@datasociety.bsky.social
An independent research and policy institute working toward a future where people, not technology, come first.
@datasociety.bsky.socialAI “is something like a cognitive version of a hot dog,” @benjaminjriley.bsky.social writes. “It appeals to us in the moment, but undermines the health and sustainability of cognitive systems we’ve evolved over several millennia.” www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...
@datasociety.bsky.socialAs a nonprofit research and policy institute, Data & Society relies on your generous donations to continue our work of putting people before technology. If you have a donor-advised fund, please consider giving this #DAFDay, right here: datasociety.net/donate/donor... (Illustration by Noah Jodice)
@datasociety.bsky.social“People feel a lack of agency, a sense of profound disempowerment,” says @sturkle.bsky.social. “There is a parallel between [AI] and depression over climate change...You feel that things are deeply amiss. But action may feel futile, so the depression becomes diffuse.” www.nytimes.com/2026/10/01/w...
@datasociety.bsky.socialRather than positioning AI systems as tools scientists can use, AI companies insist their systems are responsible for making discoveries. It's an approach some scientists see as “incompatible with how science actually works." www.technologyreview.com/2026/09/28/1...
@the-syllabus.bsky.socialReposted by @datasociety.bsky.socialIf current proposals advance, Pennsylvania could see 66 new data centers built, on top of the 71 currently active. But as our hidden gem of the week shows, communities are pushing back.
By @mwoluchem.bsky.social et al. at @datasociety.bsky.social
@datasociety.bsky.socialWe're so excited to work with these brilliant residents!
@datasociety.bsky.socialAmong the attendees Becca Rothfeld spoke to at the AI-critical Pro-Human Assembly, “going concerns were not about matters of policy as much as they were about matters of philosophy”: AI’s impact on freedom, consciousness, creativity, and what it means to be human. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
@datasociety.bsky.socialTomorrow at 2 pm ET! We'll discuss reckoning with and rethinking power in the age of tech oligarchy with some of the writers who are engaging with these issues most deeply. RSVP and join us online! datasociety.net/news-events/...
@schock.ccReposted by @datasociety.bsky.socialCheck out this brilliant new report "The AI Factory: Data Centers, Power, and Resistance in Late Industrial Pennsylvania," from @mwoluchem.bsky.social & team @datasociety.bsky.social
@datasociety.bsky.social"By threatening us w the violent fantasies of an unsurveilled world, [Flock] is pushing something that strikes me as the antithesis of safety: a community ethic founded on suspicion, a closely monitored world with no exit,” writes @bradybricknerwood.bsky.social. www.newyorker.com/culture/infi...
@datasociety.bsky.social“Tackling the challenge of AI will require confronting our broader crisis of governance,” Lina M. Khan writes. “Our democracy cannot surrender the trajectory of these powerful technologies to a handful of private actors.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/30/o...
@datasociety.bsky.socialAI companies are “industry-defining corporations reshaping our workplaces, our schools, our communities. Holding them accountable could start with calling them out for what they are — and what they aren’t,” Matthew Sun writes. www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...
@datasociety.bsky.socialThe Community-Centered AI infrastructure Summit is live streaming today! Tune in NOW to see D&S's @mwoluchem.bsky.social's keynote and stay for more on the opportunities, challenges, and governance of AI infrastructure development in Pennsylvania. communityaisummit.org
@datasociety.bsky.socialD&S's @mwoluchem.bsky.social describes her team’s research on Pennsylvania’s industrial lineage, the mythmaking that builds on it, and the pushback that defines this moment. “We learned that it takes a lot of work to make an AI factory seem inevitable,” she says. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPgA...
@datasociety.bsky.socialBy focusing on workers’ experiences, we can develop a more nuanced picture of what's happening and build a more collective response — one where workers are not a passive casualty of AI, but active participants in determining its role. Learn more: datasociety.net/worker-lens-... 4/4
@datasociety.bsky.social“Understanding how AI is changing labor and employment requires a different kind of research: rigorous, independent, and timely documentation and analysis of what is happening on the ground,” write @aihathing.bsky.social and @cariatida.bsky.social, who will lead the new project. 3/4
@datasociety.bsky.socialWe're interested in how AI is changing the very nature of what work *is*, and in the structural, social, political, and economic changes that affect not just everyday working conditions but broader issues of democratic power, human dignity, and the public good. 2/4
@datasociety.bsky.social📣 New! Today we’re excited to launch Worker Lens on the AI Economy: a timely and ambitious new research project that will foreground workers’ experiences with and perspectives on AI, and identify opportunities to expand their power. 1/4 datasociety.net/research-lib...
@datasociety.bsky.socialAs AI enters the most personal aspects of our lives and relationships, “What We Tell AI” is a fascinating and very human project that collects and publishes anonymous, handwritten "confessions" about people's complex experiences living with this technology. www.whatwetellai.com
@datasociety.bsky.social"Algorithmic wages & prices are symptoms of a political economy built on the continuous conversion of movement, delay, fatigue, debt, location, browsing, hunger, punctuality, & desperation into commercial leverage." @veenadubal.bsky.social @katiejwells.bsky.social dissentmagazine.org/article/algo...
