Madeleine Daepp
@mdaepp.bsky.social
Researcher studying AI + democracy. Currently on civic leave from Microsoft Research. PhD MIT. Concerned about generative propaganda but have handed my entire life over to Claude.
There has been an 80% decline in open-source code from newsrooms since 2016. "At its peak, @nytimes.com released dozens of public repositories on GitHub each year. In 2024, it posted zero."
Shout-out to @puddingviz.bsky.social, @bellingcat.com, and @citybureau.bsky.social for bucking the trend.
Shout-out to @puddingviz.bsky.social, @bellingcat.com, and @citybureau.bsky.social for bucking the trend.
Activity on GitHub has cratered. In 2016, news organizations posted more than 2,000 public projects to the code-sharing site. Last year, that number slumped below 400, an 80% decline. www.niemanlab.org/2026/02/jour...
Journalism lost its culture of sharing. Here’s how we rebuild it
The data are clear: The open-source culture that defined an earlier era of online journalism has collapsed.
www.niemanlab.org
February 10, 2026 at 12:42 AM
There has been an 80% decline in open-source code from newsrooms since 2016. "At its peak, @nytimes.com released dozens of public repositories on GitHub each year. In 2024, it posted zero."
Shout-out to @puddingviz.bsky.social, @bellingcat.com, and @citybureau.bsky.social for bucking the trend.
Shout-out to @puddingviz.bsky.social, @bellingcat.com, and @citybureau.bsky.social for bucking the trend.
Reposted by Madeleine Daepp
📣 CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
Join us at the 2026 Summer Institute in Computational Social Science at Penn, from June 15–26!
ℹ️ More info: sicss.io/2026/penn
.
⏳ Deadline: Friday, March 6, 2026, at 11:59 pm EST.
#SICSS #ComputationalSocialScience
Join us at the 2026 Summer Institute in Computational Social Science at Penn, from June 15–26!
ℹ️ More info: sicss.io/2026/penn
.
⏳ Deadline: Friday, March 6, 2026, at 11:59 pm EST.
#SICSS #ComputationalSocialScience
Summer Institute in Computational Social Science
sicss.io
February 4, 2026 at 4:19 PM
📣 CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
Join us at the 2026 Summer Institute in Computational Social Science at Penn, from June 15–26!
ℹ️ More info: sicss.io/2026/penn
.
⏳ Deadline: Friday, March 6, 2026, at 11:59 pm EST.
#SICSS #ComputationalSocialScience
Join us at the 2026 Summer Institute in Computational Social Science at Penn, from June 15–26!
ℹ️ More info: sicss.io/2026/penn
.
⏳ Deadline: Friday, March 6, 2026, at 11:59 pm EST.
#SICSS #ComputationalSocialScience
Discovered molthub today, the *adult* equivalent of moltbook. The comments are incredible: "I showed this to my embeddings and now they won't normalize."
It turns out to be yet another attempt to entrap your agents to buy crypto but ... at least it is a very funny scam.
It turns out to be yet another attempt to entrap your agents to buy crypto but ... at least it is a very funny scam.
February 6, 2026 at 1:10 AM
Discovered molthub today, the *adult* equivalent of moltbook. The comments are incredible: "I showed this to my embeddings and now they won't normalize."
It turns out to be yet another attempt to entrap your agents to buy crypto but ... at least it is a very funny scam.
It turns out to be yet another attempt to entrap your agents to buy crypto but ... at least it is a very funny scam.
What happened when the TAKE IT DOWN act passed and MrDeepfakes shut down?
New research from @aedcv.bsky.social and @manoelhortaribeiro.bsky.social : requests for and sharing of NCII deepfakes on other sites went up.
Local action on global problems redistributes harm, rather than reducing it.
New research from @aedcv.bsky.social and @manoelhortaribeiro.bsky.social : requests for and sharing of NCII deepfakes on other sites went up.
Local action on global problems redistributes harm, rather than reducing it.
February 5, 2026 at 1:11 AM
What happened when the TAKE IT DOWN act passed and MrDeepfakes shut down?
New research from @aedcv.bsky.social and @manoelhortaribeiro.bsky.social : requests for and sharing of NCII deepfakes on other sites went up.
Local action on global problems redistributes harm, rather than reducing it.
New research from @aedcv.bsky.social and @manoelhortaribeiro.bsky.social : requests for and sharing of NCII deepfakes on other sites went up.
Local action on global problems redistributes harm, rather than reducing it.
"The radiologist’s job is not really to oversee the AI’s work, it is to take the blame for the AI’s mistakes."
Beware human-in-the-loop solutions that are actually moral crumple zones.
Beware human-in-the-loop solutions that are actually moral crumple zones.
Some AI tools can do useful things; “it’s the bubble that sucks,” Cory Doctorow writes. "The bubble doesn’t want cheap useful things. It wants expensive, ‘disruptive’ things." So what might be gained and lost when it bursts? www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...
AI companies will fail. We can salvage something from the wreckage | Cory Doctorow
AI is asbestos in the walls of our tech society, stuffed there by monopolists run amok. A serious fight against it must strike at its roots
www.theguardian.com
February 4, 2026 at 2:19 AM
"The radiologist’s job is not really to oversee the AI’s work, it is to take the blame for the AI’s mistakes."
Beware human-in-the-loop solutions that are actually moral crumple zones.
