Digital Ethics

The Vocci AI smart ring feels like an Oura ring designed to act as a personal assistant at work.

Do we truly comprehend how much of our time and attention is given to technology? In his talk, Dino Ambrosi reframes how we think about our relationships to devices, and shares his ideas on how to create healthy digital habits. Dino Ambrosi, the founder of Project Reboot, is an expert at guiding teens and young adults to relationships with technology that empower them. While studying at UC Berkeley, he created a popular course called Becoming Tech Intentional which he taught to over 60 of his fellow students who reduced their screen time by an average of over 3 hours per day. After graduating in May, he embarked on a mission to spread the contents of his course to a broader audience. Through school assemblies, workshops, and consulting, he has worked with over 500 students and parents to raise awareness about the addictive potential of our devices, drive conversations around digital wellness, and deliver practical strategies to build healthy digital habits. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

DeepSeek is an open LLM model promising innovation in both efficiency and transparency – but how much do we really know about what’s happening under the hood...

"And I never say no" We need to have a serious talk about the way "AI companion" apps not only prey on the vulnerable, but are priming their users to ignore consent and to conflate love with control. We need AI regulations across so many sectors, but this area is particularly horrifying.

Remember: When Tylenol was poisoned *by an outsider* and killed people, the company recalled all their products & redesigned them. When Intel’s Pentium had a bug so obscure it affected 1 in _9 billion_ long division calculations, they recalled their chips. ChatGPT was made deadly *by its team*. [contains quote post or other embedded content]

The report shows how violence appears in AI chats, when roleplay takes hold, what causes digital stress, and why device rules spark conflict at home.

On this page are some resources for Critical AI Literacy (CAIL) from my perspective.

We are calling for resistance to the AI industry’s ongoing capture of higher education.

A new study reveals an alarming bias present in four leading AI cancer screening tools, related to race, gender, and age.

Me, Myself & AI: Chatbot research | Internet Matters. Explore children's interactions with AI chatbots as both tools and companions.

Privacy is important because it protects us from possible abuses of power. That makes it essential for both personal freedom and democracy. Without privacy, ...

In 2023, a PhD student at UC Berkeley waited three weeks for four GPUs.

When Education Serves the Machine: The Technocapitalist Capture of Universities

Watch "The power of analogue | Carissa Veliz | TEDxGeneva" with enhanced privacy protection - no personalized ads or tracking.

Watch "Cory Doctorow - Rescuing the Internet From “Enshittification” | The Daily Show" with enhanced privacy protection - no personalized ads or tracking.

McDonald's said the moment served as "an important learning" as it explored "the effective use of AI".

If AI can be built to increase consumption, then the opposite is also possible.

This paper explores digital sovereignty as a pivotal element of contemporary politics. Drawing upon a constructivist perspective, it proposes a conceptual framework for studying the policy discours...

Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacies (CAILs) is the collection of ways of thinking about and relating to so-called artificial intelligence (AI) that rejects dominant frames presented by the technology industry, by naive computationalism, and by dehumanising ideologies. Instead, CAILs centre human cognition and uphold the integrity of academic research and education. We present a selection of CAILs across research and education, which we analyse into the following non-orthogonal dimensions: conceptual clarity, critical thinking, decoloniality, respecting expertise, and slow science. Finally, we note how we see the present with and without a wider adoption of CAILs — a fundamental aspect is the assertion that AI cannot be allowed to drive change, even positive change, in education or research. Instead cultivation of and adherence to shared values and goals must guide us. Ultimately, CAILs minimally ask us to contemplate how we as academics can stop AI companies from wielding so much power.

Artificial intelligence is changing everything — but at what cost? AI sustainability expert Sasha Luccioni exposes how tech companies' massive data centers a...

In his two latest videos, Hank Green promotes AI-doomerist rhetoric that sounds a lot like big tech talking points.

Everyday philosophy: Welcome to our terrifying surveillance state

Embedded in this year's network and device estimates is hopeful news about the trajectory of devices and networks. It has never been easier to deliver pages quickly, but we are not collectively hitting the mark. Indeed, the latest CrUX data shows not even half of origins have passing Core Web Vitals scores for mobile users. Browsers will need to provide stronger incentives. This will be unpopular, but it is clearly necessary.

"Students are not just undermining their ability to learn, but to someday lead."

OpenAI lost a copyright infringement case in a lower German court for using popular song lyrics in its ChatGPT language model without paying royalties.