Category: Media Literacy

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Ethical Vacancy

What happens when AI’s lack of conscience converges with people with no conscience?

“The ‘AI Homeless Man Prank’ reveals a crisis in AI education,” by External Contributor, Digital Information World, December 14, 2025.

The new TikTok trend “AI Homeless Man Prank” has sparked a wave of outrage and police responses in the United States and beyond.

The prank involves using AI image generators to create realistic photos depicting fake homeless people appearing to be at someone’s door or inside their home. Learning to distinguish between truth and falsehood is not the only challenge society faces in the AI era. We must also reflect on the human consequences of what we create.

As professors of educational technology at Laval University and education and innovation at Concordia University, we study how to strengthen human agency — the ability to consciously understand, question and transform environments shaped by artificial intelligence and synthetic media — to counter disinformation. Read the whole article here.

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Stepping in Imaginary Shit

Spinal Tap revisited decades later:

“Spotify hit band The Velvet Sundown comes clean on AI,” by Trevor Mogg, Digital Trends, July 6, 2025.

The Velvet Sundown burst onto the music scene in early June and in the space of just a few weeks gained an astonishing 400,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.

But its bland music style, hyper-realistic band images, and lack of a digital footprint quickly led many people to suspect that the The Velvet Sundown was AI-generated. And it turns out they were right.

After weeks of speculation, a new message posted on its Spotify page over the weekend finally admitting that the band and its music are the work of generative AI.

Read the whole article here.

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Art & Place Conference Keynote, May 2, 2025

I thought I was getting on a flight to Germany to deliver my keynote at the
Art & Place conference in Saarbrücken.

Instead, I wound up giving it via Zoom—from a prison cell.

Not literally, of course. But I dressed for the part. A fitting backdrop for a talk on creative dissent.

Guerrilla theater, unsanctioned public art, protests in disguise—these are the tools I’ve used to question authority and reclaim public space. Sometimes with humor. Sometimes with a bullhorn. Always with intent.

While my prison cell was symbolic, the consequences of challenging power are very real. So, this was a reminder: dissent isn’t just a right. It’s a necessity. And we need to protect the freedom to speak out—especially when it’s uncomfortable.

Thanks to the organizers for inviting me. And to everyone still raising hell where it matters.

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Genies in a Box?

Better still look both ways.

Silicon Valley crosswalk buttons apparently hacked to imitate Musk, Zuckerberg voices, by Zoe Morgan, Palo Alto Online, April 12, 2025.

Crosswalk buttons along the mid-Peninsula appear to have been hacked, so that when pressed, voices professing to be Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk begin speaking.

Videos taken at locations in Redwood City, Menlo Park and Palo Alto show various messages that begin to play when crosswalk buttons are hit. The voices appear to imitate how Zuckerberg and Musk sound.

In one video, taken on Saturday morning at the corner of Arguello Street, Broadway and Marshall Street in Redwood City, a voice claiming to be Zuckerberg says that “it’s normal to feel uncomfortable or even violated as we forcefully insert AI into every facet of your conscious experience. And I just want to assure you, you don’t need to worry because there’s absolutely nothing you can do to stop it.”

Read the whole article here.

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“Joey Skaggs: Stop BioPeep” October Film Festival Screenings

Are your genetically modified chicken nuggets strangely addictive? Guess what…

In 1998, Dr. Joseph Howard (a.k.a. Joey Skaggs) blew the whistle on BioPEEP, a covert research initiative designed to genetically modify humans into “consumer junkies.”

You can catch a film festival screening of “Joey Skaggs: Stop BioPEEP,” the #10 film in the oral history series, in person in New Hampshire on Oct 4 or On Demand between October 8 & 20, 2024!

Monadnock International Film Festival (MONIFF)
Joey Skaggs: Stop BioPEEP (20:20)
Selected Shorts Program C
Friday, October 4, 2024, 5:45pm
Also screening on-demand October 8-17, 2024
Showroom
20 Commercial Street
Keene, New Hampshire 03431
Tickets are here

Brooklyn SciFi Film Festival
Joey Skaggs: Stop BioPEEP (20:20)
Friday, October 14 – Sunday, October 20, 2024
Screen from anywhere in the world on-demand
Select “Monday, October 14” for ticket to online festival
Tickets are here

Related posts:

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  4. “Joey Skaggs: The Early Years” FREE Online Screening November 7-13, 2022

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