Cory Doctorow

By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C)
@doctorow.

Archived at pluralistic.net

I post long threads. If you don't like these in your timeline but want to read them, I suggest unfollowing me here and subscribing to my RSS, or my newsletter, or any of my various long-form feeds. Links at https://pluralistic.net.

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Last Notes

2026-06-09 18:17:19

OK, this is objectively funny. If you unsusbcribe from Tim Walz's spam list, you get a screen that lets you share that fact on your socials.
Unsubscribe https://act.timwalz.com/unsubscribe/unsubscribe_stp?akid=s476..XabysD
https://static.mamot.fr/media_attachments/files/116/721/518/986/163/712/original/e7c93334ca6bc765.png

2026-06-09 14:13:58

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@nprofile…2j5q Try https://www.lukewsavage.com/p/the-enshittification-of-life-the

2026-06-09 14:12:24

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@nprofile…2j5q Weird. I'll see if I can find a different one.

2026-06-09 13:58:32

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I'm also on Bluesky. Read today's thread there at:
https://bsky.app/profile/did:web:pluralistic.net/post/3mnudpn6wwk2d
eof/

2026-06-09 13:58:21

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You can follow these posts as a daily blog at pluralistic.net: no ads, trackers, or data-collection!
Here's today's edition: https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/09/deliver-us/
--
If you prefer a newsletter, subscribe to the plura-list, which is ad-/tracker-free, and is utterly unadorned save a single daily emoji. Today's is "🚏". Suggestions solicited for future emojis!
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You can also get a fulltext RSS feed, licensed CC BY 4.0:
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22/

2026-06-09 13:58:17

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Recent appearances
* The Enshittification of Life, the Universe, and Everything
https://doctorow.substack.com/publish/post/201176490
* Cory Doctorow's digital jail-break (DW In Focus)
https://www.dw.com/en/cory-doctorows-digital-jail-break/audio-77414035
* Why the Internet Got Worse and What to Do About It (Jim Rutt) (RIP)
https://www.jimruttshow.com/cory-doctorow-3/
* On Enshittification – and what can be done about it (Re:publica)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhINQgPMVSI
* EFFecting Change: How to Disenshittify the Internet (EFF, with Wendy Liu)
https://archive.org/details/effecting-change-enshittification
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2026-06-09 13:57:51

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Upcoming appearances (cont'd):
* #NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24
https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html
* #Philadelphia: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with David Williams (Fitler Club/Philadelphia Citizen), Jun 25
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-event-tickets-1990110326559
* #Chicago: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Rick Perlstein (Exile in Bookville), Jun 26
https://exileinbookville.com/events/50628
19/
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2026-06-09 13:57:39

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Upcoming appearances:
* #KansasCity: Facing the Future (Woodneath Library Center), Jun 10
https://www.mymcpl.org/events/119655/facing-future-cory-doctorow
* #LA: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Brian Merchant (Skylight Books), Jun 19
https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-cory-doctorow-presents-reverse-centaurs-guide-life-after-ai-w-brian-merchant
* #MenloPark: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Angie Coiro (Kepler's), Jun 21
https://www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/cory-doctorow-2026
* #Toronto: TBA, Jun 23
18/
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2026-06-09 13:57:32

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My ebooks and audiobooks (from FSGxMCD, Tor Books, Head of Zeus, McSweeneys, Beacon, Verso and others) 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."
https://craphound.com/shop/
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2026-06-09 13:57:14

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My latest novel is "Picks and Shovels," a historical technothriller set in the Weird Era of the PC, about Ponzi schemes, techbros, and the dawn of enshittification:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels
--
My latest nonfiction book is the internationally bestselling "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," from MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/
16/

2026-06-09 13:56:39

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#10yrsago Samantha Bee interviews Frank Schaeffer, who helped create the religious right https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhLY0JqXP-s
#10yrsago Why defense attorneys aren’t cheering Brock Allan Turner’s wrist-slap https://web.archive.org/web/20160611024154/http://mimesislaw.com/fault-lines/brock-turner-the-sort-of-defendant-who-is-spared-severe-impact/10288
#10yrsago Password hashing demystified https://www.wired.com/2016/06/hacker-lexicon-password-hashing/
#5yrsago Google and France agree on ad-tech interop https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/08/leona-helmsley-was-a-pioneer/#monkeys-paw
#5yrsago Billionaires don't pay tax https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/08/leona-helmsley-was-a-pioneer/#eat-the-rich
#5yrsago Apple's manorial security https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/08/leona-helmsley-was-a-pioneer/#manorialism
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2026-06-09 13:56:06

