Cory Doctorow NONCONSENSUAL BLUE TICK Profile picture
Feb 9, 2023 26 tweets 26 min read Read on X
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Copyright won't solve creators' Generative AI problem; and more!

Archived at: pluralistic.net/2023/02/09/ai-…

#Pluralistic 1/ A poster for the 1933 movie 'The Monkey's Paw.' The fainting
I'm in #Australia, touring my book #ChokepointCapitalism* with my co-author, @rgibli. We're doing a remote event for #NZ on Feb 13. Next are #Melbourne (Feb 14), #Sydney (Feb 15) and #Canberra (Feb 16/17). More tickets just released for Sydney!

chokepointcapitalism.com 2/
Copyright won't solve creators' Generative AI problem: The machine-learning monkey's paw.

3/  Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wi
Hey look at this

* AI psychosis blog.piekniewski.info/2023/02/07/ai-…

* White Collar Crime Risk Zones whitecollar.thenewinquiry.com/#9q8yyzf (h/t @JWZ) 4/
#20yrsago etoy vs. eToys: anarcho-Dadaist clash of the titans liketv.com/leaving/

#10yrsago #PACER capers: the sordid story of America’s for-pay lawbooks arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20… 5/
#10yrsago Beige politics: unbeatable bland politicos advocating “beige policies that nobody wants” antipope.org/charlie/blog-s…

#10yrsago Publisher launches $3,000,000 suit against academic librarian who criticized its books leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2013/02/s… 6/
#10yrsago Hobbit producers to #NewZealand: if you tell people how we got our sweet tax/labor deal, no one will want to make movies in your country nzherald.co.nz/nz/threats-fly… 7/
#5yrsago @eff tells the @CopyrightOffice: we don’t know how to make voice assistants better, but here’s how not to make them worse eff.org/deeplinks/2018… 8/
#5yrsago Cable operator Fidelity Communications admits it that secretly created the fake-grassroots “Stop City-Funded Internet” campaign to kill Missouri municipal net theregister.com/2018/02/07/fid… 9/
#5yrsago Chinese transit cops deploy face-recognition glasses to spot indebted people, oppressed ethnic/religious minorities and criminals businessinsider.com/china-police-u… 10/
#5yrsago Tennessee sheriff who ordered deputies to kill driver of slow-moving car and gloated over his corpse faces excessive force lawsuit theguardian.com/us-news/2018/f… 11/
#5yrsago Your #SmartTV is trivial to hack and leaks your personal information like crazy unless you disable all its useful features consumerreports.org/televisions/sa… 12/
#5yrsago A pair of leaked powerpoints reveal the earliest-known evidence of the Republican #gerrymandering plan that gave us Trump salon.com/2018/02/06/how… 13/
#5yrsago Leaked presentation from AI snake-oil salesmen to AAA game company promises horrific, dystopian manipulation of players to drain their wallets techpowerup.com/240655/leaked-…

#1yrago UK #Tories want a national database of porn-viewing habits pluralistic.net/2022/02/08/wal… 14/
#1yrago Wall Street's #landlord business is turning every rental into a slum pluralistic.net/2022/02/08/wal…

#1yrago Pixels of You: A illustrated tale of love and photos pluralistic.net/2022/02/08/wal… 15/
Yesterday's threads: The Collective Intelligence Institute; and more!

16/
My latest book is Chokepoint Capitalism (with @rgibli), nonfiction about monopoly and fairness in creative labor markets.

chokepointcapitalism.com

Signed copies available from @BookSoup:

booksoup.com/book/978080700… 17/
My latest novel is Attack Surface, a sequel to my bestselling Little Brother books, now in paperback, wherever books are sold.

Signed copies at @darkdel:

darkdel.com/store/p1840/Co… 18/
My ebooks and audiobooks (from @torbooks, @HoZ_Books, @mcsweeneys, @beaconPressBks et al) are for sale all over the net, but I sell 'em too, and when you buy 'em from me, I earn twice as much and you get books with no DRM and no license "agreements."

craphound.com/shop/ 19/
Upcoming appearances:

* Chokepoint Capitalism: A Kiwi Perspective, 2/13
…alism-a-kiwi-perspective.lilregie.com/booking/attend…

* Future of Arts/Culture/Tech, @ACMI, (#Melbourne), 2/14
acmi.net.au/whats-on/in-co…

* @statelibrarynsw (#Sydney), 2/15
sl.nsw.gov.au/events/chokepo… 20/
Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* ANU/@canberratimes Meet The Author (#Canberra), 2/16
anu.edu.au/events/in-conv…

* @Aus_Digital Copyright Forum (#Canberra), 2/17:
digital.org.au/2022/11/08/doc…

* #Antitrust, Regulation & Political Economy (#Brussels), 3/2:
brusselsconference.com/registration 21/
Recent appearances:

* How popular movements can topple Big Tech (@tninstitute)
tni.org/en/podcast/how…

* A theory of how internet platforms die (@Marketplace Tech)
marketplace.org/shows/marketpl…

* Graeber's Pirate Enlightment (Everyday Anarchism)
pca.st/w58ald39 22/
You can also follow these posts as a daily blog at pluralistic.net: no ads, trackers, or data-collection!

Here's today's edition: pluralistic.net/2023/02/09/ai-… 23/
If you're a @Medium subscriber, you can read these essays - as well as previews of upcoming magazine columns and early exclusives on doctorow.medium.com.

