Neil Turkewitz
@neilturkewitz.bsky.social
I write mostly about the intersection of tech & art/culture which these days means I spend nearly all my time trying to address the exploitation underlying current AI models. A secular humanist interrogating modern religions.
Pinned
Rebuilding the World: Innovating for a Better Future
By Neil Turkewitz
This year’s World IP Day is focused on “IP and Youth: Innovating for a Better Future.” I couldn’t imagine a more appropriate, or timely…
medium.com
“The ‘information age’ has facilitated the weaponization of information & the erosion of an understanding of our fundamental interdependence.
This stems, at least in part, from a willingness to treat art and culture as fungible parts of an information ecosystem.”
medium.com/@nturkewitz_...
This stems, at least in part, from a willingness to treat art and culture as fungible parts of an information ecosystem.”
medium.com/@nturkewitz_...
“If the first 10 months of the second Trump administration showed [a willingness] to use the criminal-justice system against their perceived enemies, the pursuit of Kelly extends that retribution campaign to the machinery of military justice in a potentially destructive way.”
Potentially? 🤦🏻
Potentially? 🤦🏻
‘An Example MUST BE SET’
The pursuit of Mark Kelly in the military-justice system sends a clear message to service members and veterans.
www.theatlantic.com
November 26, 2025 at 2:31 PM
“If the first 10 months of the second Trump administration showed [a willingness] to use the criminal-justice system against their perceived enemies, the pursuit of Kelly extends that retribution campaign to the machinery of military justice in a potentially destructive way.”
Potentially? 🤦🏻
Potentially? 🤦🏻
“Digital minstrels like the bot accounts & AI influencers are not only profiting from this content, but are granted anonymity by using digital blackface while rage-baiting & reinforcing stereotypes about Black communities online.”
AI co’s would have you believe this is the path to ending cancer! 🤬
AI co’s would have you believe this is the path to ending cancer! 🤬
The Viral ‘DoorDash Girl’ Saga Unearthed a Nightmare for Black Creators
A delivery driver posted a TikTok alleging she had been sexually assaulted by a customer. The deepfakes that followed reveal a growing digital blackface problem.
www.wired.com
November 26, 2025 at 1:19 PM
“Digital minstrels like the bot accounts & AI influencers are not only profiting from this content, but are granted anonymity by using digital blackface while rage-baiting & reinforcing stereotypes about Black communities online.”
AI co’s would have you believe this is the path to ending cancer! 🤬
AI co’s would have you believe this is the path to ending cancer! 🤬
good morning 🌞
November 26, 2025 at 11:29 AM
good morning 🌞
I still have lots of Q’s, but hopefully the notion that AI companies can just use whatever they want w/o consent & claim “fair use” is receding further & further in the rear-view mirror of an outrageously exploitative past.
@ednewtonrex.bsky.social @humanartistry.bsky.social @afm-union.bsky.social
@ednewtonrex.bsky.social @humanartistry.bsky.social @afm-union.bsky.social
WMG says artists and songwriters will have full control over whether and how their names, images, likenesses, voices, and compositions are used in new AI-generated music.
Warner Music signs deal with AI music startup Suno, settles lawsuit | TechCrunch
WMG says artists and songwriters will have full control over whether and how their names, images, likenesses, voices, and compositions are used in new AI-generated music.
techcrunch.com
November 25, 2025 at 8:07 PM
I still have lots of Q’s, but hopefully the notion that AI companies can just use whatever they want w/o consent & claim “fair use” is receding further & further in the rear-view mirror of an outrageously exploitative past.
@ednewtonrex.bsky.social @humanartistry.bsky.social @afm-union.bsky.social
@ednewtonrex.bsky.social @humanartistry.bsky.social @afm-union.bsky.social
good morning 🌞
November 25, 2025 at 12:37 PM
good morning 🌞
Reposted by Neil Turkewitz
I find these kind of funding calls baffling. www.mozillafoundation.org/en/what-we-d... Why do you have to use AI? It ends up encouraging loads of grifty applications, in which AI is inserted into a good idea, or an AI product is bent to align with social purpose
Democracy x AI Cohort | Mozilla Foundation
Democracy stands at a crossroads. Around the globe, citizens are losing faith in institutions while media polarization fractures our shared understanding of truth. Political systems buckle under the p...
www.mozillafoundation.org
November 24, 2025 at 3:47 PM
I find these kind of funding calls baffling. www.mozillafoundation.org/en/what-we-d... Why do you have to use AI? It ends up encouraging loads of grifty applications, in which AI is inserted into a good idea, or an AI product is bent to align with social purpose
good morning 🌞
November 24, 2025 at 11:58 AM
good morning 🌞
“ChatGPT came into a world where proximity to others was correlated with the risk of death, as online connection was besieged by hostile political polarization, when everything was unmoored in ways no language could capture. It emerged at a time when loneliness felt essential to survival.”
