Paris Marx
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parismarx.com
Paris Marx
@parismarx.com
77K followers 350 following 5.1K posts
i criticize the tech industry

🎙️ @techwontsave.us
📬 https://disconnect.blog
📖 https://roadtonowherebook.com
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parismarx.com
youtube’s new thing seems to be to actively push misleading (usually conservative) commentary with next to no views onto my home page
Pierre Poilievre DESTROYS CBC Narrative in Explosive Interview - 10 views Why Mark Carney's Budget Is Smaller-but Maybe Smarter-Than Trudeau's - 8 views BREAKING: Carney Surges as 4 Conservatives Prepare to Cross the Floor! - 65 views PM EXPLODES in Parliament! $80 BILLION Scandal EXPOSED - 88 views
November 11, 2025 at 5:03 AM
parismarx.com
get ready, europe: canada is coming to eurovision! lmao
There's also $150 million in new funding for CBC/Radio-Canada to modernize and "strengthen its mandate," which the Bloc Québécois has demanded in the past. The government said it will work with the public broadcaster to "explore participation in Eurovision," the popular song contest.
November 4, 2025 at 11:29 PM
parismarx.com
we also use your terrible paper sizes 😣
November 2, 2025 at 1:52 AM
parismarx.com
canada might have its issues that need to be addressed, but it remains the clear second place for skilled young workers looking to move abroad

www.ft.com/content/d70c...
graph of preferred destinations of educated young adults intending to move countries, showing the US in a declining first place, canada in a clear second with a notable lead over germany, australia, france, and the UK
October 31, 2025 at 12:53 PM
parismarx.com
also no qualms about supporting palestine
Last year, you donated a signed Mamma Mia! record for a fundraiser for humanitarian aid to Palestine. Was that a politically fraught decision for you? No. In Sweden, I protested even before they went into Gaza. Before October 7? Right after, when they started talking about flattening Gaza, about sending them to Africa, and other things. The thing was that you knew what was going to happen. Because since 1948, they’ve been doing the same thing. If the Palestinians kill one, they’ll kill ten. Plus they’ll bulldoze the home of the family and friends. We were afraid that they would go in and try to flatten Gaza. One of the Swedish papers had a big article with a picture of me saying that I was supporting antisemitism. The usual. But every night, I think about it. Every night.
October 27, 2025 at 11:49 PM
parismarx.com
stellan skarsgård seems like a good dude
How would you describe that worldview? My father told me something when I was very small to instill confidence in me: “Nobody in the world is worth more than you, but nobody’s worth less.” It is an egalitarian view that I’ve carried around in my life. That’s why I am for free schools, free universities, free health care, and free babysitting. Because our society could afford it. In America, people think social democracy is some kind of communism. They think capitalism is freedom. It’s not. It’s only freedom to exploit people.
October 27, 2025 at 11:48 PM
parismarx.com
Governments are asleep at the wheel because they’re trying to present themselves as friends to the tech companies to attract some of the money flooding into AI and data centers.

They’re sacrificing the wellbeing of their citizens on the altar of generative AI.

disconnect.blog/generative-a...
Generative AI is nothing more than a form of social suicide that must be reined in before it’s too late. It cannot be allowed to reach the level of proliferation that social media has achieved, as it may then be impossible to properly roll it back, but also because the social harms from this stage of the digital revolution (if we still want to call it that) will be amplified to an unimaginable degree. How many people need to be disconnected from reality, siphoned into dependence on chatbots, and put at risk of losing their minds before governments take action against these agents of chaos? The time is running out to wake up to the real threats posed by generative AI, and recognize no hyperscale data center or OpenAI office is worth the costs to the public of allowing this technology to gain a foothold in our societies. We don’t just need to throw off US tech, but the entire model of digital technology that Silicon Valley has pushed on the world.
October 24, 2025 at 10:27 AM
parismarx.com
We’re only now, very belatedly, trying to rein in social media and all the harms it’s foisted on our societies. What many governments don’t seem to realize is that chatbots and image generators are repeating that cycle on steroids. Action must be taken now.

disconnect.blog/generative-a...
Social media regulation took far too long to arrive, and even then, it came in an imperfect form. But governments don’t appear ready to grapple with the reality that chatbots and image and video generators are speedrunning the harms caused by social media. The deceptive critical framing of the superintelligence argument has sent governments chasing that red herring as they try to present themselves as being friendly to tech investment to attract a small slice of the trillions of dollars being shelled out on generative AI and data centers. In short, they’re sacrificing the wellbeing of their citizens and arguably the foundations of a democratic society for a chance at short-term investment.
October 24, 2025 at 10:27 AM
parismarx.com
The superintelligence narrative wants us to ignore how deepfakes are one of many ways generative AI is poisoning the well of accurate information in our society. It’s threatening climate targets, enabling nudify apps, and sending people into mental breakdowns.

