felix stalder

Researcher, teacher, and activist at the confluence of culture, technology, and politics. Binary, so you don't have to be. Born at 324 PPM.

If you are on this instance, I won't follow you because I'll read all your posts in the local timeline.

Why? Because I want to get a sense of place as I'm currently one of the moderators of this instance, and I wish to recover some of the collective dimensions of social media (rather than simply individual social graphs intersecting).

Public Key

npub1jwl9282n05rdgvtk4qu06x6cwfamcykdntwhdqzu6euqx0vympyqn464n7

NIP-05 Address

festal@tldr-nettime-org.mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsf80j4r4fh6pk5x9m2sw8ardv8y7auztxe4htkspwdv7qr8kzdsjqpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dspeuf93

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1jwl9282n05rdgvtk4qu06x6cwfamcykdntwhdqzu6euqx0vympyqn464n7

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Last Notes

2026-10-29 13:42:51 UTC

Solidarität mit Kurier:innen in der Schweiz. Gegen Ausbeutung und illegale Scheinselbständigkeit!
https://unia.ch/de/schwerpunkte/petition-plattformen

2026-10-27 19:13:03 UTC

This is how the end looks like. The last piece of the Triglav glacier in Slovenia, pictured on 2 October, 2026
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/oct/27/slovenia-mourns-loss-glacier-highest-peak-scorching-summer
https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/117/514/446/235/259/103/original/4fa049961625d818.jpg

2026-10-27 19:12:28 UTC

This is how the end looks like. The last piece of the Triglav glacier in Slovenia, pictured on 2 October, 2026
https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/117/514/446/235/259/103/original/4fa049961625d818.jpg

2026-10-27 19:12:05 UTC

This is ho the end looks like. The last piece of the Triglav glacier in Slovenia, pictured on 2 October, 2026
https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/117/514/446/235/259/103/original/4fa049961625d818.jpg

2026-10-27 08:26:36 UTC

Mein Eindruck ist, dass es in DE relativ wenig Widerstand gegen Hyperscale Datencenter gibt und dass das Problem bei der Politik noch nicht angekommen ist. Stimmt das?

2026-10-27 08:24:21 UTC

From Wikileaks to Polymarket.
Orgs have long had difficulties containing their information. But the motivation of breaching has changed from public interest to private gain. Kinda telling.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/10/pentagon-memo-on-prediction-markets-says-insider-bets-put-troops-lives-at-risk/

2026-10-21 21:57:35 UTC

PHP2Shell. Ouch! A massive security issue, followed by 13K patch, possibly vibe-coded.
I really love my hugo generated static html website!

2026-10-21 20:35:59 UTC

I only recently realized that my favorite browser @nprofile…l54j brought back the feed reader option (which Mozilla dropped in 2019?). Just got to: about:feeds
I'm now slowly converting all my newsletters to rss feeds.
The interface in the browser is still a bit rough at the edges, but not having to use a separate app, or an extension, is super convenient. Yeah.

2026-10-21 19:49:14 UTC

Too bad I'm in the wrong city, but if you are in Zurich tomorrow, I would go, if I were you.
18:30 @ Cabaret Voltaire

2026-10-20 17:59:03 UTC

The paradox of openness is crucial when we think of the digital commons in the age of AI. In many ways, it means that we have to think of it like physical commons, where mechanisms of exclusion (creating and enforcing boundaries) are essential to prevent destructive uses. Shame on Creative Commons for not engaging with that
Great conversation.

2026-10-20 13:04:17 UTC

The ideology of immateriality -- everything will be software-driven, digital twins will replace their physical counterparts -- is the enemy.

2026-10-19 11:08:56 UTC

This article by the NYT (gift link) points to a dynamic that might be relevant for the resistance to data-centers.
All of them are built on mountains of debt, predicated on coming online quickly, so they can start making money to repay the debt. The timelines are incredibly tight. We don't even need to go into the question of whether they will eventually make enough money.
Simply delaying the build-out will create huge problems for them, and since this is such a speculative economy, merely the threat of significant delays is given debt holders the jitters.
This seems something to work with.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/17/business/ai-debt-coreweave-oracle-softbank.html?unlocked_article_code=1.J1E.MxjO.2HN_Bf64AP2l&smid=url-share

2026-10-16 15:01:16 UTC

The question, imho, is not whether there is a 10% change that AI will kill us all, but whether there is a 90% chance that the bottom will fall out of its economy first.

