Lizzy Tomei

Writer and editor, now @UCDavis. Previously did journalism, et cetera @TheWorld, @GlobalPost, @CambodiaDaily, @SFPublicPress, @ColumbiaJIA and elsewhere.

[Lizzy Tomei @ltomei]

THRILLED to see @mpetitchou get her Pulitzer flowers for the second year IN A ROW!!!

[Sophie Chou @mpetitchou]

So proud to be a @PulitzerPrizes winner along with my good friends Haru & @GinnyMonk. We all worked on this data together!

[John Ganz @lionel_trolling]

"On my first day, I received secretive orders to teach new cadets to violate the Constitution."

[Jacob Shell @JacobAShell]

The real problem I'm seeing with AI is that it completely wipes out the incentive model for people to record and distribute their discoveries.  Why "publicize" a new discovery, if AI is just going to steal the knowledge and tell users all about it without any compensation going to you?  Of course it makes more sense to keep any new discovery you achieve a secret, and to sell your secret to a buyer of secrets.

So, after a certain date (now), the "training data" AI is using will become totally brittle and hollow, because all new discoveries after that date will be kept secret both from AI and from the public. AI will only know slop and will tell the public the slop which is the only thing it knows.  We'll return to a more medieval, pre-Enlightenment situation where discoverers sell their knowledge secretly and nobody--least of all AI--really knows the grand sum total of what's known.

So...you can describe the problem just by talking about normal human incentives, people's desire to be compensated. There's no need to call AI a "demon" or whatever.

[Teddy Schleifer @teddyschleifer]

NEWS:

Meta is about to start a $65 million midterms push — its biggest political effort in its 20 years in business.

Meta is standing up two super PACs that this week will drop money in races in Texas and Illinois to push A.I.

Exclusive w/ @matt_zdun.

https://t.co/xWPDFwmjsr

[Karen Hao @_KarenHao]

Ben Goertzel, popularizer of the term AGI and creator of the Sophia robot, congratulating Jeffrey Epstein the day after Epstein was released from prison.

Goertzel is mentioned in the files nearly 800 times, including well after the Miami Herald investigation in 2018.

[Ben Reiff @bentreyf]

Last year, @Microsoft revoked the Israeli army’s access to AI & cloud tools after we revealed it was using them to store masses of surveillance data on Palestinians.

Now, we can reveal that Microsoft is providing similar tools at scale to @ICEgov.

https://t.co/GXSdDr3dWm

[Reuters @Reuters]

Millions of files related to Jeffrey Epstein suggest the existence of a 'global criminal enterprise' that carried out acts meeting the legal threshold of crimes against humanity, a panel of independent experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council says https://t.co/b9cmtOW3wd

[Virginia Hughes @virginiahughes]

The Epstein Files have allowed anyone with an internet browser to become an investigative journalist. And because it’s such a massive trove, you could very well come across something no one else has! You can share info securely with the NYT here: https://t.co/jijtiowPKx

[Nieman Lab @NiemanLab]

Built in-house and known internally as the “Manosphere Report,” the New York Times tool uses LLMs to transcribe and summarize new episodes of dozens of podcasts.

https://t.co/9mMN7P0PKg

[Ben Mullin @BenMullin]

NEW: “CBS Evening News” producer Alicia Hastey sends a bombshell farewell note:

Stories are “evaluated not just on their journalistic merit but on whether they conform to a shifting set of ideological expectations.”

[julie k. brown @jkbjournalist]

A reminder that this was my entire investigation — 8 years ago. All this — and more — was reported in the Miami Herald series in 2018.

[MIT Technology Review @techreview]

A “QuitGPT” campaign is urging people to cancel their ChatGPT subscriptions https://t.co/sKaB9U1nyX

[EFF @EFF]

Ring has announced a new “Search Party” feature that could eventually bring mass biometric surveillance to our streets. It’s on by default. Shut it off.
https://t.co/8uvvLijZ3m

[Washington Post Guild @PostGuild]

Will Lewis’s exit is long overdue. His legacy will be the attempted destruction of a great American journalism institution. But it's not too late to save The Post. Jeff Bezos must immediately rescind these layoffs or sell the paper to someone willing to invest in its future.

[Lizzy Tomei @ltomei]

“Staff members were told that anyone wanting to see older posts will have to file a Freedom of Information Act request”

[stephen fowler @stphnfwlr]

NPR EXCLUSIVE - the State Department is directing employees to archive + delete all X posts on official accounts from before President Trump returned to office in 2025.

More:

https://t.co/10XJdBao5v

[Lizzy Tomei @ltomei]

We need more of this. Gen AI writing creates a massive problem of SOURCE verification. It combines facts, fictions and hallucinations in ways that even the technology can’t document for us. This is so far beyond the problems of simple content aggregation

[Nieman Lab @NiemanLab]

A new bill in New York would require disclaimers on AI-generated news content

https://t.co/iLAPV6Licg

[Cate Brown @catebrown12]

SCOOP: The NSA detected a phone call between foreign intelligence and a person close to Trump last spring.

Whistleblower says that @DNIGabbard blocked agency from sharing report and delivered it to White House chief of staff.
https://t.co/BxXkQJoNqL

[Nitasha Tiku @nitashatiku]

My story on Elon Musk cutting safeguards at xAI is on the front page of today's @washingtonpost. I’m also among 100’s of reporters laid off. I absolutely love(d) my job, my brilliant coworkers & the thrill of reporting at the center of forces upending the world: AI & Silicon Valley’s political power

[Katharine Houreld @khoureld]

To those kind, strong, determined, courageous people I interviewed or worked with over the years: you will always inspire me.
To every stranger who helped: thank you.
To the arms dealers, liars, thieves, killers of children: I’m keeping my files.

See you all on the other side.

[Rebecca Tan @rebtanhs]

Among hundreds laid off from The Washington Post yesterday were dozens of international employees not eligible for protection under the Guild and being axed under less favorable terms, w/ massive logistical challenges ahead.

Please help support them:

https://t.co/6mtDC8u6Sn