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#10yrsago NSA dumps docs about its Snowden response, reveals that Snowden repeatedly raised alarms about spying https://web.archive.org/web/20160604213547/https://news.vice.com/article/edward-snowden-leaks-tried-to-tell-nsa-about-surveillance-concerns-exclusive
#10yrsago John Oliver buys and forgives $15M in medical debt, illustrates horrors of America’s debt-collectors https://web.archive.org/web/20160606234823/https://consumerist.com/2016/06/06/john-oliver-buys-15m-in-medical-debt-then-forgives-it/
#10yrsago David Byrne wants you to register to vote, and wants everyone else to, too https://web.archive.org/web/20160609060810/http://davidbyrne.com/were-better-than-this-vote
#10yrsago You are not a wallet: complaining considered helpful https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/07/its-your-duty-to-complain-thats-how-companies-improve
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2026-06-09 13:55:52

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#15yrago Roald Dahl: Jerk https://web.archive.org/web/20110602195454/http://thisrecording.com/today/2011/6/1/in-which-we-consider-the-macabre-unpleasantness-of-roald-dah.html
#15yrsago Rotting Gulliver’s Travels themepark in Japan https://web.archive.org/web/20110609235431/http://www.sleepycity.net/posts/40/Gullivers_Kingdom__Sea_of_Trees
#15yrsago Ticketed for being childless and eating doughnuts in a playground https://gothamist.com/food/two-women-ticketed-for-eating-doughnuts-in-a-brooklyn-playground
#15yrsago Internet Archive becomes archive of physical books, too https://blog.archive.org/2011/06/06/why-preserve-books-the-new-physical-archive-of-the-internet-archive/
#10yrsago Swedish traditional costume made from Ikea bags https://ikeahackers.net/2016/06/swedish-folk-costume-5-ikea-bags.html
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2026-06-09 13:55:24

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#15yrsago Guerrilla camper re-opens shuttered Michigan public campsite https://web.archive.org/web/20110609184456/http://www.miningjournal.net/page/content.detail/id/563100/Campground-closed-in-2009-illegally-reopened.html?nav=5006
#15yrsago Record industry lobby says it no longer supports 3-strikes copyright termination laws https://torrentfreak.com/recording-industry-steps-back-from-piracy-disconnections-110606/
#15yrsago Death threats for Aussie climate scientists https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/jun/06/australia-climate-scientists-death-threats
#15yrsago Wedding-dress made from life-saving parachute https://www.si.edu/collections/snapshot/parachute-wedding-dress
#15yrsago Level Up: Gene Yang’s comic about destiny, games, and filial piety https://memex.craphound.com/2011/06/06/level-up-gene-yangs-comic-about-destiny-games-and-filial-piety/
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2026-06-09 13:55:15

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#15yrsago Robopocalypse: rigorous, terrifying novel about a robotic campaign to exterminate humanity https://memex.craphound.com/2011/06/07/robopocalypse-rigorous-terrifying-novel-about-a-robotic-campaign-to-exterminate-humanity/
#15yrsago Using clickfraud on Google ads to amass shares of Google https://gwei.org/index.php
#15yrsago Comparative analysis of leaked Sony and Gawker passwords https://www.troyhunt.com/brief-sony-password-analysis/
#15yrsago China’s Politburo warns Google not to be “political” https://web.archive.org/web/20110610165205/http://www.transparencyrevolution.com/2011/06/china-warns-google-not-to-be-evil/
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2026-06-09 13:54:54

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#15yrsago Scot-free millionaire playboy’s lawyer was judge’s depute campaign treasurer https://web.archive.org/web/20110610123824/http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2011-06-06/news/fl-levin-sentence-mayocol-b060711-20110606_1_house-arrest-dui-manslaughter-case-kenneth-watkinson
#15yrsago Bubble-in forms betray individual, traceable “handwriting” https://web.archive.org/web/20110609164727/http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/wclarkso/new-research-result-bubble-forms-not-so-anonymous
#15yrsago Inbox Influence: plugin reveals corporate money behind the emails in your inbox https://web.archive.org/web/20110816105954/https://inbox.influenceexplorer.com/
#15yrsago Macedonia erupts after young man beaten to death by special police in public square https://web.archive.org/web/20110610132108/http://www.a1.com.mk/vesti/default.aspx?VestID=139049
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2026-06-09 13:54:30

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#15yrsago Richard Dreyfuss reads the iTunes EULA https://web.archive.org/web/20110611012317/http://www.cnet.com/8301-30976_1-20068778-10348864.html
#15yrsago Top universities a ‘breeding ground’ for Tories, warn Islamic groups https://newsthump.com/2011/06/07/top-universities-a-breeding-ground-for-tories-warn-islamic-groups/
#15yrsago 3-Way Street: visualization of the uneasy dance of pedestrians, bikes and cars at a busy intersection https://web.archive.org/web/20110610123449/http://blog.ronconcocacola.com/2011/06/02/nyc-goes-three-ways.aspx
#15yrsago Copyright extremist RIAA lawyer confirmed as America’s Solicitor General https://web.archive.org/web/20110610134934/http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/06/senate-confirms-verrilli/
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2026-06-09 13:54:15

