I wrote a post some time back encouraging people to boycott AI which seems not to have had much effect so let me put it another way: resist AI. By that I mean that every time you’re tempted to use AI ask yourself if you really need AI to do or find out whatever it is you’re about to ask it to do or find out and whether you could do or find that thing out yourself even though it might take just a little more effort and a little more time than it would take AI. In other words, try to resist the temptation and resist, as well, the habit-forming behavior of letting AI take over more and more human activities. Anyway, my call for resistance is motivated by the latest concerns about AI expressed by the AI producers themselves:
After reading this article I checked out Daniel Kokotajlo on Ecosia and found this recent interview that made me realize that we really should do everything we can possibly do to resist the conquest of AI over our lives:
It amazes me that seemingly intelligent people still use facebook and all the other antisocial media now that the companies that own them have begun to be brought to trial for their disgraceful behavior and forced to pay heavy fines. Why not use other ways to communicate? This latest trial has presented evidence that is especially appalling.
I was reading an article in the Guardian today about the permafrost reaching what scientists call a tipping point and I realized that very few people know what that means, since, if they do know, nobody seems to be doing anything about it, most tragically those who have been charged with running our governments.
And it got me thinking that it is not just a lack of knowledge or even a failure of communication that is the source of the collective nightmare that we are going through but a fundamental disconnect – a huge gap – between all the things that we as a species know and all the things that we as a species do, that is, between knowledge and action or knowing and doing.
In this case, there are thousands of scientists around the world who know a great deal about various tipping points and why they are important for our future and the future of the planet and learn more about them every day in research projects that are mainly funded by public agencies but whose actions betray them and us, in particular, the actions they take by choosing to publish most of the fruits of their knowledge in highly specialized journals that are owned by giant corporations that are extremely costly to gain access to if you aren’t a scientist or would-be scientist yourself. In order to have their articles published which is one of the main criteria of academic success they must sign contracts giving ownership of what is called their “intellectual property” to those giant corporations whose “business model” seems to be to make money by creating ever more specialized journals that university libraries then subscribe to at great expense. And to make matters worse, many of those articles are written in such a way that they can only be understood by those who already know what’s in them. When I was a professor it often seemed as if an elaborate system had been put in place to keep scientific knowledge from reaching “ordinary” people.
At the same time. and partly as a result of these ridiculous but highly profitable forms of scientific publishing, there are billions of people who know nothing about such things as tipping points and act as if they did not exist since the knowledge they can freely and readily obtain without a “pay wall” is filled not just with lies and falsehoods about climate change and most everything else, but quite often with a disdain for science itself. And even worse perhaps, most of our “leaders” and governments act in wilful neglect of what they know or should know not just about tipping points or climate change but about almost everything on their watch.
So until scientists change the ways they go about spreading the fruits of their knowledge and governments do what they know they should do, it’s hard to imagine avoiding those tipping points or, for that matter, doing aĺl the things that what we as a species know need to be done.
The Bellevue String Quartet gave their first public concert at Andy’s Corner not long after we opened and they have been back to perform at the shop many times since then to delight us with their fascinating programs of “edutainment” mixing learning and musicianship with a big dose of joyful enthusiasm. They have now recorded their first cd of their program “For Four” (https://www.bellevuestringquartet.com/programs/) and will be giving a release concert at the shop on November 21. In the meantime give a look and a listen to a reel they just posted.
One of the great things about my job is that I am constantly searching for books and records and films and pictures to sell at the shop and yesterday I found a dvd of the old film Erin Brockovich at Erikshjälpen on my way out to Österlen and after writing a post about what the real Erin Brockovich was up to these days it was fun to see Julia Roberts and Albert Finney in action and realize the power that a movie can have to bring a remarkable person to public attention and in this case help her in her struggles against corporate greed and irresponsibility. Anyway it’s still a fine film that makes political points in an entertaining way. Here are some new films with the real Erin Brockovich, still going strong. As the expression goes, more power to her!