2026-10-16 09:26:48 UTC

It's amazing how much of the statistical approach to language and the capacity to predict next "tokens" is already contained in Shannon's Mathematical Theory of Communication (1948). His interests were compression and dealing with noise (so, how to reconstruct a partially distorted message), but the basic approach that LLMs are using is fully there.
The only thing that prevent him making this a center piece in his theory is that "the labor [in creating the frequency tables (aka training the model)] involved becomes enormous".

2026-10-13 10:17:32 UTC

This is weak. True believers kill themselves, betting AI will resurrect them.

2026-10-12 21:27:47 UTC

Your AI agent might save you some time, but other peopleŝ agents will waste of lot of your time in return. In sum, we are all worse off.

2026-10-12 09:39:58 UTC

Das österreichische Burgenland hat vor wenigen Tagen 10 Kriterien veröffentlicht, die Datencenter in Zukunft erfüllen sollen, um eine Genehmigung zu erhalten.
u.a.
“Eigene erneuerbare Stromerzeugung”.
“Geschlossener Wasserkreiskauf" und maximaler Wasserverbrauch pro Datencenter von "0.05% des burgenländischen Gesamtverbrauchs".
“sauberes Fernwärmenetz für die Region”.
Aktuell sind das eine Absichtserklärung, keine Regulierung, aber politisch ein wichtiger (erster) Schritt.
https://www.burgenland.at/fileadmin/user_upload/Bilder/Aktuelle_Meldungen/2026/10_Oktober/10_Kriterien_Datencenter.pdf

2026-10-12 09:38:54 UTC

Das österreichische Burgenland hat vor wenigen Tagen 10 Kriterien veröffentlicht, die Datencenter in Zukunft erfüllen sollen, um eine Genehmigung zu erhalten.
u.a.
“Eigene erneuerbare Stromerzeugung für das Datencenter.”
“Geschlossener Wasserkreiskauf" und maximaler Wasserverbrauch pro Datencenter von "0.05% des burgenländischen Gesamtverbrauchs".
“sauberes Fernwärmenetz für die Region”
Aktuell sind das eine Absichtserklärung, keine Regulierung, aber politisch ein wichtiger (erster) Schritt.
https://www.burgenland.at/fileadmin/user_upload/Bilder/Aktuelle_Meldungen/2026/10_Oktober/10_Kriterien_Datencenter.pdf

2026-10-10 23:52:33 UTC

In most cases, the "solution" to this problem is getting rid of human review.🤷
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/10/ai-coding-agents-generate-more-code-but-not-more-software/

2026-10-09 11:30:41 UTC

With genAI, the IT industry has become extremely capital intensive.
Yes, building Facebook and Google Search was not trivial, but in industrial terms, the investments where relatively small.
Thus, its politics, and its ever more close relations to the state, are more similar to what we know from capital intensive industries (e.g. steel), than to its supposed techno-libertarianism from earlier days.

2026-10-09 07:00:35 UTC

Fordism - Post-Fordism -Muskism: great interview.
Featuring Ben Tarnoff and Quinn Slobodian on their book Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed. What the world’s bizarre richest man reveals about our financially fabulist, hard tech, far-right political-economic era.
duration: 2:46h
Published: 9/26/26 9:05:05 PM
Episode Download link (152 MB): https://media.blubrry.com/thedig/content.blubrry.com/thedig/The_Dig-EP_540-Muskism.mp3
Show Notes: https://thedig.blubrry.net/podcast/muskism-w-ben-tarnoff-quinn-slobodian/
Episode feed: The Dig - https://thedig.blubrry.net/feed/podcast/

2026-10-05 06:41:06 UTC

Oh, Brazil. The fascist tide sinks all boats.

2026-10-02 10:50:09 UTC

Hey, people in Berlin, is this real, or a solutionist pipe dream?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/oct/02/open-source-tree-map-berlin-water-urban-forest

2026-10-01 11:10:51 UTC

Bon voyage, Franz Xaver!
https://fax.priv.at
https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/117/365/343/669/658/750/original/487988d59009adec.jpg

2026-10-01 11:10:28 UTC

Bon voyage, Franx Xaver!
https://fax.priv.at
https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/117/365/343/669/658/750/original/487988d59009adec.jpg

2026-10-01 11:07:49 UTC

Bon voyage, Franx Xaver!
https://fax.priv.at
https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/117/365/321/088/027/993/original/363a229e3bd1aced.jpg

2026-09-30 12:05:56 UTC

That is today!

2026-09-30 09:40:20 UTC

This is an interesting thread, because it shows how AI is changing the model of how knowledge is produced. What used to shared learning and critical review of sources, a transparent collective process, has been turned into a series of discrete objects generated by an opaque machine*.

