who can support and protect each other, in the dark, rather than yelling at the president and his stooges in our own names. /2
Instead, I - and you - would be trying to build networks of people *offline* who can support and protect each other, in the dark, rather than yelling at the president and his stooges in our own names. /2
November 16, 2025 at 7:56 PM
We ... are? And if you're not in those networks, you may want to examine your choices and think about why.
I hate flying, but LGB --> ABQ involves two of my favorite airports of all time. Top itinerary, even in the rain.
November 14, 2025 at 8:51 PM
I hate flying, but LGB --> ABQ involves two of my favorite airports of all time. Top itinerary, even in the rain.
Reposted by Erin Lockwood
COP30 is now underway, and I have more to say on the shadow Trump is casting over it here: theconversation.com/how-trumps-t...
November 10, 2025 at 6:31 PM
COP30 is now underway, and I have more to say on the shadow Trump is casting over it here: theconversation.com/how-trumps-t...
Reposted by Erin Lockwood
Today's new @publicenterprise.bsky.social report is a comprehensive analysis of the capital structure of the entire AI sector: data center real estate, GPU markets, private credit, you name it.
It's also a financial risk management framework for policymakers!
publicenterprise.org/report/bubbl...
It's also a financial risk management framework for policymakers!
publicenterprise.org/report/bubbl...
Bubble or Nothing
Policymakers concerned about the deployment of clean energy and compute-focused infrastructure over the long term need a framework for managing the uncertainty in the AI sector's investment landscape—...
publicenterprise.org
November 12, 2025 at 1:34 PM
Today's new @publicenterprise.bsky.social report is a comprehensive analysis of the capital structure of the entire AI sector: data center real estate, GPU markets, private credit, you name it.
It's also a financial risk management framework for policymakers!
publicenterprise.org/report/bubbl...
It's also a financial risk management framework for policymakers!
publicenterprise.org/report/bubbl...
Stringer Bell an important minor prophet of our time
November 12, 2025 at 5:54 PM
Stringer Bell an important minor prophet of our time
I agree for deontological reasons (if something is bad, it's bad irrespective of its consequences) but also because this dynamic turns politics into two fun house mirrors facing each other: an endlessly recursive game of "who do I think will think this matters?" that vacates our faculty of judgment.
I legitimately think one of the absolute poisons of American political discourse is how “but will this matter electorally” has become the only metric used by basically the entire non-partisan media for assessing a story’s importance
November 12, 2025 at 5:00 PM
I agree for deontological reasons (if something is bad, it's bad irrespective of its consequences) but also because this dynamic turns politics into two fun house mirrors facing each other: an endlessly recursive game of "who do I think will think this matters?" that vacates our faculty of judgment.
Reposted by Erin Lockwood
The 2008 crisis was caused by exceptionally high correlation among default risks, which far exceeded risk models' estimates and capital buffers.
The more capital that gets funnelled into AI-related investment, the more highly correlated the default risks associated with new debt-backed securities.
The more capital that gets funnelled into AI-related investment, the more highly correlated the default risks associated with new debt-backed securities.
This is insane. This is *literally* doing the same mechanics of the housing crisis and 2008 recession but to create debt to finance construction of AI data centers
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/08/b...
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/08/b...
November 10, 2025 at 4:55 PM
The 2008 crisis was caused by exceptionally high correlation among default risks, which far exceeded risk models' estimates and capital buffers.
The more capital that gets funnelled into AI-related investment, the more highly correlated the default risks associated with new debt-backed securities.
The more capital that gets funnelled into AI-related investment, the more highly correlated the default risks associated with new debt-backed securities.
Just encountered my first philosophical "just in case" meaning "iff" in the wild 🫡
November 11, 2025 at 12:21 AM
Just encountered my first philosophical "just in case" meaning "iff" in the wild 🫡
Entirely too close to @lailalalami.com's The Dream Hotel for comfort.
November 10, 2025 at 10:19 PM
Entirely too close to @lailalalami.com's The Dream Hotel for comfort.
