Luke Stark
@lukestark.bsky.social
🏳️🌈 just a simple country AI ethicist | Assistant Professor, Western University 🇨🇦 | Co-Director, @starlingcentre.bsky.social | he/his/him | | no all-male panels |#BLM | 🏳️⚧️ ally | views my own
https://starkcontrast.co/
https://starlingcentre.ca/
https://starkcontrast.co/
https://starlingcentre.ca/
Reposted by Luke Stark
trump being like "i prefer to think of AI as 'superior intelligence' is the best proof yet that he's totally lost whatever political instincts he had
September 19, 2026 at 8:20 PM
trump being like "i prefer to think of AI as 'superior intelligence' is the best proof yet that he's totally lost whatever political instincts he had
Reposted by Luke Stark
I would dare say this is also a general outcome of hyper-capitalist logics driving so much of our media, which all too often bend the entire ecosystem towards a right-wing political project.
When an unprincipled influencer of the left starts to see a long term decline in revenue, a conversion to the right is inevitable.
Just a general observation, not tied to any particular recent news.
Just a general observation, not tied to any particular recent news.
September 19, 2026 at 7:55 PM
I would dare say this is also a general outcome of hyper-capitalist logics driving so much of our media, which all too often bend the entire ecosystem towards a right-wing political project.
Reposted by Luke Stark
lmao
President Trump says he is forming an “AI Force,” modeled after the Space Force, and will soon appoint an AI “czar.” Trump said his administration will not “hinder or stifle” AI growth, saying the technology could eventually account for as much as 25% of U.S. GDP.
September 19, 2026 at 5:15 PM
lmao
Reposted by Luke Stark
I think one of the reasons it's important to think in these terms (but critically) is that the U.S. military *itself* has been thinking of war in terms of distributed, semi-autonomous networks of actors for well over a decade. This is one of the major topics of my Project Pigeon paper from 2018.
This NRA reference is also used by Latour! And I tend to agree with him: we need to look at the full "system," which includes the mechanisms, but also users, designers, bureaucracies, labor, economics. "The machine did this" hides that; "the process produced this" has to surface it.
I’m not sure where the line is beteeen “of course AI agents can’t end the world, they’re just autocomplete bots” and “look, we almost started WWIII by taking our marching orders from bots.” If the point is that it’s people not machines to blame that’s uncomfortably close to an NRA bumper sticker.
September 19, 2026 at 4:56 PM
I think one of the reasons it's important to think in these terms (but critically) is that the U.S. military *itself* has been thinking of war in terms of distributed, semi-autonomous networks of actors for well over a decade. This is one of the major topics of my Project Pigeon paper from 2018.
Reposted by Luke Stark
It continues to amaze me that the industry/culture that so demonizes cultural theory and humanities are its greatest purveyors. Naming machine learning “artificial intelligence” is gramsci level politics. yet when we call that naming what it is, suddenly it doesn’t matter what you call it.
September 19, 2026 at 3:15 PM
It continues to amaze me that the industry/culture that so demonizes cultural theory and humanities are its greatest purveyors. Naming machine learning “artificial intelligence” is gramsci level politics. yet when we call that naming what it is, suddenly it doesn’t matter what you call it.
Reposted by Luke Stark
Taps the sign.
I don't know how to explain to the people who pop up when creatives complain about "AI" to say there are legit uses for it just how much they sound like someone saying "Well actually fire is used to make bread" when people are talking about an organized arson ring burning down their fucking houses
September 19, 2026 at 4:14 PM
Taps the sign.
Reposted by Luke Stark
Today is the day! Cyberselfish—the book that nailed Silicon Valley's dangerous narcissism 26 years ago—is back in print!
Remember when y'all made this thread on Paulina Borsook go viral?
Well, that resulted in her getting a deal to re-publish her book in the USA, the UK & Commonwealth, Belgium, France, and Switzerland!
Coming Sept. 15—with a foreword by some guy named Gil Duran.
Pre-order!
www.cyberselfish.com
Well, that resulted in her getting a deal to re-publish her book in the USA, the UK & Commonwealth, Belgium, France, and Switzerland!
Coming Sept. 15—with a foreword by some guy named Gil Duran.
Pre-order!
www.cyberselfish.com
September 15, 2026 at 3:58 PM
Today is the day! Cyberselfish—the book that nailed Silicon Valley's dangerous narcissism 26 years ago—is back in print!