2026-09-29 08:44:21 UTC

The US has currently 45 hyper-scale data centers operational, while China has only 6. The US has 21 more under construction and China just 1. And the Chinese ones are small in comparison to the US ones.
Even if we take numbers from China with some skepticism, the difference is stark. Yet, they are still supposed the be in a head-to-head competition on AI.
How can that be?
Perhaps "compute" is not the deciding factor and the hyper-scale build-out is a dead-end, generated by group-think and speculative investment.
https://aidatacenterindex.com/compare/united-states-vs-china/

2026-09-28 08:03:22 UTC

If you are in Vienna, join us for a hybrid Technopolitics Evening, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 19:00
Giuliana Furci
De-Paralysing Knowledge of Fungal Relationships with People, in Place.
Added to the scarce documentation of how fungi live with people in place - sometimes even enabling people to live in a place - is the dark shadow cast by the colonial capitalisation of relationships forged between people and other species. There can seem to be no way around the difficulties when it comes to documenting these relationships in order to safeguard them before they are lost. Giuliana will talk about the journey of Fungi Foundation to free itself from the paralysis these issues trigger, and design a way forward to continue living with fungi, in place.
https://technopolitics.info/evenings/index.html
https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/117/347/619/746/946/563/original/66a18ce769e0b342.jpeg

2026-09-26 10:29:53 UTC

The introduction of AI in administration decision-making goes often hand-in-hand with excessive cruelty.
It's not that bureaucracies where caring organizations before, but the need to follow explicit rules put a limit to the cruelty they could enact (and one could adapt the rules to remove some of the cruelty). AI removes this limit.
https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/09/trump-admin-using-ai-to-deny-medical-care-for-seniors-in-disastrous-experiment/

2026-09-24 08:09:37 UTC

Great article by @nprofile…6f48
Models Don't Go Rogue
https://mail.cyberneticforests.com/models-dont-go-rogue/

2026-09-23 21:44:41 UTC

"Instead of OpenAI being prosecuted for creating malware that hacked another company, press releases, news outlets, media personalities, and lawmakers refer to “rogue models” as if they acted on their own."
alignment problem = bad engineering
https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/22/1144867/dont-be-fooled-summer-ai-hype/

2026-09-21 10:52:14 UTC

The hyper-scale data-center is not the future, it's the past. It's the dead-end of kind of desire that dominated (Western) tech culture since Turing's Imitation Game: to construct ever larger infrastructures to overcome the limitations of the material world.
The contradictions and negative consequences to the material world of this approach have become so stark, they now inspire a popular, global movement of resistance.

2026-09-21 07:23:55 UTC

Heute: 19:00 in Wien!

2026-09-20 09:59:13 UTC

TECHNOPOLITICS lädt ein / invites:
Montag, 21. September, 2026. 19:00h
Yvonne Volkart
Was ist Pflanzenintelligenz?
Ort: Studio Eckermann/Nestler, Neulinggasse 9, 1030 Wien
Der Hype um KI verlangt sowohl nach einer allgemeingültigen, speziesübergreifenden Definitionen von Intelligenz wie auch nach einer Spezifizierung, Revisionierung und Anerkennung intelligiblier Eigenschaften von Akteuren, die traditionell aus dem Intelligenzraster herausgefallen sind. Insbesondere Pflanzen – Lebewesen, die lange Zeit als unbeweglich, reaktiv und “niedrig” wahrgenommen wurden – erfahren derzeit auch in den westlichen Wissenschaften und (Agrar-)Kulturen neue Aufmerksamkeit – bei gleichzeitiger Intensivierung von deren Ausbeutung durch neue Technologien. Tatsächlich verfügen Pflanzen über ein reichhaltiges Sensorium und Aktionsfeld: Sie kommunizieren, treffen Entscheidungen, finden Lösungen, passen sich an die Umwelt an und transformieren sie. All dies entspricht gängigen Definitionen von Intelligenz. Was bedeutet dieser Wandel hin zur Anerkennung vegetabiler Fähigkeiten? Worin unterscheidet sich Pflanzenintelligenz von KI? Was bringt der Hype um (andere) Intelligenz? Welche Möglichkeiten können Kunst und ästhetische Praktiken eröffnen?
Mit Bezugnahme auf das von ihr initiierte SNF-Forschungsprojekt „Plants Intelligence. Learning Like a Plant“ (2022-25) erläutert Yvonne Volkart die Eigenschaften von Pflanzenintelligenz. Dabei soll gemeinsam diskutiert werden, ob die Strategie der Ausdehnung von Intelligenz in bisher vernachlässigte Sphären politisch relevant ist oder im Gegenteil zu deren Überbewertung beiträgt.
https://www.technopolitics.info/index.html
https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/117/302/775/562/674/746/original/9a24a0caa3ddfc8e.jpg