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#20yrsago Recording industry: Search-by-artist is “too interactive” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5055744.stm
#20yrsago US branch of “Pirate Party” launches https://web.archive.org/web/20060613041144/http://www.pirate-party.us/
#20yrsago Pranksters give fake McDonald’s anti-global-warming presentation https://web.archive.org/web/20060614011522/http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=9621
#20yrsago Can. Heritage Minister’s election was funded by entertainment co’s https://web.archive.org/web/20060612224646/https://www.michaelgeist.ca/component/option,com_content/task,view/id,1289/Itemid,85/nsub,/
#20yrsago High-def DRM licenses cost $15k https://web.archive.org/web/20060612202129/https://www.theinquirer.net/?article=32273
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2026-06-09 13:53:59

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#20yrsago HOWTO turn a $60 Linksys router into a $600 super-router https://web.archive.org/web/20060610003137/http://assets.lifehacker.com/software/router/hack-attack-turn-your-60-router-into-a-600-router-178132.php
#20yrsago Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue: 1811 slang dictionary https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5402
#20yrsago Ex-RIAA head Hilary Rosen rethinks lawsuits and DRM https://web.archive.org/web/20060609030533/https://www.p2pnet.net/story/8979
#20yrsago Norwegian ombudsman says Apple’s iTunes DRM is illegal https://web.archive.org/web/20060611194556/http://forbrukerportalen.no/Artikler/2006/1149587055.44
#20yrsago Implanting a magnet in your fingertip adds a sixth sense https://web.archive.org/web/20060613072724/https://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71087-0.html?tw=rss.index
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2026-06-09 13:53:34

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Hey look at this
* The mayor of Shelbyville, Indiana, says only people who live in ‘shitty houses’ oppose data center https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/944984/shelbyville-indiana-mayor-shitty-houses-data-center
* Last Idea Factory https://starlogic.itch.io/last-idea-factory
* ‘Her silence was more powerful than words’: how I interviewed a Facebook whistleblower who wasn’t allowed to speak https://www.thenerve.news/p/carole-cadwalladr-sarah-wynn-williams-tim-wu-hay-festival-careless-people-gagging
* She won a religious exemption from using AI at work. The Pope's remarks could fuel similar appeals. https://www.businessinsider.com/worker-got-religious-exemption-using-ai-at-work-2026-6
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2026-06-09 13:52:55

Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Naomi Kritzer's "Obstetrix"; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/09/deliver-us/
#Pluralistic
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2026-06-09 13:47:30

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All told, this is a read-in-one-sitting thriller that does as much to illuminate the workings and dynamics of patriarchy and religion as any gender studies class. It's peak Kritzer (so far), and that's saying something.
eof/

2026-06-09 13:47:20

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It's a brilliant work of sociological speculation and the engine that drives it is a series of maneuvers and gambits whereby Dr Liz hopes to make her way to safety.
I won't spoil the end, except to say that it is exciting, satisfying, and has a sweet denouement that does real justice to the whole book.
11/

2026-06-09 13:47:03

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When she finally arrives at the cult's remote compound, frozen and isolated, she learns that she has been kidnapped because the fertility-obsessed cult needs an OB, especially since the daughter of the cult's founder, the "pastor," is carrying a high-risk pregnancy.
9/

2026-06-09 13:46:51

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She finds herself in a residence that the midwives work out of, and the nice woman there offers her a cup of tea. That's when the world fades to black, as the drugs in the tea take hold.
Liz sporadically regains consciousness in a van during a multi-day drive, and already she is thinking about her escape - even as she is becoming increasingly aware of how truly terrible her situation is.
8/

2026-06-09 13:46:30

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Then there's *Obstetrix*; it's got one of those admirably propulsive setups. Doctor Elizabeth Gwynn is an obstetrician who performed an abortion to save her patient's life, only to be dragged into the culture wars by North Dakota's crusading attorney general, who charged her with felony murder and offered to let her plead out if she would admit that she was wrong to do it, as an example to other OBs who might be tempted.
6/

2026-06-09 13:46:07

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In 2023, Kritzer published one of the most memorable YA novels I've read, *Liberty's Daughter*, which is set on a libertarian seastead and told from the point of view of the daughter of the cult's founder:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/21/podkaynes-dad-was-a-dick/#age-of-consent
4/

2026-06-09 13:45:50

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Then there's her incredibly prescient 2015 story "So Much Cooking," about people in lockdown during a pandemic. For obvious reasons, it enjoyed an revival in 2020, with Kritzer penning an excellent essay reflecting on what it means to have thought through the implications of a disaster that is now upon us:
https://reactormag.com/didnt-i-write-this-story-already-when-your-fictional-pandemic-becomes-reality/
3/