What Was ChatGPT?
A Chatbot Optimized for Social Distance
Three years after the launch of ChatGPT, we can finally speak in hindsight about what it was and how it came to be. Its meteoric rise shocked the world, gather...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
November 23, 2025 at 12:25 PM
“ChatGPT came into a world where proximity to others was correlated with the risk of death, as online connection was besieged by hostile political polarization, when everything was unmoored in ways no language could capture. It emerged at a time when loneliness felt essential to survival.”
good morning 🌞
November 23, 2025 at 11:26 AM
good morning 🌞
Reposted by Neil Turkewitz
The government doesn't have a special "Let's give Lindsey Graham hundreds of thousands of dollars" account. Graham wants struggling Americans to pay him for an investigation into his actions during Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 election while Graham opposes their ACA subsidies.
Senator Graham stops repeal of payout that may reap him millions. This is all the reason anyone should need to vote for @drannieandrews.com
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Senator Graham Stops Repeal of Payout That May Reap Him Millions
Senator Lindsey Graham blocked an attempt to repeal a controversial provision tucked into the bill ending the US government shutdown that could reap him and several other Republican senators millions ...
www.bloomberg.com
November 22, 2025 at 4:06 PM
The government doesn't have a special "Let's give Lindsey Graham hundreds of thousands of dollars" account. Graham wants struggling Americans to pay him for an investigation into his actions during Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 election while Graham opposes their ACA subsidies.
I love the description of our current societal embrace of generative AI: “Faustian Markov-chain machines became the fetish object of an apocalyptic theology.”
— Nicolás Medina Mora
@thebaffler.com @bvlsingler.bsky.social @bcmerchant.bsky.social @parismarx.com
— Nicolás Medina Mora
@thebaffler.com @bvlsingler.bsky.social @bcmerchant.bsky.social @parismarx.com
“The position of fiction is plummeting irretrievably while other forms of storytelling are damaging or misusing the tools of narrative.”
thebaffler.com/odds-and-end...
thebaffler.com/odds-and-end...
November 22, 2025 at 8:10 PM
I love the description of our current societal embrace of generative AI: “Faustian Markov-chain machines became the fetish object of an apocalyptic theology.”
— Nicolás Medina Mora
@thebaffler.com @bvlsingler.bsky.social @bcmerchant.bsky.social @parismarx.com
— Nicolás Medina Mora
@thebaffler.com @bvlsingler.bsky.social @bcmerchant.bsky.social @parismarx.com
Okay, I now realize that all of my past criticisms of GenAI were misplaced. It’s worth destroying the arts, undermining human connection, & making the planet inhospitable for humans & other living things for the ability to generate this kind of compelling content.
www.wired.com/story/google...
www.wired.com/story/google...
November 22, 2025 at 12:49 PM
Okay, I now realize that all of my past criticisms of GenAI were misplaced. It’s worth destroying the arts, undermining human connection, & making the planet inhospitable for humans & other living things for the ability to generate this kind of compelling content.
www.wired.com/story/google...
www.wired.com/story/google...
One might be forgiven for thinking the lede should be:
“Mamdani seems to improve the odds that the President of the USA won’t launch an armed assault on America’s most famous city.”
“Mamdani seems to improve the odds that the President of the USA won’t launch an armed assault on America’s most famous city.”
It was a bravura moment of political diplomacy for Mamdani, but of course, the #BrokenTimes must find an extremist to give it "mixed reviews." The #MamdaniVendetta continues.
The Trump-Mamdani Buddy Movie? It’s Getting Mixed Reviews. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/n...
The Trump-Mamdani Buddy Movie? It’s Getting Mixed Reviews. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/n...
The Trump-Mamdani Buddy Movie? It’s Getting Mixed Reviews.
www.nytimes.com
November 22, 2025 at 12:02 PM
One might be forgiven for thinking the lede should be:
“Mamdani seems to improve the odds that the President of the USA won’t launch an armed assault on America’s most famous city.”