2026-09-11 08:58:06 UTC

Eine andere KI ist möglich
http://versorgerin.stwst.at/artikel/09-2026/eine-andere-ki-ist-moglich

2026-09-06 12:16:46 UTC

KI #Slop ist überall. Übernimmt #KI die öffentliche Sphäre? Bestimmt sie den Diskurs? Die einfache Antwort auf diese Frage ist: Nein! KI ist nicht und wird nicht autonom,, aber sie schreibt mit, und das auf eine spezfische Art.
Welche Handlungsfelder ergeben sich daraus?
Eine medientheoretische Analyse über den Einfluss KI-generierter Bilder auf öffentliche Debatten.
https://geschichtedergegenwart.ch/kuenstliche-intelligenz-und-oeffentlichkeit/

2026-09-05 15:22:14 UTC

Wenn auch bereits extrem undruchsichtige Prozesse, weitere undrurchsichtige Prozesse gepackt werden, dann kann das nur zu weiterem Vertrauensverlust führen.

2026-09-03 07:02:03 UTC

No AI in NYC schools for this up to 14 years old (8th grade).
“Children need teachers and human connection in order to learn and grow. They need to develop skills alongside their peers, build relationships with educators and wrestle with tough problems on their own,” said Mayor Mamdani. “The tech industry wants us to believe that A.I.-powered early education is not only inevitable, but necessary. We do not see it that way. That’s why we’re implementing a moratorium on generative AI for students in 2-K through 8th grade and spending the next year studying the impacts of this technology.”
https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/09/mayor-mamdani-and-chancellor-samuels-put-students-first-with-nat

2026-08-28 10:45:59 UTC

"Secretary of State Marco Rubio is attacking the group for running an online platform that the U.S. government can't spy on and for facilitating communications the U.S. government doesn't like. But precisely because Autistici/Inventati is based in another country—Italy—the U.S. government has basically unchecked power to impose counterterrorism sanctions on it."
It's hard to overstate how significant this is. Simply providing infrastructure independent of US tech giants is viewed as terrorism. The same could be said about most nodes on the Fediverse.
https://reason.com/2026/08/27/rubio-uses-terrorism-law-to-ban-secure-email-service/

2026-08-28 10:45:17 UTC

"Secretary of State Marco Rubio is attacking the group for running an online platform that the U.S. government can't spy on and for facilitating communications the U.S. government doesn't like. But precisely because Autistici/Inventati is based in another country—Italy—the U.S. government has basically unchecked power to impose counterterrorism sanctions on it."
It's hard to overstate how significant this is. Simply providing infrastructure of US tech giants is viewed as an terrorism. The same could be said about most nodes on the Fediverse.
https://reason.com/2026/08/27/rubio-uses-terrorism-law-to-ban-secure-email-service/

2026-08-24 10:18:44 UTC

I’ve been interviewed by Andreas Sudmann as part of the research project "How AI is Changing Science."
One question I try to address is:
Are we also witnessing a shift in authority from interpretation and critical inquiry towards forms of knowledge that present themselves as data-driven and purely analytical?
Short answer: "Yes".
Longer answer:
https://felix.openflows.com/articles/2026.08_generative_systems_interview_sudmann.html

2026-08-22 13:34:17 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…fhel haha! ich habe das auch dort gehört und wollte das noch etwas nachlesen, da bin ich auf diesen Artikel gestossen.

2026-08-21 16:05:16 UTC

Leo Löwenthal: #Faschismus als umgekehrte Psychoanalyse.
"Deutlich wird, dass die Agitatoren durchaus real existierende Ängste und Sorgen der von ihnen Adressierten aufgreifen, sie politisch für ihre eigenen Zwecke nutzbar machen und dem Publikum bestimmte Reaktionsweisen nahelegen. „Umgekehrte Psychoanalyse“, nennen Löwenthal und Guterman das, weil die Agitatoren nicht die Ängste der Einzelnen aufklären, um sie mündiger zu machen, wie es die Psychoanalyse tut – sondern weil sie, im Gegenteil, unbewusste Sehnsüchte der Zuhörer bedienen und ihre Triebimpulse in eine bestimmte Richtung lenken."
https://versorgerin.stwst.at/artikel/06-2021/propaganda-als-umgekehrte-psychoanalyse