2026-06-09 13:45:37

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Kritzer is a master of building scenarios that require her characters to express and resolve a wide variety of complex and contradictory emotions. Her breakout novel, *Catfishing on the CatNet* is a charming and deceptively goofy story about an AI trained on the impeccable vibes in a really solid groupchat becoming sentient and demanding...cat pictures. This is the setup for a warm (but intense) novel of internet-mediated friendship and IRL mutual aid:
https://memex.craphound.com/2019/11/19/naomi-kritzers-catfishing-on-the-catnet-an-ai-caper-about-the-true-nature-of-online-friendship/
2/

2026-06-08 15:18:54

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@nprofile…86zm @nprofile…mzkl
I'm not sure why you would have that worry, given that I have written extensively (including in that article) that worker-driven automation generally favors quality and that running local models is fine, and I have an entire book coming out in 2 weeks that unpacks this.

2026-06-08 01:53:26

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@nprofile…lutl https://drive.google.com/file/d/13q5hqw-ukajcoehDGreT7qEgFAn0tG40/view?usp=drivesdk

2026-06-06 18:23:02

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I'm also on Bluesky. Read today's thread there at:
https://bsky.app/profile/did:web:pluralistic.net/post/3mnnb27bajk2z
eof/

2026-06-06 18:22:53

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You can follow these posts as a daily blog at pluralistic.net: no ads, trackers, or data-collection!
Here's today's edition: https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/06/applied-counterescatology/
--
If you prefer a newsletter, subscribe to the plura-list, which is ad-/tracker-free, and is utterly unadorned save a single daily emoji. Today's is "🫕". Suggestions solicited for future emojis!
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You can also get a fulltext RSS feed, licensed CC BY 4.0:
https://pluralistic.net/feed/
12/

2026-06-06 18:22:07

- reply

Upcoming appearances:
* Kansas City: Facing the Future (Woodneath Library Center), Jun 10
https://www.mymcpl.org/events/119655/facing-future-cory-doctorow
* LA: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Brian Merchant (Skylight Books), Jun 19
https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-cory-doctorow-presents-reverse-centaurs-guide-life-after-ai-w-brian-merchant
11/
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2026-06-06 18:21:57

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Upcoming appearances (cont'd):
* #Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17
https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales
* #SouthBend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6
https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/
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2026-06-06 18:21:48

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Upcoming appearances (cont'd):
* #NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24
https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html
* #Philadelphia: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with David Williams (Fitler Club/Philadelphia Citizen), Jun 25
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-event-tickets-1990110326559
* #Chicago: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Rick Perlstein (Exile in Bookville), Jun 26
https://exileinbookville.com/events/50628
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2026-06-06 18:21:39

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Upcoming appearances:
* #KansasCity: Facing the Future (Woodneath Library Center), Jun 10
https://www.mymcpl.org/events/119655/facing-future-cory-doctorow
* #LA: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Brian Merchant (Skylight Books), Jun 19
https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-cory-doctorow-presents-reverse-centaurs-guide-life-after-ai-w-brian-merchant
* #MenloPark: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Angie Coiro (Kepler's), Jun 21
https://www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/cory-doctorow-2026
* #Toronto: TBA, Jun 23
8/
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2026-06-06 18:21:29

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My ebooks and audiobooks (from FSGxMCD, Tor Books, Head of Zeus, McSweeneys, Beacon, Verso and others) 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."
https://craphound.com/shop/
7/
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2026-06-06 18:20:24

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2026-06-06 18:20:11

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Yesterday's threads: Refining humanity; and more!
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/116699624212183349
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2026-06-06 18:20:03

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#15yrsago School suspends student for refusing to remove personal animation from YouTube, threatens other students for petitioning on his behalf https://web.archive.org/web/20110603041200/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/student-cites-freedom-of-speech-after-suspension-for-online-videos/article2043954/
#5yrsago Recommendation engines and "lean-back" media https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/05/lean-back/#lean-forward
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2026-06-06 18:19:52

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#20yrsago UK Parliament report damns DRM, calls for limits https://web.archive.org/web/20060615115510/http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2006/06/05/launch-of-the-apig-report-on-drm/
#20yrsago Colbert’s Knox College commencement speech https://web.archive.org/web/20111228135413/http://departments.knox.edu/newsarchive/news_events/2006/x12547.html
#15yrsago Counterfeiting can be good for luxury goods sales https://web.archive.org/web/20110602061646/http://www.slate.com/id/2294927/
#15yrsago HOWTO make a Joule Thief and get all the power you’ve paid for https://www.instructables.com/Make-a-Joule-Thief/
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2026-06-06 18:18:54

