Felix Bieker
felixbieker.bsky.social
Felix Bieker
@felixbieker.bsky.social
Platforms, data, power – The Right to Data Protection (http://bit.ly/3sp3MXS)http://mas.to/@felixbieker
Pinned
Playing Whac-A-Mole with Injustices?

Marit Hansen and I got to write on the future of #dataprotection. We also look at the many new EU Acts and how they effect change for marginalized people.
Spoiler: it's very limited

Now available open access: edpl.lexxion.eu/article/EDPL...
Reposted by Felix Bieker
The European Commission is watering down AI regulation and data protection rules as part of the Digital Omnibus to avoid “missing out” on AI developments.

FELIX BIEKER & KATHERINE NOLAN warn this AI FOMO risks sidelining fundamental rights.

verfassungsblog.de/eu-digital-l...
January 29, 2026 at 11:58 AM
Reposted by Felix Bieker
Hard to sell us on these products being magic when the use case is “dude I heard you like ice cream.”
January 22, 2026 at 4:16 PM
Reposted by Felix Bieker
A generation of programmers who've gleefully deskilled these fundamental skills of "paying attention to detail" and "using those details to construct a mental model" is a generation of programmers who can't fucking program.
December 23, 2025 at 7:45 AM
Reposted by Felix Bieker
Learning how to pay attention to small details, how to deliberately strain yourself to notice tiny details that are off, is a skill programmers learn the painful way.

And, using a chatbot deskills you in this very extremely important skill of being able to pay attention to small details.
December 23, 2025 at 7:18 AM
Reposted by Felix Bieker
It's funny that everyone who has *ever* programmed, knows how important attention to detail is. Hours wasted because you made a typo, forgot to add a character, etc.

The tiniest thing you literally don't notice is wrong, and your program screams at you and dies.

This is a universal experience.
December 23, 2025 at 7:16 AM
Reposted by Felix Bieker
There's something else that I think is a highly underrated aspect of using AI run by companies. These things get all kinds of "instructions" that you can't see. There is no transparency around what companies like OpenAI do with your input. Or what additional context they send to the LLM.
December 16, 2025 at 8:34 PM
Reposted by Felix Bieker
There are still a lot of smart people who seem to be surprised and upset that they can't make AI stop making shit up. Like that's literally what it does. "I told it not to do that!" Cool. But you it can't understand right? You're not giving it "instructions". It's just words.
December 16, 2025 at 8:26 PM
Reposted by Felix Bieker
When the internet asbestos company decides to come out with super asbestos
October 24, 2025 at 12:35 PM
Reposted by Felix Bieker
I like Jimmy Kimmel. I really do. I have no issues with him.

I'm talking about something very different.

Kimmel was only suspended. But he's back now. Karen Attiah and all the other Black journalists are still fired.

Y'all do know how to fight, when you want to.

But you don't really want to. 🤷🏿‍♂️
September 23, 2025 at 11:55 AM
Reposted by Felix Bieker
Companies are marketing “alternatives” to immigration detention such as ankle monitors, GPS-enabled watches, and biometric reporting apps. But research by Petra Molnar, Daniel Ghezelbash, Carolina Gottardo, and Antonella Napolitano finds that tech doesn’t dismantle detention—it expands it.
Technology is Turning Immigration Detention into an Invisible Leash | TechPolicy.Press
Rights-based and community-centered alternatives to detention are possible, write Petra Molnar, Daniel Ghezelbash, Carolina Gottardo, and Antonella Napolitano.
www.techpolicy.press
September 23, 2025 at 12:42 PM
Reposted by Felix Bieker
Pritzker: "One of the reasons Trump wants to send troops into cities is bc he wants to be able to take control of the 2026 elections...if they've got troops in cities, & it becomes a kind of norm for people, then it won't be abnormal for them when they're going to vote having troops at ballot boxes"
September 23, 2025 at 1:51 PM
Reposted by Felix Bieker
"The real Q is what donor influence costs: what do we lose when the pursuit of knowledge becomes secondary to the cultivation of relationships? These costs accumulate slowly, almost imperceptibly, embedding themselves in the daily practice of academic life."

nias.knaw.nl/news/from-st...
September 9, 2025 at 8:46 AM
Reposted by Felix Bieker
Fakely Automated Luxury Fascism
August 12, 2025 at 4:59 PM
Reposted by Felix Bieker
📢 NEW INITIATIVE: As tech giants claim ownership of subsea cables and satellite networks, who will protect our digital rights? @article19.bsky.social team digital launches "Wired and Orbited" to ensure internet infrastructure remains open and resilient for all.