2026-08-19 09:29:19 UTC

I'm glad I teach at an art school that doesn't do written exams, but this post by @nprofile…m0rx is super interesting nevertheless, because it can be applied to teaching researching/writing more generally.
Giving University Exams in the Age of Chatbots
https://ploum.net/2026-01-19-exam-with-chatbots.html

2026-08-17 16:06:02 UTC

Eine Fehlermeldung von poetischer Schlichtheit @nprofile…zwhh
https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/117/111/700/106/482/185/original/77b420158e556967.png

2026-08-17 10:17:57 UTC

I understand the sentiment of https://mastodon.social/@daringfireball@mastodon.social critique of Anthropic's watermarking.
The choice of words it generates is influenced by the method to create a watermark. In other words, it's the best it can do, minus the requirements of the watermark.
But the problem is, this assumes that "the best it can do" is really "the best" (however good that is), and not already influenced by a myriad of choices not in the user's but the company's interest.
And this strikes me as widely naive, even before the enshittification phase has begun.
https://daringfireball.net/2026/08/anthropics_watermark_text_adulteration_in_claude_is_a_perversion_of_writing

2026-08-16 16:16:43 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…65h8 nivh vergessen, in Österreich braucht der Faschismus kein Tech!

2026-08-11 21:31:33 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…9wat Art never stops!

2026-08-11 10:14:05 UTC

Zoom meetings during holidays!
https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/117/076/338/101/826/033/original/fe8690e024f34c50.jpg

2026-08-05 12:29:06 UTC

Hitzewellen sind bedrückender als jeder Covid Lockdown. Ich frage mich, warum die Leute nicht in gleicher Weise ausfreaken,

2026-08-05 10:42:23 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…ugpy And there are now an ever growing number of stories who seriously question the these claims from a business-side.
There seem to be two main line there. First, is the realization "AI" cannot solve real-world business problems and is no drop-in replacement for people, not matter how dazzling demos are. Rather, it's a slow and complicated trial and error process to fit into existing workflows.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/opinion/ai-hype-tech-layoffs.html?unlocked_article_code=1.3FA.FTkU.GxD7rMx6FY-I&smid=url-share
Second, once the real compute costs are due, the value proposition of the frontier models becomes very shaky. Tokenmaxxing is out.
Mbioh, W. Capability determinism, energy and AI labour substitution. AI & Soc (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-026-03251-y

2026-08-05 10:32:07 UTC

Just finished @nprofile…ugpy 's new, highly readable book: "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI:"
The main point I take away from this is that the "magnificent seven" are all mature companies, that need a growth stories like a start-up to justify the enormous stock prices. But if one is already a giant, multi-billion $ company, exponential growth is virtually impossible (not to mention, world-destroying) and requires ever more outlandish claims. To deflate these claims in the most powerful vector of critique.
The second point, which is kind of a classic, is not to ask what a technology "is" or "could do", but to ask who does it do it for and who does it do it "to*. In other words, it's not technical capacities, but social relations that determine the social impact of a product
https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/117/042/393/085/177/384/original/35b4b14a29d4247a.webp

2026-08-05 06:37:47 UTC

Prediction markets are a sign of terminal social decline.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/08/senators-demand-crackdown-on-wildfire-prediction-markets/

2026-08-04 14:40:38 UTC

The locally-run whisperx transcription model is amazingly good and runs even on a medium-level CPU-only laptop very well.

2026-07-31 12:08:19 UTC

Wer in Österreich lebt und noch nicht unterschrieben hat, jetzt wäre eine gute Gelegenheit.
https://mein.aufstehn.at/petitions/stopp-der-einzelgenehmigungen-wir-fordern-eine-transparente-gesamtprufung-aller-risiken
https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/117/014/505/044/517/593/original/d88e01fed04fba11.png

2026-07-21 16:52:22 UTC

1.5 billion to authors and publishers sounds like a lot, but it isn't. It's 3000 per plaintiff to be made redundant (potentially) and it firmly establishes that training on copyrighted materials is fair use. Just don't download torrents with 1000s of books for this purpose.
https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/20/anthropics-landmark-1-5b-copyright-settlement-is-approved/

2026-07-21 13:09:23 UTC

The use of GenAI makes people more confident when as accuracy goes down.
https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/07/19/using-ai-makes-people-less-likely-to-admit-they-dont-know-something/5274567