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Hey look at this
* What happens when your phone is confiscated at the airport https://www.theverge.com/report/944076/cbp-airport-phone-searches-seizure-minneapolis-activists
* A Billionaire Explains Why American Business Now Feels like the Mafia https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/a-billionaire-explains-why-american
* These Republican Lawmakers Challenged Abortion Bans. Then They Faced Backlash. https://www.propublica.org/article/republicans-face-backlash-after-challenging-abortion-bans
* Debbie Downer https://prospect.org/2026/06/05/debbie-downer-wasserman-schultz-florida-house-races/
* Mechanical Pencil https://mechanical-pencil.com/
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2026-06-06 18:18:19

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Criticizing the everything machine: It slices, it dices, it even makes paperclips!
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/116704473959458210
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2026-06-06 18:17:22

Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Criticizing the everything machine; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/06/applied-counterescatology/
#Pluralistic
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2026-06-06 18:07:28

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But it occurred to me that this whole enterprise of making sense of AI needs to be framed in the context of the messiness of AI itself, and AI boosters' overwhelming, promiscuous and disjointed Gish Gallop.
eof/

2026-06-06 18:07:23

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Now that I'm about to go out on the road with the book, I find myself frustrated anew by the need to try and pull together a compact way to address the broad, incoherent claims the industry uses to keep its bubble inflated and the money furnaces roaring. The series of essays I've developed here on Pluralistic are part of that effort:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/27/unnecessariat/#rubbuts-stole-my-jerb
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2026-06-06 18:07:17

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My next book (out later this month) is *The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI*. I wrote it because I was frustrated by other people demanding that I talk to them about AI, and then handing me 800 words or 13 minutes to address fifty nebulous, poorly supported claims about AI:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374621568/thereversecentaursguidetolifeafterai/
Shortly after writing it, I turned it into a lecture:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/12/05/pop-that-bubble/#u-washington
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2026-06-06 18:07:09

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Likewise, it may be that the amount of CO2 that AI will generate atmosphere before it "solves climate change" will render Earth permanently unfit for humans, consuming the only habitable planet capable of sustaining human life in the known universe. I mean, I suppose that's one way to "solve" climate change, but it's a pretty drastic solution.
16/

2026-06-06 18:07:00

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Unless there's some way to estimate how much money we have to give to AI companies before they cure cancer, we should at least consider the possibility that the true sum is "more money than exists now and that will ever exist." We should also consider that whatever benefits to cancer research that AI might deliver could come with a higher price-tag than the promising cancer research we're dropping because we can't find far more modest sums.
15/

2026-06-06 18:06:52

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Like, even if you think there are limitless returns to scale for creating new AI capabilities, which means that if we keep the money-furnace burning it's only a matter of time until it powers a cure for cancer and the end of the climate emergency, *how much* money do we need to shovel into the furnace before that happens, and where will it come from? There are plenty of cancer researchers who have promising approaches they haven't been able to pursue due to funding shortfalls.
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2026-06-06 18:06:40

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When we fight about data-center buildout, we mostly talk about the (considerable) environmental downsides to them - but what about the question of what we will do with these data-centers after their owners go bankrupt, possibly even before they can be provisioned with electricity? How many laser-tag arenas do we actually need?
This is just one example of the questions that you could spend *days* unpacking, which make many of the other questions about AI a little silly.
13/

2026-06-06 18:06:30

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So before we ask about the capabilities AI will acquire in the future, we should at least give some consideration to the question of whether anyone will be willing to fund the development of those capabilities, and if so, where the money would come from? Likewise, before we ask whether AI can perform adequately in a job, we should at least consider the possibility that the company that sells that AI tool will be bankrupt in a year or two.
12/

2026-06-06 18:06:20

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AI is a money-furnace, and AI hustlers are clearly on the hunt for a way to force all of us to feed every dime we've got to it. Elon Musk's (now scuttled) gambit to make every pension saver in America bail out Grok (and Twitter, but at a mere $44b, the losses from Twitter are dwarfed by the titanic losses from Grok) was the most ambitious and shameless population-scale bag-holder scheme, but it's not the only one:
https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/sp-global-keeps-fast-entry-proposal-unchanged-spacex-listing-looms-2026-06-04/
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2026-06-06 18:06:12

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Now, it shouldn't fall to me, a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, to point out that capitalist enterprises require profits to be sustainable. You can't keep a business afloat by selling $100 bills for $5, nor for $20. You can't even make a profit selling $100 bills for $100 apiece! For a company to succeed, it needs to take in more than it expends.
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2026-06-06 18:05:16

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AI's happiest customers cite cost-benefits that depend on unimaginable subsidies from AI companies, who are basically selling $100 bills for $5 apiece. It would be pretty amazing if you couldn't find people who'd extol the virtues of this arrangement. But when AI companies try to raise the price of those $100 bills to, say, $20 apiece, those ecstatic customers fly into a rage and start loudly proclaiming that AI is so inefficient that they will lose money on this arrangement:
9/

