Daniela Tafani
Daniela Tafani
@danielatafani.bsky.social
Pinned
"AI ethics" is

- a fig leaf: corporate ethical guidelines cover up the obscenity of an illegal business model;
- a decoy, to escape legal regulation with a promise of self-regulation;
- a cargo cult ethic, as intelligence is a non-moral prerequisite for ethics.

@irisvanrooij.bsky.social
Reposted by Daniela Tafani
Hannah Arendt did not mince words, did she?

'Totalitarianism replaces all first-rate talents with crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.'

From "The Origins of Totalitarianism" (1951)
January 29, 2026 at 3:48 AM
Reposted by Daniela Tafani
Monthly reminder
important on LLMs for academics:

1️⃣ LLMs are usefully seen as lossy content-addressable systems

2️⃣ we can't automatically detect plagiarism

3️⃣ LLMs automate plagiarism & paper mills

4️⃣ we must protect literature from pollution

5️⃣ LLM use is a CoI

6️⃣ prompts do not cause output in authorial sense
January 26, 2026 at 3:25 AM
Reposted by Daniela Tafani
Eugenicists are always very good at making up the most elaborate scientific theories that make no sense
Whistles are now WMDs, according to the "high IQ" crowd.
January 25, 2026 at 10:45 PM
Reposted by Daniela Tafani
I feel like almost every week I hear another anecdote about how somebody almost ate a poison plant or did something really dangerous with medication as a result of an AI summary.
January 25, 2026 at 12:28 PM
Reposted by Daniela Tafani
Blistering piece on ed tech in @economist.com.

‘Although ed-tech companies tout huge learning gains, independent research has made clear that technology rarely boosts learning in schools—and often impairs it.’
economist.com/united-state...
Ed tech is profitable. It is also mostly useless
Independent research identifies few learning gains
economist.com
January 24, 2026 at 2:24 PM
Reposted by Daniela Tafani
A reminder to the news media: “conflicting accounts” is what you say BEFORE the incontrovertible video evidence appears. After that, your job is to ask why one side is lying, not to repeat the lie and pretend no one knows the truth.
January 25, 2026 at 12:28 PM
Reposted by Daniela Tafani
The headlines in this article in the Economist (UK) are great—better than almost any newspaper in the US
January 25, 2026 at 12:27 PM
Reposted by Daniela Tafani
Can one fucking elected official say anything about this without buying into the bullshit framing that the problem here is “training”. Thanks in advance.
I just spoke with the White House after another horrific shooting by federal agents this morning. Minnesota has had it. This is sickening.

The President must end this operation. Pull the thousands of violent, untrained officers out of Minnesota. Now.
January 24, 2026 at 4:39 PM
Reposted by Daniela Tafani
The company is also currently facing a 30-day suspension of its manufacturing and dealer licenses in California for deceptive marketing about Autopilot's capabilities.
Tesla discontinues Autopilot in bid to boost adoption of its Full Self-Driving software | TechCrunch
The company is also currently facing a 30-day suspension of its manufacturing and dealer licenses in California for deceptive marketing about Autopilot's capabilities.
techcrunch.com
January 23, 2026 at 1:03 PM
Reposted by Daniela Tafani
I wrote about how concentration camp regimes evolve and why it's not too late to stop this, even though we are deep in it now.
Into the abyss
The correct response to Dachau was not better training for the guards.
degenerateart.beehiiv.com
January 20, 2026 at 3:37 AM
Reposted by Daniela Tafani
Ambiguous announcement: is it the student and colleagues who get access to Copilot, or Copilot that gets access to the students and colleagues?
January 19, 2026 at 11:54 AM
Reposted by Daniela Tafani
Chi ha paura della libertà? Lo Scudo europeo per la democrazia e la deriva autoimmune dell’UE
di Federica Cappelluti
www.roars.it/chi-ha-paura...
Chi ha paura della libertà? Lo Scudo europeo per la democrazia e la deriva autoimmune dell’UE
Lo Scudo europeo per la democrazia viene presentato come un argine a disinformazione e interferenze straniere, ma finirà per istituzionalizzare la censura preventiva nello spazio informativo. Diventan...
www.roars.it
January 19, 2026 at 11:26 AM
Reposted by Daniela Tafani
ieri abbiamo ricostruito come #CommissioneEU tratta con USA per consentire al #DepartmentHomelandSecurity -sotto cui operano i brutali agenti #ICE -l'accesso ai nostri #DatabaseDiPolizia:
www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/in-edicola/a...

