Archive for November 2025

Like previous government shutdowns, the one that ended this week didn’t halt federal agencies’ work across the board. Some things were paused; others kept chugging along.

By now you’re probably familiar with the long list of sins the tech industry is committing with the machine learning models it insists on calling “Artificial Intelligence.” These tools regularly hallucinate made-up nonsense, plagiarize peoples’ art, pollute the internet with disinformation and low-quality content-slop, use multiple cities worth of electricity, consume a preposterous amount of fresh water, and have also started to induce novel forms of psychosis in the people who use them. But beyond all this, perhaps the most maddening aspect of the AI trend is that it’s being forced on us.

A north London council has brought in new social care leadership after it was revealed more than 1,000 emails had been left unread. Haringey Council received a safeguarding complaint from the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman in October. An investigation found about 1,100 emails were left unopened in the council’s social work inbox between 2019 and 2023, including 500 police reports.

As Europe races to digitalise its social protection systems, the promise of efficiency collides with the reality of exclusion—creating a paradox where the most vulnerable risk being left furthest behind.

In the wake of the USAID funding cut announcements in January 2025, confusion reigned. Although some programmes were later told they could resume limited activities, the dismantled infrastructure – ending leases, firing staff and stopping essential care – had already destroyed the system. This instability also breached work contracts, causing legal problems for employers and distress for employees. The cuts raised serious ethical concerns by demanding the end of some clinical trials without concern for the proper medical procedures for stopping patient treatment.

At the Ypsilanti city council meeting where Pedri spoke, the town voted to officially fight against the construction of the data center. The University of Michigan says the project is not a data center, but a “high-performance computing facility” and it promises it won’t be used to “manufacture nuclear weapons.” The distinction and assertion are ringing hollow for Ypsilanti residents who oppose construction of the data center, have questions about what it would mean for the environment and the power grid, and want to know why a nuclear weapons lab 24 hours away by car wants to build an AI facility in their small town.