2026-07-17 15:41:27 UTC

🖥️ GOOGLE Kronstorf. Wir fordern eine transparente Gesamtprüfung aller Risiken! 🖥️
In Oberösterreich entsteht eines der größten Google-Rechenzentren Europas. Die Auswirkungen auf Grundwasser, die Enns und die regionale Stromversorgung sind jedoch noch nicht ausreichend geklärt. Es braucht Transparenz, unabhängige Prüfungen und demokratische Kontrolle bei einem Projekt dieser Größenordnung.
✍️ Unterschreibe dafür jetzt: https://mein.aufstehn.at/petitions/stopp-der-einzelgenehmigungen-wir-fordern-eine-transparente-gesamtprufung-aller-risiken?source=web_share_api&utm_source=web_share_api&share=2a3d087f-afa2-4004-beea-4fd5a4524572

2026-07-13 08:20:56 UTC

»Der Faschismus triumphierte, weil er in der Lage war, eine (reaktionäre) Antwort auf Fragen zu geben, die an sich nicht reaktionär waren«.
Antonio Gramsci, via Carlo Ginsburg.
https://jacobin.de/artikel/carlo-ginzburg-mikrogeschichte-antifaschismus)

2026-07-09 15:57:30 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…82hx reminds me of what Steina did in the 1980s.
https://www.hausderkunst.de/eintauchen/steina-playback

2026-07-09 15:55:22 UTC

There's the questions if not all corporate-supplied are double agents, pretending to work for you while, in the last instance working for the corp.

2026-07-09 09:03:50 UTC

If you are in Vienna, this is tonight!

2026-07-09 08:57:16 UTC

Interesting story about the use of AI writing on Chinese webnovel platforms.
It's a quite familiar picture, people resent AI written stuff, not only for the quality, but also for the lack of effort and care that goes in.
Culture is, in one way of another, about human connection. Hard to draw the line, though.
https://restofworld.org/2026/china-ai-web-novels/

2026-07-09 08:26:52 UTC

I've just contributed to @nprofile…glds They are great!
https://opencollective.com/cryptpad
https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/116/889/063/058/650/885/original/ef96a5ce9dabcdeb.png

2026-07-07 09:26:45 UTC

The sentence "I am human" seems to be a strong indicator of botness these days.

2026-07-03 11:13:44 UTC

One of the puzzles of the contemporary internet. How can a company that claims to be close to super-intelligence, to know more about each us of than we know yourselves, that sits on the largest pile of "personal data", not know the most basic soft things: whether I exist or not.
And the problem is getting worse. Perhaps their "knowledge" is not all that's cracked up to be.

2026-07-03 11:03:44 UTC

Increasingly, the promises of AI companies sound like Trump: “the power to heal people, to discover cures and to deliver abundance on a scale the world has never known before.”

2026-06-29 11:08:48 UTC

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@nprofile…h4pt that required lots of cranking!

2026-06-29 08:15:29 UTC

So far, the two main pathways for economic viability for hyper-scale genAI is to replace or kill people.
Much of their other applications will disappear once the money-losing phase comes to an end.

2026-06-29 08:07:44 UTC

https://crankgpt.com/

2026-06-28 14:37:48 UTC

Die EU soll sich bemühen, #Anthropic "strategisch in der EU anzusiedeln". um die EU damit "digital souveräner" zu machen. OK, der Vorschlag kommt aus Österreich, aber er spiegelt ganz gut, wie schwach europäische Technologie- bzw Industriepolitik ist. 🤦‍♂️
https://orf.at/#/stories/3434651/

2026-06-26 12:40:07 UTC

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@nprofile…d5j8 what was th prompt?

2026-06-24 14:58:07 UTC

Chile turned to China for an undersea cable. The U.S. said no
Interesting glimpse at the power-politics of internet infrastructure. If you are an ally of the US, you do not get to connect to China directly. You must pass through US surveillance nodes, I guess.
https://restofworld.org/2026/chile-china-america-google-cable/

2026-06-24 14:56:26 UTC

Looking forward to this panel!

2026-06-19 06:46:32 UTC

"Realistic" GenAI content is sucking out your soul, the thing that makes you feel a connection to other people and life more generally. The problem is, most people have been habituated to having their soul crushed that they barely feel it.

2026-06-16 13:36:26 UTC

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@nprofile…u7p7 Da kann ich nur zustimmen. Eine der wichtigsten Kritiken des Neoliberalismus war (und ist), dass der eine "Output" Orientierung (der Staat muss liefern) gegenüber einer Prozess Orientierung (wie fällen wir breit abgestützte Entscheidungen) privilegiert.
Effizienz trat an die Stelle von Legitimität, was natürlich in Krisen dem Staat auf die Füsse fällt.

