[nonostantement #411] - gramsci vs ai / librarians vs ai / airlines vs ai

Now with MORE people against ai!

Welcome to nonostantement: a weekly newsletter with malleable, stiff, and moderate stuff found all over the Internet.

Hi, I’m Joele. I work with companies doing all sorts of things on the internet, which means I spend a lot of time online. And when you spend that much time online, you end up stumbling upon all kinds of stuff. Over the years, I found myself constantly wanting to share the best of it with friends. That’s why I started this newsletter.

Some music for you: L’Antidote - Pomegranate and Skjold - Selva

🇮🇹 Italian version (poorly translated by Google)

👉 The nonostantement archive - everything I sent in the past 7 years

🎵 #music on nonostantement - spotify playlist

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Raymond Depardon Glasgow. Scotland. 1980

#PEOPLE

• Gramsci’s Nightmare: AI, Platform Power and the Automation of Cultural Hegemony
  Large language models lock values into place, making it hard to challenge the cultural hegemony of a particular form of western culture

• Librarians Are Tired of Being Accused of Hiding Secret Books That Were Made Up by AI
  AI chatbots are generating fake titles that people insist are real.

• Meta tolerates rampant ad fraud from China to safeguard billions in revenue
  A Reuters investigation reveals the owner of Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp decided to accept high levels of fraudulent advertisements from China. Internal company documents show Meta wanted to minimize “revenue impact” caused by cracking down on the scams.

• Don’t hold back, swearing can boost performance by lowering inhibitions, study finds
  Study finds dropping an expletive can raise confidence and help people push harder during physically demanding tasks

#TECH

• British Airways fears a future where AI agents pick flights and brands get ghosted
  CEO warns airlines that don’t learn to sell themselves to machines could soon be flying under the radar

• Physicists prove the Universe isn’t a simulation after all
  New research from UBC Okanagan mathematically demonstrates that the universe cannot be simulated. Using Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, scientists found that reality requires “non-algorithmic understanding,” something no computation can replicate. This discovery challenges the simulation hypothesis and reveals that the universe’s foundations exist beyond any algorithmic system.

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#THEDARKSIDE

• The RSS Project - Mapping the Largest Far-Right Network in the World
  This project arises from, and seeks to correct, a long-standing fuzziness around the organisational architecture of the Hindu far-right. The RSS formally acknowledges only about three dozen affiliates, even though it is widely understood to coordinate a sprawling network.

• PornHub extorted after hackers steal Premium member activity data
  Adult video platform PornHub is being extorted by the ShinyHunters extortion gang after the search and watch history of its Premium members was reportedly stolen in a recent Mixpanel data breach.

• TikTok unlawfully tracks your shopping habits – and your use of dating apps
  TikTok tracks its users even if they’re using other apps. The video platform therefore also knows what dating app you use

• AI Isn’t Just Spying on You. It’s Tricking You Into Spending More.
  Recent reports reveal how companies are using artificial intelligence to harvest customers’ data and even secretly target them with higher prices.

• They Droned Back
  Seven German journalism students tracked Russian-crewed freighters lurking off the Dutch and German coast—and connected them to drone swarms over military bases.

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That’s it for now.

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