Qui documento importante:
data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document...
Ue-Usa: l’accordo per i dati privati di tutti gli europei
Leggi su Il Fatto Quotidiano l'articolo in edicola "Ue-Usa: l’accordo per i dati privati di tutti gli europei" pubblicato il 18 Gennaio 2026 a firma di Stefania Maurizi
www.ilfattoquotidiano.it
January 19, 2026 at 11:17 AM
Reposted by Daniela Tafani
Update:

The admin is moving to quickly deport witnesses who saw ICE detainee die.

They say the man was just trying to get his meds.

ICE guards shackled him

Then they choked him.

The admin moved to deport the witnesses — right after they spoke to WaPo.

www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...
January 18, 2026 at 2:54 PM
Reposted by Daniela Tafani
☀️ Summer School 📚

“Critical AI Literacies for Resisting and Reclaiming"

Organisers and teachers:
👉 @marentierra.bsky.social
👉 @olivia.science
👉 myself

Deadline for application:
🐦 31 March 2026 (early bird fee)

1/🧵

www.ru.nl/en/education...
Critical AI Literacies for Resisting and Reclaiming | Radboud University
This course is designed to foster critical AI literacies in participants to empower them to develop ways of resisting or reclaiming AI in their own practices and social context.
www.ru.nl
January 16, 2026 at 8:36 PM
Reposted by Daniela Tafani
Early on in this Presidency I said that a major indicator that a society has moved from democracy to authoritarianism is to treat all opposition as treason.
January 15, 2026 at 8:41 AM
Reposted by Daniela Tafani
January 15, 2026 at 1:57 PM
Reposted by Daniela Tafani
Perhaps in the year ahead, instead of prioritizing questions like, “How do we regulate tech to ensure a healthier democracy?” we should instead put more effort into answering “How do we preserve space for human agency and resistance in an increasingly authoritarian century?”
January 15, 2026 at 2:55 PM
Reposted by Daniela Tafani
Zero chance Meta is going to stand up for its workers here (despite Meta now constantly advertising its data centre projects on the grounds that they 'provide jobs')
January 15, 2026 at 4:24 PM
Reposted by Daniela Tafani
Marie Neurath is amazing, and her book on cognitive science for kids is wonderful: Machines which Seem to Think (1954). H/t @irisvanrooij.bsky.social youtu.be/XBWhdcD0r9I for this video about her. Book available for free online: www.fulltable.com/iso/mw.htm
February 25, 2024 at 2:28 PM
Reposted by Daniela Tafani
A few years ago analysts were writing that AI would devastate the workplace by replacing drivers with self driving cars.

Today the drivers still have their jobs, but the analysts have been replaced.
My FT splash today:

Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, will warn that AI risks destroying huge numbers of jobs in the capital and “usher in a new era of mass unemployment” unless ministers take proactive measures.

www.ft.com/content/6f92...
Sadiq Khan to warn AI could cause ‘mass unemployment’ in London
Mayor concerned that capital will be at ‘sharpest edge of change’ given dependence on white-collar jobs
www.ft.com
January 15, 2026 at 7:25 AM
Reposted by Daniela Tafani
Something else that really struck me in this report is this paragraph. "AI is doing things for students that they used to enjoy."
January 14, 2026 at 5:53 PM
Reposted by Daniela Tafani
“current AI systems are a death sentence for civic institutions, and we should treat them as such”
January 14, 2026 at 2:25 PM
Reposted by Daniela Tafani
We agree that students need a few classes on "AI literacy", but Microsoft is not who you want associated with that.

You don't organize a class on Climate Change and get ExxonMobil to run it.
January 13, 2026 at 10:48 PM