“Mamdani seems to improve the odds that the President of the USA won’t launch an armed assault on America’s most famous city.”
good morning 🌞
November 22, 2025 at 10:58 AM
good morning 🌞
Reposted by Neil Turkewitz
Voice Actors, artists and ALL creators, we need your voices in person again in support of AB412! We now have a special legislative hearing in the heart of Silicon Valley to keep moving the ball forward for this bill. We need you to SHOW UP!
We need EVERYONE there.
RSVP: bit.ly/44lRMsX
We need EVERYONE there.
RSVP: bit.ly/44lRMsX
November 19, 2025 at 11:30 PM
Voice Actors, artists and ALL creators, we need your voices in person again in support of AB412! We now have a special legislative hearing in the heart of Silicon Valley to keep moving the ball forward for this bill. We need you to SHOW UP!
We need EVERYONE there.
RSVP: bit.ly/44lRMsX
We need EVERYONE there.
RSVP: bit.ly/44lRMsX
“the question of when a summary becomes a substitute—and when a substitute becomes infringement—will only get more pressing.”
@copyrightlately.bsky.social
@copyrightlately.bsky.social
Court Rules AI News Summaries May Infringe Copyright
News publishers just cleared a key hurdle against Cohere in a copyright fight over AI-generated "substitutive summaries" of their reporting.
copyrightlately.com
November 21, 2025 at 7:41 PM
“the question of when a summary becomes a substitute—and when a substitute becomes infringement—will only get more pressing.”
@copyrightlately.bsky.social
@copyrightlately.bsky.social
good morning 🌞
November 21, 2025 at 12:55 PM
good morning 🌞
While this was not written with AI in mind, it is nonetheless extremely relevant to present discussions.
www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2019...
www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2019...
November 21, 2025 at 12:28 PM
While this was not written with AI in mind, it is nonetheless extremely relevant to present discussions.
www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2019...
www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2019...
Reposted by Neil Turkewitz
Sick of Nazi slop? Fall of Freedom starts tomorrow. If you can't get a sitter, there are plenty of free virtual events and screenings. Select online/virtual in the drop down menu www.falloffreedom.com/events
Fall of Freedom
Fall of Freedom is an urgent call to the arts community to unite in defiance of authoritarian forces sweeping the nation.
www.falloffreedom.com
November 20, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Sick of Nazi slop? Fall of Freedom starts tomorrow. If you can't get a sitter, there are plenty of free virtual events and screenings. Select online/virtual in the drop down menu www.falloffreedom.com/events
good morning 🌞
November 20, 2025 at 3:06 PM
good morning 🌞
“The question is not whether AI companies can innovate. The question is whether that innovation requires erasing the rights of everyone whose work makes that innovation possible. There is no reason in law, economics, or basic fairness that it should.”
Copyright, Competition, and AI Training – Copyhype
www.copyhype.com
November 19, 2025 at 8:31 PM
“The question is not whether AI companies can innovate. The question is whether that innovation requires erasing the rights of everyone whose work makes that innovation possible. There is no reason in law, economics, or basic fairness that it should.”
“Our government is in the middle of a hostile takeover. Yes, he was elected. Yes, he used the system to get power. That does not make this any less of a takeover. It just makes it more dangerous.”
@itsalovelylife.bsky.social
@itsalovelylife.bsky.social
Is this the end of Trump’s Presidency?
The president is melting down in public while the rest of us are stuck watching the fallout. Trump’s latest rant on Trash Social isn’t just a tantrum; it’s a sign that his grip on the party is slippin...
open.substack.com
November 19, 2025 at 7:15 PM
“Our government is in the middle of a hostile takeover. Yes, he was elected. Yes, he used the system to get power. That does not make this any less of a takeover. It just makes it more dangerous.”
@itsalovelylife.bsky.social
@itsalovelylife.bsky.social
Is this just a pit stop on the path to curing cancer?
@404media.co
@404media.co
Massive Leak Shows Erotic Chatbot Users Turned Women’s Yearbook Pictures Into AI Porn
Chatbot roleplay and image generator platform SecretDesires.ai left cloud storage containers of nearly two million of images and videos exposed, including photos and full names of women from social me...
www.404media.co
November 19, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Is this just a pit stop on the path to curing cancer?
@404media.co
@404media.co
good morning 🌞
November 18, 2025 at 11:42 AM
good morning 🌞