# luddite (blogs) — RSS Amplifier Recent posts from the 2 feeds in the RSS Amplifier directory that cover luddite. Page: Feed: --- ## [Stop using Media Bias/Fact Check in research](https://theluddite.org/post/stop-using-mbfc.html) _2026-07-01 · The Luddite_ This project began as a post about a year ago, in which we followed the provenance of the data from a study about misinformation until, at the bottom, we found Media Bias/Fact Check. Upon further examination, it turned out that Media Bias/Fact Check is just some guy, and upon him there rests a surprising amount of academic research. Abstract Media Bias/Fact Check (MBFC) purports to quantify the… ## [NEW SITE UP!](https://sayyesdono.pagecord.com/new-site-up) _2026-06-15 · Say Yes - Do No_ The shift from Pagecord is finished so this site won't be updating any more, nor will the newsletter be going out. Instead you can see the new one and sign up again at SayYesDoNo.com ! Anyway, as you were. ## [IMPORTANT(ish) New Say Yes, Do No Site & Newsletter](https://sayyesdono.pagecord.com/important-ish-new-say-yes-do-no-site-newsletter) _2026-06-11 · Say Yes - Do No_ Just a quick note to say that this week I've switched the Say Yes, Do No site from Pagecord to WordPress. This is in no way a judgement on Pagecord, which I think is a great platform and one I plan to keep on using for other projects but for some things I kind of need the depth of features WordPress offers. Unfortunately they do try to spam you with AI stuff but obviously none of that will be… ## [AI Solutionism - Three Questions and Two Answers](https://sayyesdono.pagecord.com/ai-solutionism-three-questions-and-two-answers) _2026-06-11 · Say Yes - Do No_ When AI is presented as a miracle cure for all the ills of the world the first question I always ask is 'how else could we solve this problem?' More or less every time there's an answer waiting in that question, usually one which isn't just well known but often one which has been advocated for by those most inescapably tied to the issues in the first place. When Prince William says that AI is the… ## [Local Luddism - The Quiet Front](https://sayyesdono.pagecord.com/local-luddism-the-quiet-front) _2026-06-09 · Say Yes - Do No_ I'm inherently biased towards the everyday forms of resistance, because it's what I research, but even allowing for there does seem to be a growing sense that the best battles to fight when it comes to big tech are the local ones. This case of push back against AI enabled surveillance in a (very) small Colorado town is indicative I think. AI with its data centers and their auxiliary of… ## [Is AI profitable yet?](https://sayyesdono.pagecord.com/is-ai-profitable-yet) _2026-06-09 · Say Yes - Do No_ Something that sounds like it should be the title of a long and arduous exploration of big tech finances culminating in some hedging about the future and the wonders of AI but no is pretty much the only answer you need. And to remind you of that there's Is AI Profitable Yet? A concise little reminder of how much money is currently being burnt on the varying ponzi schemes, scams, environmental… ## [Fire! I'll take you to burn... your tokens...](https://sayyesdono.pagecord.com/fire-ill-take-you-to-burn-your-tokens) _2026-06-09 · Say Yes - Do No_ After this report from Axion about an unnamed company managing to torch half a billion dollars in the span of a month through unregulated Claude token usage it's unsurprising that more and more companies are starting to reconsider the wild productivity gains they were rambling about not so long ago. Is it the start of some sanity within the bubble? Well, with the gazillion dollar IPOs apparently… ## [Anti-AI Anthology Update](https://sayyesdono.pagecord.com/anti-ai-anthology-update) _2026-06-08 · Say Yes - Do No_ Just a quick update on how things are progressing with the upcoming anti-AI anthology. First off - apologies to anyone still waiting for a reply to their submissions, one is coming in the next day or so but between a hectic few weeks and me just looking at things and going 'yeah, that's good' the actual action bit got a bit lost. On the plus side there has been some very good stuff through so far… ## [Event - Breaking Down AI: Technologies, Myths, Realities (King's College London, Strand Campus)](https://sayyesdono.pagecord.com/event-breaking-down-ai-technologies-myths-realities-kings-college-london-strand-campus) _2026-06-08 · Say Yes - Do No_ As part of the Reclaiming Futures project at KCL I'll be on a panel on the 8th of July for London Data Week along with some colleagues with similarly critical eyes for AI. The aim is to explore some of the imaginaries (and practicalities) around 'AI' with a view to de-mystifying them a bit. It's open to the public so feel free to sign up and we'll be approaching it in as accessible a way as… ## [We're not just fighting