EmilyTav

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People Are Calling Meta Ray-Bans "Pervert Glasses" On Bluesky, users quickly embraced the term "pervert glasses" to refer to Meta's Ray Ban smart glasses, following a shocking investigation.

Make it stick.

The Central Lie of Prediction Markets Polymarket and Kalshi promise the wisdom of the crowds. They deliver something very different.

Great new story by @cwarzel.bsky.social detailing the very big problems with prediction markets—"the perfect technology for a low-trust society, simultaneously exploiting and reifying an environment in which believing the motives behind any person or action becomes harder."

Can AI Replace Social Science Researchers? No. No it can't. Come on, now.

This blog post by @davekarpf.bsky.social is really worth reading and reflecting upon.

Hot take: the psychology behind doom-scrolling is the same psychology that created and fed 24/7 news.

Is it you 🤗

Meta won’t let morality get in the way of a product launch What a great time to add facial recognition to everything!

“Just because you are outside of your home doesn’t mean you have consented to having a random bozo collect your face and your name, the latter of which can enable them to search for your digital presence or even home address. The act of existing in public should not carry those risks.”

How Meta Executives Talked About Child Safety Behind the Scenes For years, employees acknowledged a problem with potential child groomers, but prioritized growth over fixes.

Behind the scenes, “Meta was divided on whether protecting kids should take precedence over user growth and engagement. For years, the company only incrementally rolled out restrictive safety features, even as its own staff detailed the risks its platforms posed to children.”

"AI is revolutionizing health care"

Generative AI is not just a tool for learning. It shapes how students think Framing this technology as a helpful ‘tool’ disguises how much it guides every element of critical thinking that academics seek to cultivate, says James Garvey

“Insisting on technical precision when it matters can help us resist the easy idea that AI is a helper, ready to assist. Instead we must keep our focus on the uncomfortable thought that these systems partly and covertly structure what we say, think and learn.”

TikTok or Instagram or Roblox or whatever… these are not THE problem. They are the SYMPTOM of the problem(s). If 8-year olds can get it, surely our policymakers can.

I didn’t talk about social media. I talked about the foundational problems driving the behavior of platforms ranging from YouTube to chatbots:

📱Algorithmic mediation that invisibly shapes our experiences

💰Business models built on “engagement” (ie addiction)

📈 Data that is weaponized against users

I talked tech with third graders for 90 minutes. Here's what happened. How career day with 8-year-olds turned into 90 minutes on algorithms, business models, and data. Recreated from memory with creative liberties.

My recent post is a moderately embellished recounting of career day with a group of 3rd graders, and how it turned into 90 minutes on algorithms, business models, and data privacy. Recreated from memory with creative liberties.

www.thehomescreen.org/p/i-talked-t...

This runs totally counter to the notion that AI is a tool that supports learning. Bullshit.

As I’ve said a thousand times: the question is not how COULD AI be used… but *how will it actually* be used.

If you can’t be bothered to actually engage with your classes, save the $$$$ and stay home.

Stochastic Flocks and the Critical Problem of 'Useful' AI Acknowledging that AI systems are advancing does not buy into hype, it sharpens the precision of critical thinking about their impacts, says Eryk Salvaggio.

To acknowledge the ways AI systems are changing does not buy into hype, it sharpens the precision of critical thinking about their impacts. To make sense of what AI does to people, you also need to understand what it does for them, writes Eryk Salvaggio.

I forgot that every LLM's logo was a butthole

I'd watch a muppet show movie where the muppets infiltrate an academic conference.

I think it's best for everyone to understand that the unified class project of billionaires right now is to do to white collar workers what globalization and neoliberalism did to blue collar workers.

I feel the same way about throwing some nasty feta and a couple of dry olives on some lettuce and calling it a “Greek salad”…

“When things become very easy, people want to take that convenience. And I think that this has profound effects on our ability to think, but also our ability to relate to one another and to understand other people. - Damon Beres

“… when it comes to friction, I think that the major thing is that all of these technologies have made it very easy to act without thinking critically.” - Damon Beres

“I think, especially in this post-generative AI moment of kind of anything goes and the platforms really can’t control the technology fully. And so, a lot is being shrugged off right now, and it feels like kind of a dangerous moment for that reason. It’s different.” - Damon Beres

Generative AI didn’t come from nowhere… it is the latest chapter in the internet’s “convenience is king” ethos. It follows algorithmic social media, which in Damon’s words is essentially an “… automated process of discerning user taste and serving them content accordingly.”

The story of the internet has been about removing friction, and maximizing efficiency and convenience. We are at peak “efficiency brain” where as Damon says… “it is really easy now just to be in an endless conversation with yourself and your own mind.”

Episode 3: Damon Beres talks parenting in an age of frictionless tech. Damon shares his perspective as both a journalist covering tech's effects on the mind AND as a dad trying to nurture critical thinking and curiosity in his 4-year-old.

On episode 3 of Home Screen @damonberes.com stops by & shares his perspective as both a tech journalist AND as a dad trying to nurture critical thinking and curiosity in his 4-year-old 🥳

Love this conversation! Check it out here👇🏼 + a few insights in 🧵below.
www.thehomescreen.org/p/episode-3-...

Thank you Damon! It was so great talking with you… I’m still thinking about / processing so many of your points!

So grateful for your voice & perspective 🙏🏼

Episode 3: Damon Beres talks parenting in an age of frictionless tech. Damon shares his perspective as both a journalist covering tech's effects on the mind AND as a dad trying to nurture critical thinking and curiosity in his 4-year-old.

So happy that I got to spend time talking about tech and PARENTING with the great @emilytav.bsky.social—she’s just getting started with this new project, and I couldn’t be more excited about it

You Won’t Be Able to Escape Smart Glasses in 2026 Meta is betting big on AI eyewear, with production of its Ray-Ban collaboration expected to hit 10 million pairs annually by the end of the year. But will the tech-ified accessory ever actually be con...

The funny thing is that you can see these exact same articles written about Google Glass in 2012. Casting them as inevitable is part of the hype cycle.

What really bothers me is that even if OpenAI changes their models to guard against doing stuff like this, the design idea of automated dialogic psychological coercion machines is just out there now, for other people to reproduce with open weights/open source LLMs and set loose in all kinds settings

My thinking on kids + tech as we start the new year.

www.thehomescreen.org/p/walking-in...