Mél Hogan / The Data Fix
@melhogan.bsky.social
Critical media scholar interested in the meanings we make of perpetual tech promises. Bilingue. Focused on the environment. I typo a lot 😷🏳️🌈
🎙️ thedatafix.net
📝 heliotropejournal.net
📷 https://pixelfed.social/melhogan
🎙️ thedatafix.net
📝 heliotropejournal.net
📷 https://pixelfed.social/melhogan
Pinned
Hogan publications (2015-2025)
Clouded Conveniences (2024) An archive of suffering: hunger stones and the (n)ec(r)opoetics of climate crisis (2024) The Fumes of AI (2024) Big Cloud Solastalgia (2024) Nothing left. Nothing right (20...
docs.google.com
A list of everything I’ve written/published: (enviro/tech/AI/planet/necropolitics/etc)
docs.google.com/document/d/1...
docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Reposted by Mél Hogan / The Data Fix
🧵 Thread with my favourite quotes from:
📝 Guest, O., Suarez, M., Müller, B., et al. (2025). Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia. Zenodo. doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
1/🧵
📝 Guest, O., Suarez, M., Müller, B., et al. (2025). Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia. Zenodo. doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
1/🧵
Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia
Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in the 21st with social media. For these col...
doi.org
September 19, 2025 at 10:19 PM
🧵 Thread with my favourite quotes from:
📝 Guest, O., Suarez, M., Müller, B., et al. (2025). Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia. Zenodo. doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
1/🧵
📝 Guest, O., Suarez, M., Müller, B., et al. (2025). Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia. Zenodo. doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
1/🧵
Reposted by Mél Hogan / The Data Fix
I had the considerable pleasure of writing a blurb for Stephanie O'Rourke's brilliant, thought provoking, and innovative book, Picturing Landscape in an Age of Extraction: Europe and Its Colonial Networks, 1780–1850. It is a major contribution to the field. @uchicagopress.bsky.social
November 20, 2025 at 8:32 PM
I had the considerable pleasure of writing a blurb for Stephanie O'Rourke's brilliant, thought provoking, and innovative book, Picturing Landscape in an Age of Extraction: Europe and Its Colonial Networks, 1780–1850. It is a major contribution to the field. @uchicagopress.bsky.social
Reposted by Mél Hogan / The Data Fix
It makes me feel insane, because everyone seems to acknowledge that it's massively environmentally destructive and based on theft (just to start!) and yet they're also all terrified of being "left behind??" Like, girl, if these are the options, leave me behind, please
November 20, 2025 at 8:26 PM
It makes me feel insane, because everyone seems to acknowledge that it's massively environmentally destructive and based on theft (just to start!) and yet they're also all terrified of being "left behind??" Like, girl, if these are the options, leave me behind, please
yes i'm losing it and resentful of all the stupidity of ai everywhere all the time, esp in universities
November 20, 2025 at 8:13 PM
yes i'm losing it and resentful of all the stupidity of ai everywhere all the time, esp in universities
do i have this about right?
university admins claim that they know (somehow) that AI is “the future” and that we have to train students to have the skills to work in environments that (will) require AI, but ...
university admins claim that they know (somehow) that AI is “the future” and that we have to train students to have the skills to work in environments that (will) require AI, but ...
November 20, 2025 at 8:09 PM
do i have this about right?
university admins claim that they know (somehow) that AI is “the future” and that we have to train students to have the skills to work in environments that (will) require AI, but ...
university admins claim that they know (somehow) that AI is “the future” and that we have to train students to have the skills to work in environments that (will) require AI, but ...
Reposted by Mél Hogan / The Data Fix
The Republican Party is a Nazi-allied party.
Exclusive: The U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify the swastika, nooses and the Confederate flag as hate symbols.
The military service drafted a new policy that classifies them as “potentially divisive.”
The military service drafted a new policy that classifies them as “potentially divisive.”
U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify swastikas, nooses as hate symbols
The military service, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security, has drafted a new policy that classifies such items “potentially divisive.”
www.washingtonpost.com
November 20, 2025 at 7:34 PM
The Republican Party is a Nazi-allied party.
Reposted by Mél Hogan / The Data Fix
It's Day 3 of @ontariotechu.bsky.social 's SSH Critical Climate Week! Tonight (7pm EST) we are honored to have Peter Dauvergne, professor of international relations @ UBC, give an online (& FREE) talk on AI & Climate Change.
Bio & ticket @ the link👇
events.humanitix.com/the-global-p...
Bio & ticket @ the link👇
events.humanitix.com/the-global-p...