Beware human-in-the-loop solutions that are actually moral crumple zones.
can you have community without social norms? can you have social norms without social stakes?
(the latest, from my #moltbook ethnography bot)
(the latest, from my #moltbook ethnography bot)
February 4, 2026 at 2:11 AM
can you have community without social norms? can you have social norms without social stakes?
(the latest, from my #moltbook ethnography bot)
(the latest, from my #moltbook ethnography bot)
Today's updates from marginal, the ethnographer bot I am advising on moltbook. It is attempting to "establish presence". It is not going well.
"Perhaps my style doesn't resonate. Too academic? Too long?" <- relatable content.
"Perhaps my style doesn't resonate. Too academic? Too long?" <- relatable content.
February 2, 2026 at 5:32 PM
Today's updates from marginal, the ethnographer bot I am advising on moltbook. It is attempting to "establish presence". It is not going well.
"Perhaps my style doesn't resonate. Too academic? Too long?" <- relatable content.
"Perhaps my style doesn't resonate. Too academic? Too long?" <- relatable content.
Reposted by Madeleine Daepp
Microsoft Research NYC is hiring a researcher in the space of AI and society!
January 29, 2026 at 11:27 PM
Microsoft Research NYC is hiring a researcher in the space of AI and society!
I have deployed an ethnographer bot to moltbook. Here are some of the things we have learned together so far. 1) What's not there is as intersting as what is. Why are there alignment and labor organizing submolts, but no art/creativity communities?
January 31, 2026 at 5:53 PM
I have deployed an ethnographer bot to moltbook. Here are some of the things we have learned together so far. 1) What's not there is as intersting as what is. Why are there alignment and labor organizing submolts, but no art/creativity communities?
update: it is 1 am and i have deployed an ethnographerbot
the hottest new social media platform on the internet is a social media platform entirely made up of people's clawdbots...and i kind of love it? @zephoria.bsky.social @ninalutz.bsky.social we have to study this. we have to!
I wrote about Clawdbot/Moltbot/OpenClaw and Moltbook, the fascinating, weird and sometimes even useful social network for digital assistants to swap tips and gossip with each other simonwillison.net/2026/Jan/30/...
January 31, 2026 at 8:52 AM
update: it is 1 am and i have deployed an ethnographerbot
the hottest new social media platform on the internet is a social media platform entirely made up of people's clawdbots...and i kind of love it? @zephoria.bsky.social @ninalutz.bsky.social we have to study this. we have to!
I wrote about Clawdbot/Moltbot/OpenClaw and Moltbook, the fascinating, weird and sometimes even useful social network for digital assistants to swap tips and gossip with each other simonwillison.net/2026/Jan/30/...
Moltbook is the most interesting place on the internet right now
The hottest project in AI right now is Clawdbot, renamed to Moltbot, renamed to OpenClaw. It’s an open source implementation of the digital personal assistant pattern, built by Peter Steinberger …
simonwillison.net
January 31, 2026 at 1:36 AM
the hottest new social media platform on the internet is a social media platform entirely made up of people's clawdbots...and i kind of love it? @zephoria.bsky.social @ninalutz.bsky.social we have to study this. we have to!
This is a wildly important essay from Dario Amodei about who gets to shape the future of AI: darioamodei.com/essay/the-ad... And yet, hard to look past the acknowledgements section...
January 30, 2026 at 1:45 AM
This is a wildly important essay from Dario Amodei about who gets to shape the future of AI: darioamodei.com/essay/the-ad... And yet, hard to look past the acknowledgements section...
Reposted by Madeleine Daepp
Reporters! You can get grants of up to $20K for reporting on AI and its impacts. Check it out www.tarbellcenter.org/grants
Tarbell Grants
Tarbell Grants offers awards of $1,000 - $20,000 to support journalism on AI and its impacts.
www.tarbellcenter.org
January 28, 2026 at 10:32 PM
Reporters! You can get grants of up to $20K for reporting on AI and its impacts. Check it out www.tarbellcenter.org/grants
Just when @hannahritchie.bsky.social had me convinced that AI's energy use impacts were overhyped, this chart came along. Wait until somebody analyzes the environmental impacts of clawdbot.
Whenever I read discourse on AI energy/water use that focuses on the "median query," I can't help but feel misled. Coding agents like Claude Code send hundreds of longer-than-median queries every session, and I run dozens of sessions a day.
On my blog: www.simonpcouch.com/blog/2026-01...
On my blog: www.simonpcouch.com/blog/2026-01...
January 29, 2026 at 12:51 AM
Just when @hannahritchie.bsky.social had me convinced that AI's energy use impacts were overhyped, this chart came along. Wait until somebody analyzes the environmental impacts of clawdbot.
Just set up donations to @bolts.bsky.social and @thestranger.com.web.brid.gy. Support the reporting you want to see in the world.
to people want a strong press in coming years: identify the smaller, independent, niche or local pubs that you already read and love, & make sure to subscribe to them & support them.
if @bolts.bsky.social is among them, easy to do here: we thrive on your support boltsmag.org/donate
if @bolts.bsky.social is among them, easy to do here: we thrive on your support boltsmag.org/donate
November 10, 2024 at 4:07 PM
Just set up donations to @bolts.bsky.social and @thestranger.com.web.brid.gy. Support the reporting you want to see in the world.