Sunday, July 12, 2026

ESPN's AI vision overlay for the World Series of Poker predicts when payers are bluffing (AI roundup)







For $7 an hour, virtual assistants in the Philippines are using AI to write LinkedIn posts and comments on behalf of Western executives, fueling a "thought leadership" content mill https://restofworld.org/2026/virtual-assistant-linkedin-engagement/?utm_campaign=row-social

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— Rest of World (@restofworld.org) July 10, 2026 at 10:38 AM
(In a statement to Rest of World, LinkedIn said the platform is clamping down on “low quality, automated or generic” content...In March, the platform rolled out an AI system to weed out “engagement bait.”)







("spends about $400 million a year on software")







Waymo car delivers misbehaving teen passengers to San Mateo police

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— Chicago Tribune (@chicagotribune.com) July 7, 2026 at 10:03 PM


well, fuck, it happened. 12 years ago I was excited about self-driving cars and a friend of mine said "you know they'll just drive people to jail, right?" So I wrote a story called One Star and sold it to Vice. www.vice.com/en/article/o...

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— Margaret Killjoy (@margaret.bsky.social) July 8, 2026 at 6:18 AM
(“Obviously it’s a water gun or toy gun. It’s not illegal to carry, but depending on shooting from a moving vehicle, there’s some of that that can come into play.”)







"Thank God our kids weren’t with us. I’m not sure if I would’ve been able to react as calmly." Just published the absolute craziest story of my entire career. www.thedrive.com/news/how-flo...

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— Joel Feder (@joelfeder.bsky.social) July 8, 2026 at 7:44 AM
















I'm been wondering if it would come to this and apparently it has. huge move from cloudflare, which hosts a fifth of all websites on earth.

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— Rachel Holliday Smith (@rachelholliday.bsky.social) July 9, 2026 at 12:13 PM








“The arrival of GLM-5.2 poses a business dilemma for Silicon Valley—and possibly a national-security dilemma for the country as a whole.” @matteowong.bsky.social on the uncomfortable reality of a relatively low-cost competitor to Claude Code et al.

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— Damon Beres (@damonberes.com) July 7, 2026 at 1:07 PM








www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

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— Jacob T. Levy (@jacobtlevy.bsky.social) July 8, 2026 at 4:34 AM
(The failure rate even after he warned the students and so many dropped out might hint at his skill as a teacher)







Here’s the part we all want to know which is behind the paywall. You’re welcome.

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— Zach Hazard Vaupen (@emo-sludge.com) July 7, 2026 at 6:57 PM




















I think the Tilly Norwood story is a good example of how broken media is. No one actually believes it’s popular—but it is rage bait, and if you’re a social person whose performance is based on all-in engagement numbers…why not push it. It’s more cynical than credulous.

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— Mina Kimes (@minakimes.bsky.social) July 6, 2026 at 11:11 AM

154k “followers” and 294 likes. Everyone involved knows it’s super fake!

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— Mina Kimes (@minakimes.bsky.social) July 6, 2026 at 11:14 AM








AI fraud nearly derailed our next anthology. Today we’re talking about what went down, the things we missed, and publishing the report we wish we’d had when it happened. Read all about it on our new blog, and download the full report:

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— Bona Books 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🤘🏼 (@bonabooks.bsky.social) July 7, 2026 at 9:59 AM
("One chosen story was a steampunk, anti-colonial fantasy...The author was an emerging Nigerian writer")







Not liking the thing where gmail will put spammy ai emails into my spam folder (correct) but then add the meeting invites attached to them straight onto my calendar??? (incorrect)

— Sam Barlow 🔥 (@mrsambarlow.bsky.social) July 10, 2026 at 11:22 AM

There was obviously a lot going on in the ESPN Sean Payton piece yesterday, but this is what I've thought about the most since reading it www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/...

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— Dan Pizzuta (@danpizzuta.bsky.social) July 8, 2026 at 7:28 AM








"They just want to turn it off." A fascinating story of the librarians who have started teaching classes showing people how to remove AI "features" from their phones and apps. www.bangordailynews.com/2026/07/02/m...

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— Tim Ellis 🍁 (@djdynamic.ca) July 7, 2026 at 5:31 PM