Notices by Nathan Schneider (ntnsndr@social.coop)

@Bonfire this is such a big deal! Congratulations. I can't wait to try it out.

If someone sends you raw AI outputs in the middle of a conversation instead of thinking for themselves, you could reply with this little protocol: https://medlab.host/protocol-droid/#protocols/ai-supported-conversation

@alwirtes Totally—all the apps I've been making are PWAs, and that makes everything easier.

"What are apps worth anymore?" An introduction to a couple of my recent experiments, and why they do and don't matter: https://nathanschneider.info/2026/07/what-are-apps-worth-anymore/

@dckc yep, have been in conversation with them. This proposal was informed by that.

Just posted an addendum to my proposal for an academic AI co-op, with some thoughts that have come up from others in discussions, such as

- Student voice from the start
- Liability for model behavior
- Permissioned access for researchers

https://nathanschneider.info/2026/06/an-inference-cooperative-for-academic-ai/

For the past two years, my lab has been exploring how to create online spaces designed for a basic human activity: conflict. See what we've learned on August 12, when we release our new zine, Conflict Systems, at the Metagov Seminar: https://luma.com/vqlxb7dy

@mariyadelano I'm all the more proud to be a Hachette author!

Is the glut of publications created by the publish-or-perish academic job market also a sort of slop?

Markets were the original AIs, remember, and they are already destroying the world (as well as doing some neat tricks).

These pair well, unfortunately

Technology as "an all-purpose agent of change": https://nathanschneider.info/2026/07/technology-as-an-all-purpose-agent-of-change/

Are you building a cooperative newsroom or media project? Apply to be part of Start.coop's Accelerator for Worker-Friendly Media, including financial and technical support, plus a week with my lab here in Boulder. Learn more here: https://www.start.coop/accelerator

The value of human beings does not have to depend on what supposedly makes us better or even distinct (from machines, from animals). It's a path we've gone down before, and it doesn't lead to good places: https://nathanschneider.info/2026/06/humanity-without-superiority/

Humanity without superiority—or, why it is a lost cause to ground our value in what seems to make us unique or better: https://nathanschneider.info/2026/06/humanity-without-superiority/

Listen! My lab's radio show this month features the extraordinary Dr. Naim Aburradi. He and his friends have risked their safety to document life in Gaza, with a 360-degree camera, before and since the ongoing genocide: https://lookslikenew.net/podcast/how-can-vr-tell-the-story-of-genocide/

Gaza is so, so much more than a headline and a plume of smoke.

RE: https://social.coop/@ntnsndr/116805351689066077

What do you wish people would stop doing with AI?

A case for AI taboos: https://nathanschneider.info/2026/06/a-case-for-ai-taboos/

@cstanhope I guess I'm suspecting that the intelligentsia cares more when it is their jobs in the crosshairs, and wondering if that matters.

What if the same amount of ink spilled on AI today had been deployed on the roboticization of late-20th-century factories or offshoring? Would the outcomes have been different?

Abrahamic religions have quite serious prohibitions on idolatry because they know that individuals can't be trusted to get even close to worshipping things fellow humans have made. It is too tempting.

What lines do we need now?