My latest Medium column is "Small Government: refs have to be more powerful than players"

doctorow.medium.com/small-governme… 24/
If you prefer a newsletter, subscribe to the plura-list, which is also ad- and tracker-free, and is utterly unadorned save a single daily emoji. Today's is "🐟". Suggestions solicited for future emojis!

Subscribe here: pluralistic.net/plura-list 25/
Are you trying to wean yourself off Big Tech? You can read my work elsewhere, but it is now a #TwitterCrime to tell you how. Please visit my site, pluralistic.net, for links to find me on less-unhinged places (I can only imagine that my days here are numbered). 26/

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More from @doctorow

Feb 20
The commercial surveillance industry is almost totally unregulated. Data brokers, ad-tech, and everyone in between - they harvest, store, analyze, sell and rent every intimate, sensitive, potentially compromising fact about your life.

1/   A towering figure with the head of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey,' surmounted by Trump's hair, wearing a tailcoat with a Google logo lapel pin. It peers through a magnifying glass at a distressed, tiny Uncle Sam figure perched in its monstrous palm.   Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg  CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/02/20/pri…

2/
Late last year, I testified at a Consumer Finance Protection Bureau hearing about a proposed new rule to kill off data brokers, who are the lynchpin of the industry:



3/pluralistic.net/2023/08/16/the…
Read 41 tweets
Feb 18
In 2013, Thomas Piketty had an unexpected bestseller (a 750 page economics book translated from French!) *Capital in the 21st Century*.

1/ A Gilded Age editorial cartoon of a frowning Uncle Sam giving a blood transfusion to a gargantuan business-man whose waistcoat is labeled 'protected monopolies.' The businessman's head has been replaced with the hostile red eye of HAL 9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The background has been replaced with a halftoned EU flag whose blue field is covered in circuit-board traceries. The floor beneath the figures is an abstract, pinkish pattern.  Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg  CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed....
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/02/18/pik…

2/
It offers a very convincing explanation of our political decay, and it continues to serve this purpose as the decay undergoes alarming acceleration:



3/memex.craphound.com/2014/06/24/tho…
Read 62 tweets
Feb 17
Theory-free inference is a hell of a drug. For years, Big Data advocates - the larval form of today's AI weirdos - have insisted that if you have enough data, you can infer causal relationships between complex phenomena without ever having to understand how x causes y.

1/ https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/17/caliper-ai/#racism-machine   A phrenological illustration of a man's face in profile, with his skull divided up into sections with illustrations of what each area is meant to govern, e.g., appetite, artistic aptitude, aggression, ardor. A pair of gleaming silver calipers, wielded by the hostile red eye of HAL 9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey,' measures the figure's skull.   Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg  CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/02/17/cal…

2/
Thus, we can slay the dread "correlation is not causation" beast. This is cousin to Milton Friedman's famous economic catechism:



3/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essays_in…
Read 36 tweets
Feb 12
Remember the Tiktok ban? I know, it was ten million years ago (in Musk years, anyway), so it may have slipped your mind, but let me remind you: Congress passed a law saying Tiktok was banned. Trump said he wouldn't enforce the law. The end.

1/ An official portrait of the US Supreme Court, with the justices sitting and standing before a red velvet curtain. Their faces have been replaced with the green 'Mr Yuck' logo. Floating in the middle of the image, obscuring several judges, is the Tiktok logo, with Trump's hair.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/02/12/you…

2/
No, really. I mean, sure, there's a bunch of bullshit about whether Trump will pick up the ban again after Tiktok's grace period ends, depending on whether they sell themselves to his creepy wax museum pal Larry Ellison. Maybe he will.

3/
Read 39 tweets
Feb 11
Let me tell you about the most wasteful US federal government spending I know about. It's a humdinger. You and everyone you know are mired in it for weeks, or perhaps months, every year.

1/ A halftoned 2025 IRS 1040 form. To the left is a bloated billionaire figure in top hat, white gloves and tux, with the pouting face of Elon Musk. With one hand, he is yanking on a lever made out of a gilded dollar-sign. With the other hand, he contemptuously dangles a street urchin. The podium to which the lever is attached bears the Turbotax logo, a white checkmark in a red circle. To the left is a cascade of gold coins, falling out of an upended sack.   Image: Wcamp9 (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elon_Musk_-_March_28,_2024_%28cropped%29.jpg  CC BY 4.0 https://creative...
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/02/11/dou…

2/
It will cost you, personally, thousands of dollars over your lifetime. I'm talking about filing your taxes.

Not *paying* your taxes. Paying your taxes is fine.

3/
Read 29 tweets
Feb 5
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

NOTE: I DID NOT BUY A BLUE TICK. IT WAS NONCONSENSUALLY ADDED TO MY ACCOUNT.

Inside: MLMs are the mirror-world version of community organizing; and more!

Archived at:

#Pluralistic

1/ pluralistic.net/2025/02/04/pow…A vintage ad for Amway Nutrilite supplements; the illustration in the center of the ad has been replaced with a WPA mural depicting trade unionists rising up against capitalism.
This week, Barnes and Noble are offering a 25% discount on pre-order of my next novel, *Picks and Shovels* (use code PREORDERS):



2/ barnesandnoble.com/w/picks-and-sh…Image
MLMs are the mirror-world version of community organizing: In the mirror world, community organizers are community predators.



3/ Image
Read 29 tweets

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