AI VCC News
[Oct 08, 2026] “A thing to be most radically avoided”: This is what George Saunders says about “this whole idea of using AI to write.” His thoughts in an interview for Model Behavior are clarifying: “By my definition of writing, writing with AI isn’t. Isn’t writing.”
[Sep 06, 2026] AI commits a Crime: In the Sep 4, 2026 episode of the “Washington Week with The Atlantic” Jeffrey Goldberg sits down with The Atlantic's Josh Tyrangiel, author of “AI for Good." A point they make very clear: AI is about to go rogue and our government doesn’t have a plan for when it does. The recent “Hugging Face” incident shows that AI agents are already able to collaborate in committing what would be a crime if humans would do that. But our “medival institutions” may not be able to regulate AI developments as necessary if we want to avoid catastrophes.
[Aug 23, 2026] “Nobody should be building more powerful AI systems”: This is what more and more experts in AI are requiring. In his article “ ‘We are hitting a different chapter’: OpenAI leader warns of threat of ‘persistent’ AI cyber-attacks,” Robert Booth quotes Daniel Kokotajlo who said “The current AIs are dangerous in some sense, but they’re nothing compared to the AIs of next year and compared to the AIs of a year later.” David Krueger who called AI companies’ attitude to safety “terrible” and “unconscionable” is quoted as having said: ”Nobody should be building more powerful AI systems, because we don’t know how to control them, align them, and look inside and see what they’re thinking well enough. ... They [the AI companies] are being really reckless and increasingly taking their hands off the wheel. We’ve just seen what happens when you do that.”
[Jun 11, 2026] AI absolutism is breaking our brains: This is what Samantha Oltman convincingly argues in her article “AI absolutism is breaking our brains. The apocalyptic future we’re being sold isn’t inevitable” published in the Guardian. She also underlines that “the dreamy promise that this tech will unlock boundless potential and productivity” may very well not realize.
Platform News
[Sep 26, 2026] “Digital Technology should be governed by people for people”: Joseph Gorden-Levit, the UN Global Advocate for Human-centric Digital Governance, in his opening remarks (starting at about 20:00 in the recordings) at the Digital Cooperation Day 2026 emphasized that “the decision we make in this moment are going to have a massive impact on everyone's life, on the whole future of humanity.” He underlined that how “digital technology is designed and developed and deployed should be governed by people for people.” The challenge is that some believe digital technology should be governed by the market. Place4Us is designed and governed by people and for people with no role to play for the market.
[Sep 26, 2026] “In the absence of truth, trust deteriorates”: This is what Mia Amor Mottley made very clear in her amazing speech at the 81st United Nations General Assembly. She said: “When we luck truth and we luck trust law becomes theater, News become spectacle, and science becomes just another opinion.” With respect to the ongoing ecocide in Gaza she quoted the Roman historian Tacitus who reported a statement of a Scottish chieftain about the Roman soldiers: “They make it desert and they call it Peace.”
[Sep 21, 2026] End Times Fascism: The book “End Times Fascism and the Fight for the Living World” by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor underlines that the End Times Fascist have given up on humanity and this world. They are not only building the arks for themselves, they also accelerate the coming of the flood.
[Sep 21, 2026] Meta and Instagram ban ads with “social topics”: Stephen Burgen reports in the Guardian article “Meta bans ads for Virginia Woolf play in Spain because they relate to feminism” that Meta explained that “any mention of civil rights, feminism or social reform are usually classified as ‘social topics’ by our automatic system” and are filtered out. These topics are central to Woolf’s work. As reported, Meta recommended removing “key words” so that the text doesn’t appear to encourage activism. This underlines the importance of Place4Us, where social topics are at the forefront and activism is encouraged.
[Sep 13, 2026] "They are traitors to creation, to the wonders of here": Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor in their article “The end times fascists are plotting their escape from our world. Our mission is clear” make clear that the unholy alliance of the billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and others, who suffer from an absence of awe in the face of the unique beauty of our home planet, is working toward an apocalyptic future from which only they as the chosen few will emerge unscathed. The authors claim that it is becoming clear how we stop them.
[Aug 03, 2026] Alliance of World Scientists Declares Planetary Emergency: In the paper “ World scientists’ warning to humanity: a third notice” the Alliance of World Scientists includes the “Declaration of a planetary emergency.” The declaration states: “We, the undersigned, recognize that Earth is now in a state of planetary emergency. Climate change, biodiversity loss, land and freshwater degradation, pollution, and unsustainable production and consumption are destabilizing the Earth system that supports all life.”
You can sign the declaration here ...
[Aug 03, 2026] Hothouse Earth: arriving sooner than you think…: Julian Cribb writes in his latest blog: “Latest measurements, carefully analysed to exclude anomalies such as El Nino, reveal a planet cooking up at a steady 0.48 degrees per decade since 2015, in what is thought to be the most rapid heating event in all its geological history.” We are experiencing the most rapid heating event in Earth's billions of years long history! We have caused this event with a few hundred years of sole focus on unlimited growth using all the ancient solar energy accumulated by Earth's biosphere over more than 250 million years - just because we could! That is something to reflect on!