2026-06-16 13:28:36 UTC

@nprofile…ugpy makes a great case of why vibe coding can be great for amateur projects and is terrible for professional ones.
I think it's an important distinction both for the the "AI is evil" crowd and the boosters.
It's particularly important for over-exited commentators who vibe-coded their own little app and then claim the AI revolution has arrived (I think of Rutger Bregman's An Inconvenient Truth About AI as an example)
https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/15/vernacular/#more-12921

2026-06-16 08:28:17 UTC

If you are in Berlin, please join us tonight for the launch of our new book. With @nprofile…amyg , @nprofile…l880 Michelle Christensen and Florian Conradi.
19:00 @ DO YOU READ ME ?!, Auguststraße 28, 10117 Berlin
https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/116/758/814/798/094/623/original/de0fdc17c4347c39.png

2026-06-16 08:27:20 UTC

If you are in Berlin tonight, please join us this evening for the launch of our new book. With @nprofile…amyg , @nprofile…l880 Michelle Christensen and Florian Conradi.
19:00 @ DO YOU READ ME ?!, Auguststraße 28, 10117 Berlin
https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/116/758/814/798/094/623/original/de0fdc17c4347c39.png

2026-06-13 10:17:52 UTC

Given that we are already over-consuming most resources (Earth Overshoot Day falls on July 24 this year), it's a very bad idea to add another resource intensive infrastructure (AI data-centers) on top of it.
But it's important to keep perspective. If you are concerned about water use, golf courses, for example, are much, much more wasteful.
What is particular about AI data-centers is that their resource use is a concentrated. Overall, their impact is smaller than other industries, but locally, their impact can be huge. This makes them such a promising target for political campaigns.
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/06/when-it-comes-to-total-water-use-ai-data-centers-are-a-drop-in-the-bucket/

2026-06-13 10:12:40 UTC

Given that we are already over-consuming most resources (Earth Overshoot Day falls on July 24 this year), it's a very bad idea to add another resource intensive infrastructure (AI data-centers) on top of it.
But it's important to keep perspective. If you are concerned about water use, golf courses, for example, are much, much more wasteful.
That is no excuse for data-centers, but perhaps a reasons to turn down the moralizing. AI is not particularly bad, but part of a large pattern of capitalism's disregard for life.
https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/06/when-it-comes-to-total-water-use-ai-data-centers-are-a-drop-in-the-bucket/

2026-06-12 09:15:34 UTC

In the same way than a radiologist does much more than looking at x-rays, a developer does much more than coding.
Automation is a complex processes. You have to understand industry as an eco-system, rather than a set of independent tasks.

2026-06-12 07:25:19 UTC

If you are in Vienna tonight, come and join us for talk with Daphne Dragona followed by a discussion with Axel Stockburger and myself.
https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/116/735/926/311/149/464/original/f9bc42fe0befc514.jpeg

2026-06-11 12:02:06 UTC

The end is near.
https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/116/731/366/243/776/172/original/3778eecb26113c75.jpg

2026-06-10 11:44:14 UTC

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@nprofile…y2k7 @nprofile…86hc Will help, but it's easy now for bots to adapt.

2026-06-10 11:23:35 UTC

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@nprofile…86hc no, it's just us guessing based on the blandness of the content,,😃

2026-06-10 07:46:34 UTC

Over the last two or three months, we have been witnessing a dramatic increase of the number of bot-generated new account requests, from less than 10% to more then 90% of all requests. I'm sure our experience here is not unusual. This is another aspect of bot-generated traffic overtaking human-generated traffic on the internet.
The better ones take the about page as context and produce something like this:
"Hi! I'm interested in joining tldr.nettime.org because I enjoy thoughtful discussions and smaller online communities that feel more personal than mainstream social media. I like learning from different perspectives, sharing ideas, and connecting with people who have similar interests. I'm looking for a respectful space to engage in conversations and be part of a community."
Often, they are using throw-away email addresses, which makes them easy to spot and reject manually.
We are a small instance, so the overall number of requests is still manageable, and if it gets worse (very likely), we might automate the rejection of the most obvious bot requests. So, I don't see it as overwhelming us anytime soon.
But, and this is the main point, having to go through these submissions is a soul-draining activity. Even in small doses. It forces us to operated under the assumption that that every request is made by a bot. Until proven otherwise. We now have to run a some intuitive, semantic reverse CAPTCHA test in our head to decide whether to hit the the accept or reject button.
The problem is not having bots per se. TLDR as had two really useful bots for a long time, one that re-posts every submission to the nettime mailing list to the fediverse (@nprofile…vu2z) and one that cross-posts trending posts from a select list of interesting mastodon instances (@nprofile…keme).
The problem is the anti-social bots that pretend to be humans and then behave like the total sociopaths. As if we didn't have enough of those already.