Don't talk to me or my son ever again (about attacking the houseplants).
November 10, 2025 at 9:10 PM
Don't talk to me or my son ever again (about attacking the houseplants).
So Senate Dems caved in order to force* a vote on ACA subsidies which they will lose but which will make the GOP to go on the record as opposing ACA subsidies, the same issue which they have, very publicly, on the record, opposed to the point of shutting down the government over for 40 days?
*lol
*lol
November 10, 2025 at 8:17 PM
So Senate Dems caved in order to force* a vote on ACA subsidies which they will lose but which will make the GOP to go on the record as opposing ACA subsidies, the same issue which they have, very publicly, on the record, opposed to the point of shutting down the government over for 40 days?
*lol
*lol
The 2008 crisis was caused by exceptionally high correlation among default risks, which far exceeded risk models' estimates and capital buffers.
The more capital that gets funnelled into AI-related investment, the more highly correlated the default risks associated with new debt-backed securities.
The more capital that gets funnelled into AI-related investment, the more highly correlated the default risks associated with new debt-backed securities.
This is insane. This is *literally* doing the same mechanics of the housing crisis and 2008 recession but to create debt to finance construction of AI data centers
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/08/b...
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/08/b...
November 10, 2025 at 4:55 PM
The 2008 crisis was caused by exceptionally high correlation among default risks, which far exceeded risk models' estimates and capital buffers.
The more capital that gets funnelled into AI-related investment, the more highly correlated the default risks associated with new debt-backed securities.
The more capital that gets funnelled into AI-related investment, the more highly correlated the default risks associated with new debt-backed securities.
On the collapse of COP30 and general climate inaction. I think this is correct and important: there are plenty of profits available in a full-scale green transition. But it won't happen without public orchestration and *that* is what threatens holders of capital.
The problem from their point of view is that rapid decarbonization requires public, collective decisions about the organization of production, in a way that threaten capital-owners' authority over both the production process and the political system.
November 10, 2025 at 4:40 PM
On the collapse of COP30 and general climate inaction. I think this is correct and important: there are plenty of profits available in a full-scale green transition. But it won't happen without public orchestration and *that* is what threatens holders of capital.
Reposted by Erin Lockwood
To put it another way, *capital* is perfectly capable of organizing decarbonization. The problem is *capital-owners*, who are political actors and not just the embodiments of the accumulation process. Elon Musk is symptomatic here.
November 10, 2025 at 4:26 PM
To put it another way, *capital* is perfectly capable of organizing decarbonization. The problem is *capital-owners*, who are political actors and not just the embodiments of the accumulation process. Elon Musk is symptomatic here.
Reposted by Erin Lockwood
UPDATE: Reached out to the Rev. Hannah Kardon, a United Methodist minister who was there that day and has been active in religious demonstrations at Broadview.
“They are making it clear that they are scared of prayer … it speaks the truth that what they are doing in that building is evil.”
“They are making it clear that they are scared of prayer … it speaks the truth that what they are doing in that building is evil.”
November 8, 2025 at 2:08 PM
UPDATE: Reached out to the Rev. Hannah Kardon, a United Methodist minister who was there that day and has been active in religious demonstrations at Broadview.
“They are making it clear that they are scared of prayer … it speaks the truth that what they are doing in that building is evil.”
“They are making it clear that they are scared of prayer … it speaks the truth that what they are doing in that building is evil.”
Re-reading Roberto Aragãoa and Lucas Linsi's @ripejournal.bsky.social article on how governments manipulate official statistics on the same day that the U.S. failed to publish the Oct. monthly jobs report. I thin their typology of manipulated statistics is going to be extra-useful in this era ...
November 7, 2025 at 8:22 PM
Re-reading Roberto Aragãoa and Lucas Linsi's @ripejournal.bsky.social article on how governments manipulate official statistics on the same day that the U.S. failed to publish the Oct. monthly jobs report. I thin their typology of manipulated statistics is going to be extra-useful in this era ...