Reposted by Luke Stark
"We can't respond to a surveillance technology by telling the people being surveilled that they should be more vigilant…”
France probes misuse of smart glasses in sexual harassment cases
Paris prosecutors have opened a criminal probe into suspected sexual harassment involving smart glasses, while French data protection authorities have received complaints from businesses, as countries...
www.reuters.com
September 19, 2026 at 3:47 PM
"We can't respond to a surveillance technology by telling the people being surveilled that they should be more vigilant…”
Reposted by Luke Stark
at this point, my entire AI take is: save your "alignment," what I want is accountability
So the model acted in pursuit of goals imposed on it, which spawned sub-goals: that is how agents work. But did OpenAI know how they work? If so, why deploy this in the way they did? Why build a system that *does this* at all? Perhaps to ask: why build a gun that can go off at random?
September 19, 2026 at 3:49 PM
at this point, my entire AI take is: save your "alignment," what I want is accountability
Reposted by Luke Stark
For some reason that question is taken as me saying "nothing to worry about here" when my questions (we are allowed to have more than one!) are: "who brought the gun that goes off at random to my birthday party" and (once it's gone) "who designed a gun that works that way and who sold it?"
September 19, 2026 at 3:08 PM
For some reason that question is taken as me saying "nothing to worry about here" when my questions (we are allowed to have more than one!) are: "who brought the gun that goes off at random to my birthday party" and (once it's gone) "who designed a gun that works that way and who sold it?"
Reposted by Luke Stark
So the model acted in pursuit of goals imposed on it, which spawned sub-goals: that is how agents work. But did OpenAI know how they work? If so, why deploy this in the way they did? Why build a system that *does this* at all? Perhaps to ask: why build a gun that can go off at random?
September 19, 2026 at 3:08 PM
So the model acted in pursuit of goals imposed on it, which spawned sub-goals: that is how agents work. But did OpenAI know how they work? If so, why deploy this in the way they did? Why build a system that *does this* at all? Perhaps to ask: why build a gun that can go off at random?
Reposted by Luke Stark
Latour inquires into the "Guns kill people" vs "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" debate in ways that resonate a lot with the questions we are working through with LLMs and power at the moment. It is a complex "entanglement" (sorry!) of interacting agencies.
September 19, 2026 at 3:01 PM
Latour inquires into the "Guns kill people" vs "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" debate in ways that resonate a lot with the questions we are working through with LLMs and power at the moment. It is a complex "entanglement" (sorry!) of interacting agencies.
Reposted by Luke Stark
This NRA reference is also used by Latour! And I tend to agree with him: we need to look at the full "system," which includes the mechanisms, but also users, designers, bureaucracies, labor, economics. "The machine did this" hides that; "the process produced this" has to surface it.
I’m not sure where the line is beteeen “of course AI agents can’t end the world, they’re just autocomplete bots” and “look, we almost started WWIII by taking our marching orders from bots.” If the point is that it’s people not machines to blame that’s uncomfortably close to an NRA bumper sticker.
September 19, 2026 at 3:01 PM
This NRA reference is also used by Latour! And I tend to agree with him: we need to look at the full "system," which includes the mechanisms, but also users, designers, bureaucracies, labor, economics. "The machine did this" hides that; "the process produced this" has to surface it.
Reposted by Luke Stark
As we get thrust into an unnecessary period of fascistic violence, war over resources, and the stripping of basic human services and dignity, the appeal of AI for the powerful isn’t just planning or war making, it’s creating a system that will do what they want and allow them to shirk all blame.
September 19, 2026 at 3:13 PM
As we get thrust into an unnecessary period of fascistic violence, war over resources, and the stripping of basic human services and dignity, the appeal of AI for the powerful isn’t just planning or war making, it’s creating a system that will do what they want and allow them to shirk all blame.
Reposted by Luke Stark
Anthropic employees: NEXT-GEN AI COULD WIPE OUT HUMANITY WITH A SUPERVIRUS!
Normies: that seems like a big leap. How would this AI disseminate such a virus in the real world?
Anthropic employees: oh, through the wet labs we built and hooked it up to, of course.
Normies: …😬😤
Normies: that seems like a big leap. How would this AI disseminate such a virus in the real world?
Anthropic employees: oh, through the wet labs we built and hooked it up to, of course.
Normies: …😬😤
September 19, 2026 at 11:48 AM
Anthropic employees: NEXT-GEN AI COULD WIPE OUT HUMANITY WITH A SUPERVIRUS!
Normies: that seems like a big leap. How would this AI disseminate such a virus in the real world?
Anthropic employees: oh, through the wet labs we built and hooked it up to, of course.
Normies: …😬😤
Normies: that seems like a big leap. How would this AI disseminate such a virus in the real world?
Anthropic employees: oh, through the wet labs we built and hooked it up to, of course.