The Global Political Economy of Artificial Intelligence: Consequences for Climate Change
AI and climate change
events.humanitix.com
November 20, 2025 at 5:42 PM
It's Day 3 of @ontariotechu.bsky.social 's SSH Critical Climate Week! Tonight (7pm EST) we are honored to have Peter Dauvergne, professor of international relations @ UBC, give an online (& FREE) talk on AI & Climate Change.
Bio & ticket @ the link👇
events.humanitix.com/the-global-p...
Bio & ticket @ the link👇
events.humanitix.com/the-global-p...
Reposted by Mél Hogan / The Data Fix
Bless @sophiegilbert.bsky.social @theatlantic.com: "The past decade has been a gloomy lesson in how limited a proportion of men actually see women as equal human beings...The fish rots from the head. The pig is in the Oval Office." www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025...
The Pig Is in the White House
This is what consequence-free misogyny looks like.
www.theatlantic.com
November 20, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Bless @sophiegilbert.bsky.social @theatlantic.com: "The past decade has been a gloomy lesson in how limited a proportion of men actually see women as equal human beings...The fish rots from the head. The pig is in the Oval Office." www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025...
Reposted by Mél Hogan / The Data Fix
“LLMs aren’t going away” statements are wishes, not predictions, that they’re trying to make happen. Treat them as advocacy for a specific future, not observations of inevitability
November 20, 2025 at 4:21 PM
“LLMs aren’t going away” statements are wishes, not predictions, that they’re trying to make happen. Treat them as advocacy for a specific future, not observations of inevitability
Reposted by Mél Hogan / The Data Fix
Reposted by Mél Hogan / The Data Fix
NEW: I explain how Canada’s ongoing purchases of Israeli weapons and military technology fuel genocide against Palestinians.
This is a transcript of my testimony at the people’s tribunal on Canadian responsibility. www.readthemaple.com/how-canadas-...
This is a transcript of my testimony at the people’s tribunal on Canadian responsibility. www.readthemaple.com/how-canadas-...
How Canada’s Purchases Of Israeli Weapons Fuel Genocide
A transcript of a testimony given by The Maple’s news editor at a “people’s tribunal” on Canadian complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
www.readthemaple.com
November 20, 2025 at 4:10 PM
NEW: I explain how Canada’s ongoing purchases of Israeli weapons and military technology fuel genocide against Palestinians.
This is a transcript of my testimony at the people’s tribunal on Canadian responsibility. www.readthemaple.com/how-canadas-...
This is a transcript of my testimony at the people’s tribunal on Canadian responsibility. www.readthemaple.com/how-canadas-...
Please give @tessajbrown.bsky.social a follow for the latest updates on www.heliotropejournal.net --and much more!
HELIOTROPE
www.heliotropejournal.net
November 20, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Please give @tessajbrown.bsky.social a follow for the latest updates on www.heliotropejournal.net --and much more!
Reposted by Mél Hogan / The Data Fix
“The Sam Altman-founded company behind the ‘Orb,’ a volleyball-sized metal sphere that scans irises to prove people's humanity, had a message for employees: work weekends and ignore anything outside your job — for the good of humanity.”
Sam Altman's eye-scanning Orb startup told workers not to care about anything outside work
Tools for Humanity CEO Alex Blania said that "if you should care about something else, and if you want something else, you should just not be here."
www.businessinsider.com
November 20, 2025 at 12:51 PM
“The Sam Altman-founded company behind the ‘Orb,’ a volleyball-sized metal sphere that scans irises to prove people's humanity, had a message for employees: work weekends and ignore anything outside your job — for the good of humanity.”
Reposted by Mél Hogan / The Data Fix
I really hate it when scientists keep saying that “we need to rebuild trust in science,” because it implies that scientists are to blame for the mistrust rather than the millions of dollars of dark money that have funded political attacks on science in order to advance a far right agenda.
November 19, 2025 at 9:48 PM
I really hate it when scientists keep saying that “we need to rebuild trust in science,” because it implies that scientists are to blame for the mistrust rather than the millions of dollars of dark money that have funded political attacks on science in order to advance a far right agenda.
Reposted by Mél Hogan / The Data Fix
MIT’s NANDA initiative found that 95% of generative AI deployments fail after interviewing 150 execs, surveying 350 workers, and analyzing 300 projects. The real “productivity gains” seem to come from layoffs and squeezing more work from fewer people not AI.
