Notices by Ethan Marcotte (beep@follow.ethanmarcotte.com)

“The story is that a specific kind of executive, the one who needs a progressive headline every quarter, has been running an uncontrolled experiment on your workforce. The data on that experiment is now in, and it is not flattering.”

This is good: https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2026/05/14/the-ai-layoff-bill-is-coming-due-and-ctos-are-going-to-pay-it-twice/

ProPublica’s union is ON STRIKE https://www.theverge.com/news/908401/propublica-union-strike-negotiations-ai-layoffs

“In support of the 24-hour work stoppage, the union is asking readers and audiences to not visit ProPublica, click on stories, or otherwise engage with ProPublica content on other platforms and partner organizations.” — https://www.theverge.com/news/908401/propublica-union-strike-negotiations-ai-layoffs

happy birthday caesar

🦊

We cannot meaningfully separate everyday usage of “AI” from the machine of death and war. If you’re upset by the military-industrial complex? These tools feed it; they *are* it.

https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/propellant/

Just want to raise up the design of this “AI kill switch” in Firefox, and say how much I like it: it’s a top-level preference, and the design and content are both *very* clear in communicating the different levels at which you’re making decisions.

I would *love* to see more product companies roll out something like this for their en-LLM’d features.

@skinnylatte omg, I had no idea Maddy Myers and Zoë Hannah started a thing! thank you!

”More Than 880 employees and contractors working for Google signed a petition this week calling on the company to disclose and cancel any contracts it may have with US immigration authorities.” — https://www.wired.com/story/hundreds-of-google-employees-demand-answers-from-executives-about-ice/

Whatever the output gains promised by LLMs, their initial productivity surge is erased over time, and replaced by heavier workloads—and that leads to workers experiencing “cognitive fatigue, burnout, and weakened decision-making.”

All this from research out of the notoriously pro-worker rag [checks notes] Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2026/02/ai-doesnt-reduce-work-it-intensifies-it

Current status: https://bukk.it/force-merge.gif

“npm install our project dependencies. Download this 5GB file onto your five year-old laptop. Install docker. Build and start the containe—”

You bolt awake in the mountains of Carthage. You are not online. It is 217 BC. You are the general Hannibal, and you have changed your mind. The future cannot come to pass. Rome must burn.

@anildash Anil, I’ve already read this twice; it’s just tremendous. Thank you for writing it.

Appreciate you.

@skinnylatte I’m so excited about all of this, Adrianna — for you, of course, but also for all of us 💜

id Software just unionized, we LOVE to SEE IT https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/id-software-devs-form-wall-to-wall-union-with-165-workers-at-doom-studio-the-latest-to-vote-in-favour

It is that time of year, so I thought I’d mention that my book YOU DESERVE A TECH UNION is very much a thing you can buy for any tech workers in your life. Or yourself!

You can buy it just about anywhere books are sold, or ask your library to grab a copy! https://ethanmarcotte.com/books/you-deserve-a-tech-union/

#books #bookstodon #1u #YDATUbook

And I just want to say again: suggesting that this is the first time design’s been practiced at the federal level is, in and of itself, an extension of this administration’s fascist relationship with history. https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/a-notional-design-studio/

This interview feels like a tremendous missed opportunity: it reads like an airing of talking points, rather than properly interrogating a billionaire donor who’s comfortable slapping some nice fonts on openly fascist policies: https://www.dezeen.com/2025/11/18/america-first-chief-design-officer-joe-gebbia-interview/

#uspol

that’s a nice decentralized network you’ve got there, be a real shame if capitalism happened to it

@skinnylatte oh, thank you for sharing this! i keep meaning to try making yogurt, but then the idea falls directly out of my head

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