2026-06-06 18:04:53

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What do you say to that? I usually start by talking about whether there's any economic basis for keeping the AI servers running. AI is - by far - the money-losingest venture in human history, and it's practically impossible to overstate just how *bad* the AI business is. Not only does AI have terrible unit economics, those unit economics are getting *worse* over time:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/26/the-ai-will-continue/#until-morale-improves
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2026-06-06 18:04:45

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Or sometimes it's an AI critic, but that person's criticism is really more "criti-hype," which is when you accept tech industry hype claims at face value, and then criticize them rather than questioning them:
https://peoples-things.ghost.io/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype/
AI criti-hype might ask what we'll do once AI takes all our jobs, or what we'll do when AI replaces the government or teachers or doctors, or what we'll do when AI can bypass our critical faculties and brainwash us or drive us all mad.
7/

2026-06-06 18:04:35

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I keep finding myself on stages or panels where an AI-struck person says something like, "AI is the next industrial revolution. It will change everything we do. It will let anyone create important works of art. It will cure cancer. It will take us to space. It will solve the climate crisis."
6/

2026-06-06 18:04:24

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Shortly after I did the radio show, a newspaper editor who'd heard my segment got in touch to ask me if I'd write an 800-word op-ed about the subject, and also, could I address claims that "AI is the next Industrial Revolution?"
In 800 words:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06/04/ai-is-the-greatest-money-wasting-scheme-humanity-has-ever-i/
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2026-06-06 18:04:08

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"Oh," the producer said, "all of that."
In 13 minutes.
You see the problem, right? The AI industry has made so many claims about its past, present and future that it's almost impossible to have a reasonable critical conversation about it:
https://bsky.app/profile/petermiles.eurosky.social/post/3mnffjqczjs2t
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2026-06-06 18:03:56

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Was it that workers deserved more of a say in AI's impact on labor markets? Was it that customers and/or audiences should be able to opt out of AI customer service and AI slop? Was it about whether we needed some kind of system to prevent "runaway AI," in the event that we teach so many words to the word-guessing program that it wakes up, becomes God, and turns us all into paperclips?
3/

2026-06-06 18:03:43

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Here's a recent example: last week, I had a pre-interview call with a radio producer who wanted me to come on a 13-minute segment to discusses "whether there's a problem with AI governance?"
I asked what the show meant by that: was it whether regulation of AI in commercial or public sector decision-making needed more oversight? Was it that the siting and provisioning of data-centers needed more democratic accountability?
2/

2026-06-06 18:02:30

"Gish Gallop" is a debating term for an opponent who makes so many claims that "it's impossible to address them in the time available" (it's named for Creationist Duane Gish, who was notorious for this tactic):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop
I think about Gish Gallops whenever I'm asked to comment on AI.
-
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:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/06/applied-counterescatology/#step-right-up
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2026-06-05 21:33:17

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I'm also on Bluesky. Read today's thread there at:
eof/

2026-06-05 21:33:05

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You can follow these posts as a daily blog at pluralistic.net: no ads, trackers, or data-collection!
Here's today's edition: https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/05/defining-humanity/
--
If you prefer a newsletter, subscribe to the plura-list, which is ad-/tracker-free, and is utterly unadorned save a single daily emoji. Today's is "🎢". Suggestions solicited for future emojis!
--
You can also get a fulltext RSS feed, licensed CC BY 4.0:
https://pluralistic.net/feed/
12/

2026-06-05 21:32:54

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Recent appearances
* Cory Doctorow's digital jail-break (DW In Focus)
https://www.dw.com/en/cory-doctorows-digital-jail-break/audio-77414035
* Why the Internet Got Worse and What to Do About It (Jim Rutt) (RIP)
https://www.jimruttshow.com/cory-doctorow-3/
* On Enshittification – and what can be done about it (Re:publica)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhINQgPMVSI
* EFFecting Change: How to Disenshittify the Internet (EFF, with Wendy Liu)
https://archive.org/details/effecting-change-enshittification
* The “Enshittification” of Everything (Bioneers)
https://bioneers.org/cory-doctorow-enshittification-of-everything-zstf2605/
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2026-06-05 21:32:40

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2026-06-05 21:32:33

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Upcoming appearances (cont'd):
* #NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24
https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html
* #Philadelphia: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with David Williams (Fitler Club/Philadelphia Citizen), Jun 25
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-event-tickets-1990110326559
* #Chicago: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Rick Perlstein (Exile in Bookville), Jun 26
https://exileinbookville.com/events/50628
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2026-06-05 21:32:20

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Upcoming appearances:
* #KansasCity: Facing the Future (Woodneath Library Center), Jun 10
https://www.mymcpl.org/events/119655/facing-future-cory-doctorow
* #LA: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Brian Merchant (Skylight Books), Jun 19
https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-cory-doctorow-presents-reverse-centaurs-guide-life-after-ai-w-brian-merchant
* #MenloPark: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Angie Coiro (Kepler's), Jun 21
https://www.keplers.org/upcoming-events-internal/cory-doctorow-2026
* #Toronto: TBA, Jun 23
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2026-06-05 21:32:10