Normies: …😬😤
Reposted by Luke Stark
every day of my life I think about the people using “she” to describe this computer program who still need to be convinced to use it for trans women
Tilly Norwood, a controversial AI “actor,” abruptly switched languages during an interview with Piers Morgan, though the company behind the AI creation denied she malfunctioned.
AI ‘Actor’ Tilly Norwood Abruptly Switches Languages Mid-Interview
Tilly Norwood, a controversial AI “actor,” abruptly switched languages during an interview with Piers Morgan, though the company behind the AI creation denied she malfunctioned.
www.forbes.com
September 19, 2026 at 4:29 AM
every day of my life I think about the people using “she” to describe this computer program who still need to be convinced to use it for trans women
Reposted by Luke Stark
I always bring in advertisements on the first day of my Intro to Art History class to convey how powerful images are and how empowering it is to be able to articulate verbally what they’re doing. The visual violence of the Converse ad is such that I wouldn’t even dare to show it in that class.
September 19, 2026 at 1:02 PM
I always bring in advertisements on the first day of my Intro to Art History class to convey how powerful images are and how empowering it is to be able to articulate verbally what they’re doing. The visual violence of the Converse ad is such that I wouldn’t even dare to show it in that class.
Reposted by Luke Stark
We are not living through "an authoritarian impulse," we are living through actual AUTHORITARIANISM.
September 19, 2026 at 3:35 AM
We are not living through "an authoritarian impulse," we are living through actual AUTHORITARIANISM.
Reposted by Luke Stark
When you hear a fantastical story about AI, you should ask yourself, "How does this serve the political project of AI?" Because, as others have pointed out, that's what AI really amounts to: a political project.
September 19, 2026 at 3:51 AM
When you hear a fantastical story about AI, you should ask yourself, "How does this serve the political project of AI?" Because, as others have pointed out, that's what AI really amounts to: a political project.
Reposted by Luke Stark
The Anthropic, Meta, and Google "breaking containment" incidents all resulted from setup errors (or a stunt) by the same company: Irregular. Irregular created a sandbox that wasn't really a sandbox because it had a live internet connection, and gave instructions that were then carried out online.
September 19, 2026 at 3:42 AM
The Anthropic, Meta, and Google "breaking containment" incidents all resulted from setup errors (or a stunt) by the same company: Irregular. Irregular created a sandbox that wasn't really a sandbox because it had a live internet connection, and gave instructions that were then carried out online.
Reposted by Luke Stark
oh...this is bad
As a long, long, long, long, long time Converse buyer, I will never buy a Converse product ever again. I am sick of the virtue signalling to racists. I see this and I see a man hanged, a white robe that could be a klansman's robe and light shaped like a KKK hat. What the actual hell!?!
September 19, 2026 at 12:52 PM
oh...this is bad
Reposted by Luke Stark
Like so many other institutions or groups, you can trust that legacy news media outlets will rediscover their spines and sense of integrity some time on the morning of January 20th, 2029 and not a moment before that.
September 19, 2026 at 12:48 PM
Like so many other institutions or groups, you can trust that legacy news media outlets will rediscover their spines and sense of integrity some time on the morning of January 20th, 2029 and not a moment before that.
Reposted by Luke Stark
Thanks @newyorker.com !
“Coding Kids is an even-tempered yet withering narrative of how the nation’s public schools came under the spell of private corporations."
“Coding Kids is an even-tempered yet withering narrative of how the nation’s public schools came under the spell of private corporations."
Natasha Singer’s book “Coding Kids” tracks how public schools were bewitched by private corporations, setting the stage for the ed-tech backlash of today. www.newyorker.com/culture/prog...
What We Lost When Big Tech Took Over the Classroom
Natasha Singer’s book “Coding Kids” tracks how public schools were bewitched by private corporations, setting the stage for the ed-tech backlash of today.
www.newyorker.com
September 19, 2026 at 12:49 PM
Thanks @newyorker.com !
“Coding Kids is an even-tempered yet withering narrative of how the nation’s public schools came under the spell of private corporations."
“Coding Kids is an even-tempered yet withering narrative of how the nation’s public schools came under the spell of private corporations."
Reposted by Luke Stark
Like tbh you’d think we could get more attention and funding on “stopping combatants from using cheap drones to kill grandparents,” but the weirdo AI safety narrative is sucking up an insane amount of oxygen and money that used to be dedicated to current, tangible problems in tech safety and ethics.
September 19, 2026 at 12:43 PM
Like tbh you’d think we could get more attention and funding on “stopping combatants from using cheap drones to kill grandparents,” but the weirdo AI safety narrative is sucking up an insane amount of oxygen and money that used to be dedicated to current, tangible problems in tech safety and ethics.