2026-06-09 12:46:04 UTC

"Buckelwal Timmy wird Biodiesel"
So geht Schlagzeile!

2026-06-09 11:55:34 UTC

Looking forward to reading this book.
https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/116/720/013/261/250/218/original/6aa1dcd607fd4adc.jpg

2026-06-06 09:34:28 UTC

This is big news. This puts at least some damper on the epic AI "pump & dump" stock scheme.
Other indices have bent the rules to trigger ETFs to buy AI stocks from companies whose path to profitability is very murky.
"Swift entry into the S&P 500 would have triggered $14 billion of passive fund buying for SpaceX, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. The investment research arm of Bloomberg also estimated that OpenAI could have gained more than $8 billion, and Anthropic could have netted $4.6 billion from similar passive buying sprees triggered by their S&P 500 entries."
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/06/sp-500-blocks-fast-spacex-entry-wont-waive-rule-for-unprofitable-ai-firms

2026-06-06 07:24:36 UTC

Watching, or reading the Ezra Klein show is at times nteresting for it shows the contours if liberal discourse. Here is a discussion of reactionary masculinity on the right. Interesting enough. But two words they cannot utter are "patriarchy" ("patriarchal Christianity" is as far as they can go) one of the core appeals for fascism, and "capitalism" as the source of alienation, and how the former is used to displace the latter.
Instead they try to discuss seriously whether putting hormones into food is a conspiracy of liberals to feminize men (rather than a consequence of profit-maxxing by the food industry).
What you get is itself both confused and condescending. Which is a pretty good illustration of the center's position for, well, the last two decades.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/05/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-helen-lewis-gender-right.html?unlocked_article_code=1.oFA.9PGQ.52GamQDNZiIP&smid=url-share

2026-06-01 11:19:14 UTC

With mordant symbolism, the ultimate products of the megamachine in Egypt were
colossal tombs [...] [and] the great [...] pyramids. [W]hat are they but the precise static equivalents of our own space rockets? Both devices for securing, at an extravagant cost, a passage to Heaven for the favored few.
— Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine: Volume I (1967)
https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/116/674/574/357/320/042/original/5eeab7bfdcbaef9b.jpg

2026-06-01 11:18:12 UTC

With mordant symbolism, the ultimate products of the megamachine in Egypt were
colossal tombs [...] [and] the great [...] pyramids. [W]hat are they but the
precise static equivalents of our own space rockets? Both devices for securing,
at an extravagant cost, a passage to Heaven for the favored few.
— Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine: Volume I (1967)

2026-05-28 12:44:34 UTC

💯

2026-05-18 09:27:32 UTC

Today, 7PM in Vienna, come and join us for a Technopolitics Evening with:
S()fia Braga
Can Predictive Systems Speculate?
In this talk, S()fia Braga examines how statistical prediction systems can be engaged within artistic practice in the field of moving images as elements that both shape and unsettle the conditions of creation. Drawing on her experience working with AI systems, she reflects on how forms of agency are negotiated between human intention and machine process, and on how artistic control can be sustained through custom open source workflows and self managed infrastructure, allowing for a more critical engagement with the material conditions of AI.
https://technopolitics.info/
https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/116/594/862/833/769/284/original/1ed2838e89854795.jpg

2026-05-16 08:17:17 UTC

Ah, great FMR—Art in digital contexts and public spaces in Linz, AT is coming up again, June 3-7, organized by the great people of @nprofile…cf4q
https://www.linzfmr.at/
https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/116/583/252/888/503/602/original/285b7fe173b9f1d4.jpg

2026-05-15 12:18:26 UTC

Best "File Not Found" image in the history of the internet. From sci-hub.
https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/116/578/542/843/561/679/original/5e1bcb0f7ee981eb.webp

2026-05-14 11:11:35 UTC

If you are in Vienna on May 18, please join us for a Technopolitics Evening with:
S()fia Braga
Can Predictive Systems Speculate?
In this talk, S()fia Braga examines how statistical prediction systems can be engaged within artistic practice in the field of moving images as elements that both shape and unsettle the conditions of creation. Drawing on her experience working with AI systems, she reflects on how forms of agency are negotiated between human intention and machine process, and on how artistic control can be sustained through custom open source workflows and self managed infrastructure, allowing for a more critical engagement with the material conditions of AI.
https://technopolitics.info/
https://tldr.nettime.org/system_nettime/media_attachments/files/116/572/616/612/422/273/original/47fb5a9e2f1f3c08.jpg