disconnect.blog/generative-a...
The problems with generative AI are endless. The environmental costs of the technology have been well litigated these past couple years, as the data centers that power it demand vast quantities of water and obscene amounts of electricity that creates pressure to build out even more fossil fuel power generation at a time we should be doing the very opposite. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Long before Connolly was targeted by a political deepfake, a far wider swath of people — particularly women and girls — were the victims of nudify apps and explicit deepfakes made possible by image generators powered by generative AI models. More recently, a wave of stories have been published about the mental health risks that can come with forming a dependence on chatbots, including everything from breakdowns and institutionalization to the worst possible outcome of young people taking their own lives — sometimes even with coaching from the chatbot on how to do it.
October 24, 2025 at 10:23 AM
parismarx.com
Meanwhile, as the statement was spreading, Irish voters were running into a deepfake video of the presidential frontrunner saying she was dropping out of the race, days before voting day.

It seemed like a clear effort to interfere with the result.

disconnect.blog/generative-a...
The deepfake video was framed as a news report from the national broadcaster RTÉ and showed Connolly withdrawing from the race, followed by reporters commenting on what appeared to be a shock announcement days before the vote was poised to take place. It’s hard not to see it as an attempt to suppress the vote for Connolly by making the public believe the presidential election is already over, with no votes needing to be cast. Social media companies belatedly acted to take down versions of it on Meta platforms and YouTube, but not before it had spread far and wide and had been seen by many thousands of voters. It’s impossible to say what effect the video will have at this stage. There will surely be research into it in the months ahead, and it will be interesting to see what it shows. But for someone like Hinton, who pushes the notion that the existential risk is the main thing we should be focused on, to the extent of dismissing the more grounded concerns of his colleagues, issues like the proliferation of deepfake videos are distractions from the real threat.
October 24, 2025 at 10:21 AM
parismarx.com
The contrast between the fantastical superintelligence narrative and the tangible impacts of generative AI were impossible to ignore this week.

Another pointless statement was released on superintelligence allowing prominent people to pat themselves on the back.

disconnect.blog/generative-a...
This past week, I was struck by two stories that contrasted the real threat with the fabricated one, and particularly how that fabricated threat enables the real social harms to be perpetuated. On the one hand, another statement against AI superintelligence was signed by a bunch of people who like to believe they’re very intelligent but have been taken in by some very effective grifters, if they’re not just bad actors themselves. The signatories included a varied cast of idiots, including “godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton, outcast royal Prince Harry, Virgin billionaire Richard Branson, far-right agitator Steve Bannon, and right-wing media figure Glenn Beck.
October 24, 2025 at 10:19 AM
parismarx.com
The AI narrative was carefully crafted. While Sam Altman talked about the wonderful things generative AI would enable, he knew critics would emerge.

So the industry got there first, claiming AGI or superintelligence were the threat — not the present-day problems.

disconnect.blog/generative-a...
For the past few years, the AI industry and executives like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have very cleverly shepherded the conversation about generative AI to work in their own interests. In their telling, generative AI is a transformative technology that is improving many different aspects of our society, but particularly access to healthcare and education. Yet they knew there would be critics, so they sought to head off the problems those critics would identify from the jump. Instead of taking real criticism seriously, the industry recognized it needed to set its own narrative for the potential drawbacks of AI. That’s precisely why, as Altman was hyping up the many amazing outcomes that his AI revolution would bring, he presented a warning: AI could also pose an existential threat to humanity.
October 24, 2025 at 10:17 AM
parismarx.com
grim evening in newfoundland and labrador
cbc graphic showing a progressive conservative government
October 15, 2025 at 1:07 AM
parismarx.com
guy licking a black military boot
October 7, 2025 at 4:04 AM
parismarx.com
excited to announce i’m giving up podcasting to become a canadian senator!
paris sitting in the canadian senate chamber
October 3, 2025 at 10:06 PM
parismarx.com
Just saying, over on @techwontsave.us I discussed why this would be the case with @abenanav.bsky.social back in **March 2023**

Episode here: techwontsave.us/episode/164_...
Chatbots Won’t Take Many Jobs Aaron Benanav
October 1, 2025 at 7:40 PM
parismarx.com
Mark Carney keeps talking about “decarbonized oil.” Today he admitted that’s bullshit.

At the Council on Foreign Relations, he started saying BC’s new LNG project was “zero carbon,” before adding a key caveat: “before the Scope 3 obviously.”