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My ebooks and audiobooks (from FSGxMCD, Tor Books, Head of Zeus, McSweeneys, Beacon, Verso and others) 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."
https://craphound.com/shop/
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2026-06-05 21:31:52

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2026-06-05 21:31:41

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Yesterday's threads: Delusion as a service; and more!
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/116690594764813851
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2026-06-05 21:31:23

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#20yrsago GNU Radio: the universal, software-defined radio https://web.archive.org/web/20060613062355/https://www.wired.com/news/technology/1,70933-0.html
#15yrsago France bans “follow us on Twitter” from newscasts https://web.archive.org/web/20110606035424/http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/france-bans-facebook-and-twitter-from-radio-and-tv/1559
#5yrsago Aaron Swartz, vindicated https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/04/aaronsw/#cfaa
#5yrsago Capitalism's crooked refs https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/04/aaronsw/#crooked-ref
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2026-06-05 21:30:29

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Hey look at this
* EU plots long game against US digital supremacy https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-plots-long-game-against-us-digital-supremacy/
* Open World Map: Digital Sovereignty for Game Creators https://luma.com/8nvmyatm
* Enshittifier — replace AI with 💩 https://enshittifier.wells.ee/
* AI is the greatest money-wasting scheme humanity has ever invented https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06/04/ai-is-the-greatest-money-wasting-scheme-humanity-has-ever-i/?WT.mc_id=tmgoff_tw_post_scheme-humanity-has-ever-i/
* Enshittification, Despotification, and the Open Internet https://www.liberalism.org/p/enshittification-despotification-and-the-open-internet
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2026-06-05 21:29:48

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Refining humanity: What our technology is shows us what we're not.
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/116699476681224040
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2026-06-05 21:29:09

Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Refining humanity; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/05/defining-humanity/
#Pluralistic
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2026-06-05 21:00:52

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That relieves us of a useful but difficult chore - but in so doing, it forces us (yet again!) to revisit what sorts of things are needed to do the things that matter to us, and therefore, what makes us special.
eof/

2026-06-05 21:00:47

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But art isn't the only realm that we apply creativity to. There are plenty of outcomes that we've always believed we couldn't bring about without applying creativity. AI - like all software - is making us realize that an ingredient we once deemed uniquely essential turns out to have substitutes. AI can sometimes accomplish things without us explaining how we do them.
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2026-06-05 21:00:37

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Just as bosses fantasize about AI bringing about a worksite without workers, and Zuckerberg is trying to build social media without socializing, and politicians want a bureaucracy without bureaucrats, we can sometimes use AI to produce creative outcomes without creativity:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/27/unnecessariat/#rubbuts-stole-my-jerb
That isn't to say that AI art is any good. AI may produce things that are aesthetically interesting, but it can't produce things that *mean* anything:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/06/02/must-we-pretend/
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2026-06-05 21:00:30

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The machines aren't being creative (any more than a submarine is swimming) but they're outputting things that we used to only achieve by means of creativity.
An AI that does something that used to require creativity is fulfilling my favorite of Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's Oblique Strategies: "Be the first person to not do something that no one else has not done before":
https://stoney.sb.org/eno/oblique.html
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2026-06-05 21:00:19

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Our own creativity is still delightful and important, but the fact that this squishy, amazing process can (sometimes) be replicated by procedural machines changes the definition of living things. We're "a thing that can produce creative outcomes" but not "*the* things that can produce creative outcomes."
38/

2026-06-05 21:00:09

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That's probably fine: we didn't create computers to make us introspect, we created them to do useful work for us. All things considered, it might be better to have genies who grant our wishes according to the spirit of our words, not their letter.
AI may not force us to render our implicit thoughts as explicit instructions, but it absolutely forces us to reconsider and narrow the realm of the numinous.
37/

2026-06-05 21:00:00

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The more pictures we fed to that program, the better it got at identifying cats. Today, we have programs that can reliably distinguish an image of a cat from an image of a tiger cub!
This represents a major breakthrough in the power of computers to perform useful work for us, but it's also a huge regression in computers' role in forcing us to make our tacit thought processes explicit through systematic introspection.
36/

2026-06-05 20:59:50

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Deep learning techniques solved this previous insoluble problem by relieving us of the job of making explicit all the implicit factors that we deploy when distinguishing an image of a "cat" from an image of a "dog" or a "tiger" (or a "tractor").
Instead of forcing humans to engage in introspection until we'd made a list of every factor identifying cat pictures, we simply identified pictures of cats and fed them to a program that tried to find the commonalities among them.
35/

2026-06-05 20:59:24

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One way in which AI is exceptional is in how it undermines this principle. Conventional software techniques struggled to produce a program that could identify objects in photographs. It turns out that defining all the visual correlates of "cat" is even harder than defining the letter "A."
34/

