Mathew Ingram

Centennial Scarborough, Toronto

Technology Writer at Freelance

I write about tech and media from my kayak somewhere in Canada. Also @mathewi on Mastodon, BlueSky and Threads

Articles

The Trump administration is building a Panopticon

6 days ago | torment-nexus.mathewingram.com | Mathew Ingram

— 10 min read It seems quaint now, but not that long ago, one of the biggest reasons for concern about the surveillance of our behavior by massive internet platforms like Facebook, Google, and Amazon — or by companies buying click data and GPS location from our smartphones — was that they might use that information to flog advertising at us in a more personalized and irritating way.
What should we do if an AI becomes conscious?

1 week ago | torment-nexus.mathewingram.com | Mathew Ingram

— 9 min read A recent New York Times piece arrived with a headline that asked "If AI systems become conscious, should they have rights?" If you were to judge the article by the response on social media like X and Bluesky (which is almost always a mistake, as many of you are no doubt already aware), you would think that writer Kevin Roose wrote some credulous claptrap about how all AIs are human and therefore we need to start thinking about their feelings.
Media Bits and Bytes - April 29, 2025

2 weeks ago | portside.org | Robert Kuttner |Rachel Leingang |Mathew Ingram |Mimi Zou

Media Bits and Bytes – April 29, 2025 Published April 29, 2025 The End of Press Freedom? A Tidal Wave Started on RedditAntitrust AgonyNews Coverage of Mass OppositionDeepSeek Goes GlobalTech Oligarchs’ Prophetic VisionsOpenAI Innovator Ordered Out of the CountryNetflix CEO Says Theaters are FinishedA Political Sitcom to RememberWFMU ForeverThe End of Press Freedom?
Google Faces a Potential Breakup on Multiple Fronts

3 weeks ago | cjr.org | Mathew Ingram

Sign up for The Media Today, CJRâs daily newsletter. There’s been a lot of attention recently on the government’s antitrust case against Meta, in part because Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO, spent three days testifying in court about his company’s alleged anticompetitive tactics. (Klaudia JaĹşwiĹska wrote about the case in this newsletter last week.) That case is just starting to get underway.
Meta may be bad but the FTC's antitrust case is still weak

4 weeks ago | torment-nexus.mathewingram.com | Mathew Ingram

— 10 min read Writing about the government's antitrust case against Meta is a little like putting on an old sweater — it's comfortable and worn, but also has kind of a funky smell (maybe it's best for everyone if I don't continue with this metaphor). In any case, I have been writing about this topic off and on for more than half a decade now.
Be careful what you say on social media, part 2

1 month ago | tormentnexus.substack.com | Mathew Ingram

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post for The Torment Nexus that was titled "Be careful what you say on social media, they are listening," which was triggered in part by the case of Mahmoud Khalil, a former student at Columbia University who took part in pro-Palestine demonstrations on the campus. Khalil was taken by agents of ICE — Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part of the Department of Homeland Security — and told that his visa was revoked.
Be careful what you say on social media, part 2

1 month ago | torment-nexus.mathewingram.com | Mathew Ingram

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post for The Torment Nexus that was titled "Be careful what you post on social media, they are listening," which was triggered in part by the case of Mahmoud Khalil, a former student at Columbia University who took part in pro-Palestine demonstrations on the campus. Khalil was taken by agents of ICE — Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part of the Department of Homeland Security — and told that his visa was revoked.
What can we learn from an AI's thought process?

1 month ago | torment-nexus.mathewingram.com | Mathew Ingram

— 10 min read Before anyone gets upset about my headline, I am using the term "thought process" in the loosest possible way. I realize that many people (perhaps even most people) would not describe what an AI model does as "thinking." After all, aren't LLMs just a kind of super-autocomplete, as Noam Chomsky put it, with the whole internet to choose from?
Be careful what you post on social media. They are listening

2 months ago | flipboard.com | Mathew Ingram

NowThousands of federal employees fired by the Trump administration must be offered job reinstatement within the next week, a U.S. district judge in San Francisco has ruled, because they were terminated unlawfully. "It is a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based …
Breaking down a federal court’s ruling on AI and copyright

2 months ago | mathewingram.com | Mathew Ingram

If you’ve been following court cases that relate to artificial intelligence, you probably saw some headlines about a recent federal court decision in the US District Court for Delaware, in a copyright-infringement case filed by Thomson Reuters against a company called Ross Intelligence.