The trials against facebook/meta and other bigtech firms for the harm they cause to the mental health of children that I have previously posted about are starting to bring some justice.
It’s hard to pull ourselves away from the serenity of Österlen but duty calls. We’re opening again today after our brief vacation and welcome you to Andy’s Corner where our summer sale continues as long as summer lasts.
Paul Daley reflects in the Guardian today on one of the paradoxes of our times: how the quixotic quest for digital “friendship” on antisocial media seems to make people lonelier. He likens it to an addiction to dangerous drugs.
The other day I was browsing through Andy’s latest arrivals and came across this book:
The front and back covers didn’t reveal much. From the back sleeve:
“…my work at the heart of the most influential computer company on the planet.”
I gave it a minute in my hands and put it back.
The company was, of course, Facebook—as revealed on the inner sleeve
A few days later, while listening at home to The News Agents—one of my many daily podcast routines—Emily Maitlis announced that the book had been awarded the Freedom to Publish Prize at the British Book Awards earlier this year.
With that in mind, I rushed back to Andy’s and pulled the book from his shelf.
The book is a fabulous read, and it has irritated Facebook so much that the company claimed it would cause harm and launched arbitration proceedings to silence Sarah, preventing her from promoting the book.
This means she cannot talk about the book, do interviews about the book, hold the book, or be at an airport or near a bookshop where the book is sold.
In June 2026, she filed a federal lawsuit against Meta for shutting her up and blocking her ability to speak about her own work.
Sarah is not a nobody, but a person with tremendous drive and a desire to do good in the world. She started her career working at New Zealand’s embassy in the US. She came to believe that Facebook might be able to solve global problems more quickly than traditional institutions—and was captivated by the company’s sales pitch: “Make the world more open and connected.”
What she probably didn’t want to think about was the company also had another slogan: “Move fast and break things.”
She wanted to work at the heart of the company and pitched herself for a role writing the rulebook on how data and content policies should be implemented. She became Director of Global Public Policy.
The book offers a fantastic window into how and why Facebook constantly finds itself managing crises. Part of the explanation may lie in the company’s origins: founded by Mark Zuckerberg as a site for rating the attractiveness of college women, by a creator who views the world as a board game where collateral damage is inevitable—not as someone equipped to handle cross-border issues for billions of users.
The revelations are mind-blowing. I won’t go into every detail: we’ve heard about Myanmar and the postings that contributed to genocide. What we hadn’t heard until now was that Facebook, in technical detail, showed Chinese Communist Party officials how to surveil and crack down on topics flagged by users.
The Orwellian term “chief editor” was invented for this role.
Sarah left the company in 2016 and now voices concern that we may be making the same mistakes with AI.
Sarah was fired from Facebook in 2017, she believes in retaliation for a sexual harassment accusation that she made. Facebook claimed 8 years ago that she was fired for poor performance and toxic behavior.
Nick Clegg (a former British politician) took over her role as Vice President of Global Affairs and Communications (2018–2022), later becoming President of Global Affairs (2022–2025).
If you want to hear Emily take him ringside about his tenure, watch:
And here is Sarah’s speech at the Book Awards, reflecting on the other winning book — “Nobody’s Girl” by Virginia Giuffre and Amy Wallace:
As she puts it, “We live in an age where web pages can disappear. Where a single politically aligned billionaire can spike a news story or delete a viral video. But once a book miraculously makes it out into the world, it cannot be disappeared…
Books are not monuments. They are instructions. Not merely to record what happened to one person, but to change the way a reader sees the world. That is what we do. That is why we write, publish, and sell books. That is what one book can do when it is written honestly enough, published bravely enough, and read by enough people willing to be changed by it and the truth…
Once a book is unleashed into the world, it has a way of outlasting everything that tried to stop it. It makes the world a little less safe for the predatory and the powerful—and a little more possible for the rest.”
AndrewJamison 