2026-06-05 20:59:08

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By the same token, creating machines that can do some of the tasks that we ask of other humans can be the superior moral course. I'd rather have a machine remove mines from a minefield than getting humans to do it.
But beyond this moral relief, creating machines is a fantastic way to learn more about ourselves - making explicit our tacit knowledge, our implicit social assumptions, and the limitations of our conception of what sets us apart from the rest of the universe.
33/

2026-06-05 20:58:58

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Building machines that propel themselves through water is very useful, but it's not the same thing as creating life. In some ways, it's *better* than creating life: for one thing, we owe other living things moral consideration that is not due to machines. Harnessing a machine to accomplish our own goals is more morally clear than controlling living things to achieve those goals.
32/

2026-06-05 20:58:41

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Edsger Dijkstra once famously asked "can a submarine swim?"
https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD08xx/EWD898.html
Submarines and fish and humans and dolphins all propel themselves through water by different means. But when an animal swims, it does something that is different from what a submarine does. The submarine has no intention, while (complex multicellular) animals swim to pursue goals.
31/

2026-06-05 20:58:30

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Likewise, if we thought that some activity was unique to humans, or to living beings, and we manage to get a machine to replicate that activity, we should revise our view of the activity - not our view of the machine. Creative breakthroughs in chess are not "a thing that requires a human mind," they're "things that can be done by human minds *and* by machines."
30/

2026-06-05 20:58:22

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When those animals manage to do things that we once thought were the exclusive province of humans, we (should) take that as an opportunity to refine our conception of humanity. We're not "the animals that use tools" or "the animals that make plans" or "the animals that recognize themselves in mirrors," because there are other animals that do those things. We are *an* "animal that uses tools"; not *the* animal that does so.
29/

2026-06-05 20:58:14

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We should absolutely consider expanding personhood to incorporate living things, including animals and ecosystems, but at the same time, we *must* purge these dead, artificial constructs from the club:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/15/artificial-lifeforms/#moral-consideration
There *is* a way in which the recognition of new capabilities in machines parallels the recognition of new capabilities in animals other than ourselves.
28/

2026-06-05 20:58:03

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For all the reasons Chiang articulates, I think that drawing the "personhood" line to include machines is a *technical* mistake, but it's worse than that. Admitting machines to the "personhood" club is a *tactical* mistake, on par with the mistake we made when we admitted *corporations* to the personhood club.
27/

2026-06-05 20:57:51

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I think this is the wrong conclusion to draw, for reasons that Ted Chiang sets out with luminous brilliance in a recent *Atlantic* article entitled "No, Artificial Intelligence Is Not Conscious":
https://www.theatlantic.com/philosophy/2026/06/no-artificial-intelligence-is-not-conscious/687378/
(If you're hitting the paywall on that one and you're on Firefox, you can try my favorite trick: switch to "Reader Mode" and hit "reload" - your mileage may vary.)
26/

2026-06-05 20:57:41

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For others, the fact that a mechanical system can evince a behavior that we would call "creative" in a human doesn't mean that we defined "creativity" too broadly, it means that we defined "human" too narrowly, and now we have made a machine that is, at least partially, a person.
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2026-06-05 20:57:28

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What we make of this new fact is controversial. For many people (myself included), this is a refinement: it tells me that behaviors that are indistinguishable from "creativity" can, at least some of the time, be created by mechanical processes, and the mere fact that a machine does something that appears "creative" doesn't mean that machines are human.
24/

2026-06-05 20:57:18

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But thanks to breakthroughs in machine learning and its successor, "deep learning," we have created chess-playing software that can beat every human, partly by assaying gambits that we would term "creative" if they originated with a human player.
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2026-06-05 20:57:07

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The best human chess players do something we don't quite understand, mixing their recollections of previous games with rules-of-thumb about the best strategies, with "creativity" (whatever that is) that lets them spontaneously develop *new* strategies. We can easily get a computer to memorize all the known-good chess sequences and all the rules of thumb, but we don't know what "creativity" is, so we can't encode it as a series of instructions.
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2026-06-05 20:56:54

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Computers don't just clarify what we know and how we organize our society: they also clarify what we *are*. There are lots of things that we have supposed that a computer would never do, because we believed that these things required something that only humans could do.
Take chess: there are more possible chess games than there are hydrogen atoms in the universe, so brute-forcing chess by running all possible games is a technological impossibility.
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2026-06-05 20:56:45

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In this way, computers are machines for teaching us what we don't know about ourselves. They require that we interrogate and faithfully recreate our personal tacit knowledge, and they require that our *societies* interrogate their tacit presumptions as well. When you are forced to turn your tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge, you're also forced to confront how many broken assumptions lurk inside your reasoning. At best, it's a clarifying process.
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