Johannes Klingebiel
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klingebeil.bsky.social
Johannes Klingebiel
@klingebeil.bsky.social
Designer and researcher. STS & media stuff. Researching Hype. Doing mischief @media-lab.de. Maker of zines. Optimist aus Notwehr. ✨

🌐 johannesklingebiel.de
The energy I want to bring to this year
January 1, 2026 at 11:24 AM
I adore these “design trend” collection. Every single one ends up being variations of “bold typography!”, “geometric designs!”, “neon colours!”
December 31, 2025 at 11:13 PM
A bit relieved to leave this year behind.
December 31, 2025 at 6:41 PM
Worth noting that Tolkien expressed his dislike for people using his names for places and especially commercially multiple times while he was alive.
December 29, 2025 at 1:32 PM
Yeah… i might have done some productive procrastination over the last two weeks.
December 28, 2025 at 9:46 PM
Reposted by Johannes Klingebiel
Our photographer Alex Kormann captured the exact moment the presses stopped for the last time in Minneapolis, ending a 158 history of locally printed newspapers.
December 28, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Best example for how the myth of Bauhaus is way bigger than its actual impact.
<$250k grants from Tyler Cowan and the Stripe founder guy if you can come up with a “new aesthetic” for the 21st C. Hmmmmm ok! Hope one of my friends gets this weird money. newaesthetics.art
A Call for New Aesthetics
A Call for New Aesthetics
newaesthetics.art
December 28, 2025 at 8:16 PM
Oh look… a metaphor
another robot highlight for 2025: man wearing humanoid mocap suit kicks himself in the balls
December 27, 2025 at 9:07 PM
Reposted by Johannes Klingebiel
I had five fascinating conversations for this RPS piece, gathering perspectives on genAI chatbots in games, as seen in Where Winds Meet. Thanks to @meghna.bsky.social, @pyrofoux.bsky.social, @maxkreminski.bsky.social, and @chrisgardiner.bsky.social www.rockpapershotgun.com/horrible-bor...
"Horrible", "boring", and "cheap": Experts pan new chatbot NPCs, but some leave room for optimism
We speak to a collection of developers and AI experts about the potential impact of LLM-powered NPCs in videogames.
www.rockpapershotgun.com
December 23, 2025 at 4:22 PM
Reposted by Johannes Klingebiel
here's a list of readings on the myth of job replacement by AI. i might turn this into a blog post as a sort of lesson plan for anyone who wants to use it, but it's just a reminder that every time we see "self-driving" cars or delivery robots, invisibilized workers are always behind the scenes.
December 26, 2025 at 8:28 AM
Ah yes… the radio face (or podcast face in 2025?) spitfirenews.com/p/do-you-hav...
Do you have to be hot to be a journalist now?
Everyone is getting pushed to be a 'creator.' But does that mean being conventionally attractive?
spitfirenews.com
December 24, 2025 at 1:36 PM
Reposted by Johannes Klingebiel
"This promise of an AI future, is really just a collective anxiety that wealthy people have about how well they're gonna be able to control us in the future."

- @tressiemcphd.bsky.social with an absolute mic drop moment about AI bullshit.

Incredible words.
Listen to all of it!
December 19, 2025 at 12:24 PM
Time for my annual holiday tradition: re-reading every single Hellboy comic.
December 23, 2025 at 3:01 PM
Hard to find the right words for this essay www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/o...
Opinion | Why I Keep Returning to Middle-Earth
www.nytimes.com
December 22, 2025 at 7:56 AM
Reposted by Johannes Klingebiel
If Google Maps now acts as a kind of market maker for urban demand, the obvious next question is: what would the city look like without that amplification layer? laurenleek.substack.com/p/how-google... Building a counterfactual city
How Google Maps quietly allocates survival across London’s restaurants - and how I built a dashboard to see through it
I wanted a dinner recommendation and got a research agenda instead. Using 13000+ restaurants, I rebuild its ratings with machine learning and map how algorithmic visibility actually distributes power.
laurenleek.substack.com
December 21, 2025 at 6:36 AM
Reposted by Johannes Klingebiel
@klingebeil.bsky.social: “Journalism risks becoming endlessly malleable, shaped to fit yet another set of companies’ platforms, metrics, and algorithms rather than public needs.”

www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/jour...
December 19, 2025 at 4:06 PM
So yeah… I wrote my NiemanLab prediction with cases like these in mind. www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/jour...
December 17, 2025 at 8:33 PM
Btw, this is in my experience clearly a case of bad management culture (which is instead busy talking about how much more productive AI will make their teams).
December 17, 2025 at 1:08 PM
I do wonder how the focus on drones as something "revolutionary" meshes with the increasing push by VC-financed "tech"-companies into the defense sector www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...
America’s Drone Delusion
Why the lessons of Ukraine don’t apply to a conflict with China.
www.foreignaffairs.com
December 17, 2025 at 9:45 AM
“Now, it’s normal for racks to weigh 1,250 pounds to up to 2,500 pounds, falling in the range of a grizzly bear up to a Toyota Prius.” www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...
Racks of AI chips are too damn heavy
Too great a weight.
www.theverge.com
December 17, 2025 at 8:51 AM
Reposted by Johannes Klingebiel
December 16, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Reposted by Johannes Klingebiel
I wrote this brief talk on why “augmenting diversity” with LLMs is empirically unsubstantiable, conceptually flawed, and epistemically harmful and a nice surprise to see the organisers have made it public

synthetic-data-workshop.github.io/papers/13.pdf
December 16, 2025 at 10:57 AM
Reposted by Johannes Klingebiel
concluding that people don't need their newspapers to be accurate is professional self-harm done for no particular reason other than to justify layoffs and satisfy the AI lords
New: When the Washington Post ran tests on its AI personalized podcasts, the paper found that between 68% and 84% (!!) of the pods had potential issues.

Still, the paper decided to release the product anyway, saying it would “iterate through the remaining issues”

www.semafor.com/article/12/1...
December 15, 2025 at 2:26 PM
Reposted by Johannes Klingebiel
Small-scale, fiercely independent journalism rarely gets recognition when awards are handed out, but it's vital in our communities—especially this year. So I made an award and am thrilled to announce @unraveledpress.com and @lataco.bsky.social as the inaugural winners. dansinker.com/posts/2025-1...
Announcing the Inaugural Snooping Newsie Awards for Excellence in Independent Journalism | dansinker.com
dansinker.com
December 15, 2025 at 5:42 PM
Beginning the arduous journey of migrating off Substack after I migrated there when Musk shut down Revue. Not exactly moving to greener pastures each time…
December 15, 2025 at 7:33 AM