www.article19.org/resources/wi...
Wired and Orbited: Reclaiming infrastructure for a resilient internet - ARTICLE 19
In the depths of the ocean and high above the Earth’s atmosphere, a quiet revolution is reshaping the internet as we know it. Far from the public eye, the physical infrastructure that powers our digit...
www.article19.org
May 14, 2025 at 8:50 AM
Reposted by Felix Bieker
New: Israel is starving Palestinians, forcing them to beg for donations on sites like Bluesky. Their accounts keep getting flagged as spam. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Social media accounts of Palestinians desperate for funds are being flagged as spam
People in Gaza use Bluesky to crowdfund for milk and diapers – repeated deletion of their profiles has spawned a guerrilla verification squad
www.theguardian.com
August 8, 2025 at 12:17 PM
Reposted by Felix Bieker
Every Silicon Valley innovation in the consumer space has been "what if this software was my mom" which explains why ChatGPT's primary use is as a therapist, relationship substitute for lonely boys, and "personal operating system" to organize their life
August 7, 2025 at 11:42 PM
Reposted by Felix Bieker
“women are inferior at any kind of physical activity” is so built in to our culture that you dont even need to provide evidence for the claim, you can just assume it as axiomatic truth even in the most transparently ridiculous circumstances
I can't believe they're actually doing it. They're actually arguing that women are worse at pool than men because of strength. That women can't break the balls up as well as men at the start. Fucking insane

Also, obviously, completely ignoring what medical transition does
I'm 6'3" and these are all advantages I have over someone say 5' tall, of any gender or none. Let me tell you that my record at pool does not suggest any sort of advantage
August 4, 2025 at 3:40 PM
Reposted by Felix Bieker
The problem with AI summaries they don't engage with here is that 1) a company filters the results, so any critical work may be misconstrued, damaging academic freedom and 2) the summary is garbage in most cases because it's not actually based on the text.
August 6, 2025 at 8:28 AM
Reposted by Felix Bieker
This has been evident ever since the stories broke on the use of GPT-4, via Azure services, to create intelligence and target lists in Gaza by the IDF. Big Tech is complicit.
August 6, 2025 at 1:58 PM
Reposted by Felix Bieker
"One of my chefs mentioned that if they could cook the steak on the grill they could get it right the first time. This is not an acceptable attitude in the microwave era."

www.colincornaby.me/2025/08/in-t...
In the Future All Food Will Be Cooked in a Microwave, and if You Can’t Deal With That Then You Need to Get Out of the Kitchen
As a restaurant owner – I’m astounded at the rate of progress since microwaves were released a few short years ago. Today’s microwave can cook a frozen burrito. Tomorrow’s m…
www.colincornaby.me
August 5, 2025 at 11:46 AM
Reposted by Felix Bieker
Why do you think they pushing so hard into education? They get paid a lot of money and get to train the next generation to be wholly dependent on them. A win-win.
So many billions spent on the build out of infrastructure for a product that hardly anyone is willing to pay to use.

pivot-to-ai.com/2025/07/04/o...
August 2, 2025 at 3:13 PM
Reposted by Felix Bieker
Salt is brightening and pepper is deepening, btw
I’d like to introduce yall to Rosner’s Law of Double Garnish:

Every savory dish is made better by not one but TWO finishing elements added just before serving: one brightening (green herbs, lemon zest/juice, pickled onion), one deepening (cheese, nuts/seeds, toasty breadcrumbs, oil drizzle)
August 1, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Reposted by Felix Bieker
“Starting in July 2024, AI was suddenly everywhere all at once in Latin America after Meta Platforms started incorporating chatbots in its apps across the region. Whether users wanted them or not, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram became homes for a variety of AI bots.”
Meta brought AI to rural Colombia. Now students are failing exams
When Meta embedded AI bots in its apps, even students in the most remote corners of Colombia gained access. But rather than boosting learning, it’s getting in the way.
restofworld.org
July 30, 2025 at 11:19 AM
Reposted by Felix Bieker
Must read. A fair portrait of the disgraceful and inhumane status quo we normalized — and will have to explain to our children, one day. The shame, the joyful complicity, the hatred. And yes of course, the racism.
July 30, 2025 at 5:02 AM
Reposted by Felix Bieker
"So, most AIs that are disseminated or deployed in the social space are there as a punishment mechanism, not as something that will help people. Instead of recidivism algorithms, imagine developing something that helps people rehabilitate into society when they come out of prison."
July 10, 2025 at 12:25 PM