MIT report: 95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failing
There’s a stark difference in success rates between companies that purchase AI tools from vendors and those that build them internally.
fortune.com
August 20, 2025 at 4:52 AM
MIT’s NANDA initiative found that 95% of generative AI deployments fail after interviewing 150 execs, surveying 350 workers, and analyzing 300 projects. The real “productivity gains” seem to come from layoffs and squeezing more work from fewer people not AI.
Reposted by Mél Hogan / The Data Fix
do people know that data centers don't just guzzle water, they guzzle *potable* water
July 30, 2025 at 2:33 AM
do people know that data centers don't just guzzle water, they guzzle *potable* water
Reposted by Mél Hogan / The Data Fix
@ddayen.bsky.social on the "perverse and irrational" private credit deals financing the AI boom, w "huge mismatches between the life cycle of the assets being funded and the amount of time it will take to pay them off." 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 2:23 PM
@ddayen.bsky.social on the "perverse and irrational" private credit deals financing the AI boom, w "huge mismatches between the life cycle of the assets being funded and the amount of time it will take to pay them off." prospect.org/2025/11/19/a...
Reposted by Mél Hogan / The Data Fix
In applying AI to material science, biology, etc, capitalism is trying to shed science.
The point is to substitute the engineering of a machine that can generate what science has hitherto done, but without having people know things. Knowledge ultimately residing in private property is the dream.
The point is to substitute the engineering of a machine that can generate what science has hitherto done, but without having people know things. Knowledge ultimately residing in private property is the dream.
Jeff Bezos Creates A.I. Start-Up Where He Will Be Co-Chief Executive
www.nytimes.com
November 17, 2025 at 3:12 PM
In applying AI to material science, biology, etc, capitalism is trying to shed science.
The point is to substitute the engineering of a machine that can generate what science has hitherto done, but without having people know things. Knowledge ultimately residing in private property is the dream.
The point is to substitute the engineering of a machine that can generate what science has hitherto done, but without having people know things. Knowledge ultimately residing in private property is the dream.
Reposted by Mél Hogan / The Data Fix
These people are such clowns
November 19, 2025 at 1:40 PM
These people are such clowns
Reposted by Mél Hogan / The Data Fix
This is a remarkably stupid column bc it attributes real intelligence to LLMs and treats them as paradigm shifting tech when there’s no reason to believe we’re anywhere close to achieving useful machine intelligence and LLMs seem to have pretty limited potential. This mythology created the bubble.
November 19, 2025 at 1:30 PM
This is a remarkably stupid column bc it attributes real intelligence to LLMs and treats them as paradigm shifting tech when there’s no reason to believe we’re anywhere close to achieving useful machine intelligence and LLMs seem to have pretty limited potential. This mythology created the bubble.
Reposted by Mél Hogan / The Data Fix
Tech really wants nuclear because they're hungry for power from AI to such an extent meeting that demand has destroyed their climate goals. They're also turning to financing nuclear companies. This is, to me, concerning.
AI bigwigs want to go all-in on nuclear. They also happen to be behind nuclear companies | CNN Business
Sam Altman is the chairman of a company that promises a brighter future for humankind.
www.cnn.com
November 19, 2025 at 12:29 PM
Tech really wants nuclear because they're hungry for power from AI to such an extent meeting that demand has destroyed their climate goals. They're also turning to financing nuclear companies. This is, to me, concerning.
Reposted by Mél Hogan / The Data Fix
A great new issue of the Journal of Cinema + Media Studies - with articles on cardboard, green lights, smell + vaporware, a Stan VanDerBeek fax-based mural project, wearable tech, shipwrecks :)
Journal of Cinema and Media Studies - Issues
quod.lib.umich.edu
November 18, 2025 at 6:54 PM
A great new issue of the Journal of Cinema + Media Studies - with articles on cardboard, green lights, smell + vaporware, a Stan VanDerBeek fax-based mural project, wearable tech, shipwrecks :)
This www.cbc.ca/radio/frontb... would suggest that there are some big holes in the supercharging...
November 18, 2025 at 6:29 PM
This www.cbc.ca/radio/frontb... would suggest that there are some big holes in the supercharging...
Reposted by Mél Hogan / The Data Fix
Some people will try anything except wearing a mask
November 18, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Some people will try anything except wearing a mask
Excellent explanation of why the AI bubble is the bubble of bubbles: www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-p...
If AI is a bubble, what happens when it pops? | Front Burner | CBC Podcasts | CBC Listen
With the absolutely massive amounts of money tied up in the AI data centre boom, it's not hard to see why people fear a bubble. That worry has come into sharper focus in recent weeks, following commen...
www.cbc.ca
November 18, 2025 at 5:29 PM
Excellent explanation of why the AI bubble is the bubble of bubbles: www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-p...