AI...](https://sayyesdono.pagecord.com/were-not-just-fighting-ai) _2026-06-05 · Say Yes - Do No_ There's a definite contrast amongst those who are openly critical of 'AI' at the moment - and it centres on the perception of the fight. It's an interesting one to approach from a (very) resistance focused position given that, on the one hand, I've no desire for tactical differences to negate broader coalitions but on the other I do fear for the misplaced hopes of some who stand close, but not too… ## [Open-source Screen Sharing with Control (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/MjC5ZkLTPdbt) _2026-06-05 · **Sponsored**_ WebRTC screen sharing with simultaneous mouse & keyboard control; viewers join in browser. ## [Dark Patterns in AI Chatbots](https://sayyesdono.pagecord.com/dark-patterns-in-ai-chatbots) _2026-06-05 · Say Yes - Do No_ Just a quick note to highlight this new report on the use of 'dark patterns' in chatbot design. This is something I've touched on before (and have a paper relating to, in the deep abyss of academic procedure) but it's really good to see these things being highlighted from people with a far deeper focus on the purely design side than I have. There's a lot of insidious, anthropomorphisation behind… ## [Human Data Sensors - The Abyss is Looking Back](https://sayyesdono.pagecord.com/human-data-sensors-the-abyss-is-looking-back) _2026-06-01 · Say Yes - Do No_ It's an increasingly less heard argument (in my experience at least) that AI companies would eventually run out of training data and, with the ever degrading quality of synthetic data, some kind of brick wall of development would be hit. It was never a good argument, relying as it did on domain specific imaginations (well they will run out of online art to steal) and naivety (they can only scrape… ## [Call for Papers: Topical Collection on AI Resistance, Refusal, Reclamation and Reimagining: Ethical Imperatives and Emerging Practices](https://sayyesdono.pagecord.com/call-for-papers-topical-collection-on-ai-resistance-refusal-reclamation-and-reimagining-ethical-impe) _2026-05-28 · Say Yes - Do No_ Happy to be involved in this one given the potentials to get anti and AI critical voices involved. The deadline for submissions is the 31st of July and we're looking for a broad range of voices and part of that is the potential for guest editors to provide support with your work if accepted. We made this choice out of an awareness of how easily people can be driven to AI tools by their own… ## [Tech Bros Stole My Friend: Faux-Social LLMs Meet the Market](https://sayyesdono.pagecord.com/tech-bros-stole-my-friend-faux-social-llms-meet-the-market) _2026-05-28 · Say Yes - Do No_ Sometimes even I, as an ardent Luddite, wish AI companies would be slower in driving their own failure. Recently I've been working on a paper relating to faux-social LLMs - those which mimic relationships, therapy, care etc. In part of the paper I suggest viewing those 'relationships' built with LLMs as toxic or insecure in part because whatever a user can experience from them (which isn't a lot… ## [Old Tactics, Neo-Luddites: We're all the problem now...](https://sayyesdono.pagecord.com/old-tactics-neo-luddites-were-all-the-problem-now) _2026-05-27 · Say Yes - Do No_ This article from Wired is well worth a read as it outlines the increasing attempts in the US to problematise and criminalise AI resistance movements. Amongst the Trump administrations fevered politicisation of the intelligence services tech resistance is, seemingly, getting the full Luddite treatment with even peaceful, mundane opposition being highlighted as a threat. This is, above all, an… ## [Monday AI Resistance Update #10](https://sayyesdono.pagecord.com/monday-ai-resistance-update-10) _2026-05-26 · Say Yes - Do No_ A random sampling of stuff I've come across this week... A day late this time because we had a Bank Holiday here alongside a heatwave, so who wants to be thinking about AI? -- Resource - The AI Resist List Created by We & AI, DAIR, the Refugee Law Lab and working with Karen Hao the AI Resist List is something I've already mentioned this one on the blog but it's worth bringing up again. This has… ## [A reply to Maples et al.'s reply to our reply to "Loneliness and suicide mitigation for students using GPT3-enabled chatbots": Part 1](https://theluddite.org/post/replika-update.html) _2026-05-01 · The Luddite_ This is yet another update to a previous post about Maples et al.'s study. If you haven't read that one, you will be missing some context, but you will pick up enough as you go that this one should make sense on its own. In early 2024, shortly after writing a blog post on Maples et al.'s "Loneliness and suicide mitigation for students using GPT3-enabled chatbots," we 1 also wrote a response to the… ## [Taking a Break](https://theluddite.org/post/short-break.html) _2025-09-01 · The Luddite_ The Luddite is taking a break and will be back sometime late fall (in the Northern Hemisphere). Thanks for reading! If you liked it, consider subscribing or leaving a tip: BuyMeACoffee.com , Stripe , all options . ## [Dave and the Spectacle of Computation](https://theluddite.org/post/spectacle-of-computation.html) _2025-06-01 · The Luddite_ Right after the 2016 American presidential election, use of the the terms "misinformation" and "disinformation" on Twitter skyrocketed, presumably as people attempted to come to grips with what had just happened. A few years later (science takes time!), we see a marked increased in scientific papers trying to understand the phenomena. This is a tricky subject to study because, on the one hand,… ## [50501: Navigating the Decentralized, Digitally-Coordinated Resistance](https://theluddite.org/post/50501.html) _2025-05-01 · The Luddite_ This has been my longest gap between posts since I started in 2022. Due to the political situation here, I've been dedicating more time to local organizing. This is undoubtedly the correct decision. As important as I find the issues that I talk about here, and as much as I like reading and writing about them, we're in crisis. This post reflects my current orientation. Before I say anything else, I… ## [Try Before You Buy, Risk-Free (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/H9NiqPP7qrBh) _2025-04-30 · **Sponsored**_ Free trial hosting plus refunds processed in 12-24 hours, guaranteed. ## [The Anti-Intellectualism of Social Media Design](https://theluddite.org/post/intellect.html) _2025-02-01 · The Luddite_ Before we get started, a note on current events: If you live in the United States, now is the time to get organized . I don't mean joining a discord or your favorite leftist's patreon. Participate in something, ideally something with a formal structure that deliberates on its program and elects its leaders. It doesn't matter which one, and all the organizations doing good work in your area… ## [A Revolution for the Perplexed: A Review of "Blockchain Radicals"](https://theluddite.org/post/blockchain-radicals.html) _2025-01-01 · The Luddite_ Source images here and here . This is a review of Joshua Dávila's Blockchain Radicals: How Capitalism Ruined Crypto and How to Fix It in 2 parts. The first critiques the book's approach to argumentation. It is, if you like, a theory of the book. The second part looks at Dávila's own Breadchain Cooperative as an example of the theory put into practice. Part 1: Is theory software for humans? Inside… ## [Tokens, the oft-overlooked appetizer: Large language models, the distributional hypothesis, and meaning](https://theluddite.org/post/tokenization.html) _2025-01-01 · The Luddite_ It takes many people to make The Luddite happen. Many of these people also do cool things outside The Luddite . With all the AI hype, we are crossposting one of those things — a paper on tokenization in Large Language Models. Hopefully, this will be a nice counterbalance to all the bad AI research that I've covered. Abstract Tokenization is a necessary component within the current architecture of… ## [Nature's Folly: A Response to "AI-generated poetry is indistinguishable from human-written poetry and is rated more favorably"](https://theluddite.org/post/ai-poetry.html) _2024-12-01 · The Luddite_ This is part of an open-ended series on the relationship between the AI hype, corporate interests, and scientific publishing through the lens of articles published on Nature.com . For the previous one, click here . Nature's Scientific Reports recently published a study titled " AI-generated poetry is indistinguishable from human-written poetry and is rated more favorably ." For those of us… ## [A Response to Jackson et al's "#HashtagActivism"](https://theluddite.org/post/hashtag-activism.html) _2024-10-01 · The Luddite_ On the roughly two-year anniversary of Elon Musk purchasing Twitter, with which he is openly supporting fascism, I want to discuss Jackson, Bailey, and Foucault Welles's #HashtagActivism . The book is a defense of its namesake practice, which they provide through analyzing Twitter data around various social justice hashtags. Readers familiar with previous posts might already suspect where this is… ## [Complexity and Accountability: A (Non-Environmental) Case for Rationing Computation](https://theluddite.org/post/rationing.html) _2024-09-01 · The Luddite_ The same illustration has also been published in Plutonics . Check them out. Every computer can do anything that any computer can do . They are uniquely general-purpose tools. This makes them pretty nifty because we don't need to make one machine to look at cat pictures and another to calculate asteroid trajectories, but this lack of constraint comes at a cost. For a simple demonstration of this…