That’s where the bulk of the emissions come from.
September 23, 2025 at 2:49 AM
parismarx.com
my friend @nastasiahadjadji.bsky.social has a new book out on techno-fascism. if you’re a french speaker, you should definitely check it out!
apocalypse nerds by nastasia hadjadji and olivier tesquet
September 22, 2025 at 6:00 PM
parismarx.com
ah yes, so the thing i said right after it was announced was right on the money
When I see the iPhone Air, I immediately think of what it’s going to look like when two of them are smooshed together, until you fold them open into a book. Apple is commercializing a preview to make some money off its recent work on what will form the foundation of the foldable phone it will deliver in the next product cycle — and unfortunately, not even in the folding form factor I find intriguing.
September 21, 2025 at 10:16 PM
parismarx.com
Let me just say that Taylor has come after me several times in the past couple years, over Covid stuff and more recently on tech issues since her free speech pivot. I always let her have her say, often engaging in good faith even when I felt she was mischaracterizing me (which she again did today).
Taylor Lorenz post that reads: I had to block Paris unfortunately bc he wasn't engaging in a productive way. I understand people outside of the US have different concepts of free speech, but someone claiming to be anti tech suddenly advocating FOR mass surveillance/dismantling of civil liberties online is a very strange pivot
September 20, 2025 at 4:17 AM
parismarx.com
Taylor Lorenz loves to go on the attack when someone says anything she doesn’t agree with. But she can’t seem to take it when people push back on her bullshit.
Taylor Lorenz blocked me.
September 20, 2025 at 3:53 AM
parismarx.com
Age restrictions aren’t my preferred policy. But now is not the time to sit on our hands as companies get away with harming people’s mental health, amplifying right-wing politics, and even worse. It’s time to experiment with ways to rein in their power.

disconnect.blog/social-media...
So, all in all, do I love the age restrictions? Not really. But at this point, I’m open to measures to restrict the power of these companies, even if there are some drawbacks. Social media is a net negative: sure, it allows us to connect, share information, and have some laughs, but it’s also enabling widespread social harm and amplifying increasingly extreme right-wing political positions that negates its positive aspects. Hate speech is not free speech, and even then, no one’s rights are impeded if they can’t post as much on a social media platform. Yelling “censorship” at every opportunity is only playing into the extreme right’s deceptive framing of free speech. It’s time to rein in these platforms and all the harm they’ve wrought.
September 19, 2025 at 6:24 PM
parismarx.com
Digital rights framings rely on exaggerations to make us believe tech regulations are a threat to the internet itself, yet when those laws pass the internet continues on. An unregulated internet is not my priority, especially with the problems it’s created.

disconnect.blog/social-media...
Time and again, many digital rights arguments have proven to be significantly exaggerated with the aim of defeating regulations on tech companies. The digital rights playbook was created at a time when internet companies were nascent and competing with much more powerful traditional industries. Today, those roles have reversed, but the playbook has largely stayed the same and thus continues to serve some of the most powerful companies in the world. At a time when those companies are flexing their muscles, we need to be more aware of how they use their power.
September 19, 2025 at 6:22 PM
parismarx.com
This is another time to recognize how the digital rights framing harms our understanding of technology and ability to hold companies accountable. Its playbook was developed when they were the Davids; now they’re Goliaths, but the approach has barely changed.

disconnect.blog/social-media...
Watching the debate around social media restrictions has been another important moment in recognizing the deception of many digital rights groups and activists, and how often they serve major US tech companies while pretending to do the opposite. This isn’t new. From Canada, I’ve been watching this developing domestically, where over time the companies have sent out their own representatives to argue against these policies far less often. Instead, you have a series of experts who present themselves as independent voices, but just so happen to say things that sound exactly like tech company talking points. Honestly, it can be fascinating to see how clever their deceptions are. In some cases, they’ll acknowledge the problem at hand and say we need regulation, but then argue against the actual regulation being proposed as always having some fatal flaw. Digital rights groups famously position legislation to make companies like Google and Meta pay some of their profits to news companies as “link taxes” that are supposed to destroy the internet. The Australian, Canadian, and European legislation have done no such thing.
September 19, 2025 at 6:19 PM
parismarx.com
My preferred approach would focus much more on algorithms, data, and design. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think age restrictions are not worth trying. The time for perfection has passed.

disconnect.blog/social-media...
Even with that said, if I was crafting the policy, I would take a very different approach. It’s not just minors who are harmed by the way social media platforms are designed today — virtually everybody is, to one degree or another. While I support experimenting with age gates, my preferred approach would focus less on age and more on design; specifically, severed restrictions algorithmic targeting and amplification, limiting data collection and making it easier for users to prohibit it altogether, and developing strict rules on the design of the platforms themselves — as we know they use techniques inspired by gambling to keep people engaged. To be clear, the Australians and the Brits are looking into those measures too — if not already rolling out some measures along those lines. These are actions we need to take regardless of the politics behind the platforms, but given how Donald Trump and many of these executives are explicitly trying to use their power to stop regulation and taxation of US tech companies, now is the time to be even more aggressive, not to cower in the face of pressure and criticism.
September 19, 2025 at 6:18 PM