B! 🐝 Cavello (they/them)

Please help get the word out to our friends who were working in the Federal Government: Some friends & I created this site to track the impacts of the Trump Admin's attack on the federal service, and we're trying to gather as many stories as possible.
trumpcostsamerica.com

Trump Costs America

Highlighting the real people whose lives have been ruined, the good American jobs that are being destroyed, and the important public goods being lost.

Cool resource from @emilymbender.bsky.social and @nannainie.bsky.social for folks looking to use more precise and less anthropomorphic language. This piece includes a bunch of examples for substitutions to support clearer communication!
buttondown.com/maiht3k/arch...

How to talk about

Emily M. Bender and Nanna Inie In our op-ed for Tech Policy Press ("We Need to Talk About How We Talk About 'AI'"), we made the case against the...

FINAL WEEK!
Submit by Friday the 31st!

Annalee Newitz @annaleen.bsky.social

Only two more weeks to enter your sci-fi stories for the Protopian Prize, given to works that imagine positive futures for humanity, w/tech that serves the public interest. (I'm one of the judges!) Two winners get $5000 US each, and publication in an anthology from MIT Press! protopianprize.com

The Protopian Prize | The Fiction Contest

The Protopian Prize is a fiction contest inviting you to share your vision of people working toward liberatory futures, meeting obstacles, and making real change. “Protopian”—a word coined by Kevin ...

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A bunch of us are working to advance #PublicAI: AI that is publicly accountable, accessible, and sustainable. A lot of us are interested in local-first, community-governed, and more open models of what this technology could be.
We welcome allies in the @publicai.network!
publicai.network/whitepaper/

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It’s all “small government” until Austin, Texas tries to pass a plastic bag ban or whatever, and then “the state must interfere to protect inalienable rights” 🙄

BIG ask, I know, but could anyone possibly help me get in touch with @hankgreen.bsky.social ? 🙏
I lead a team at the Aspen Institute focused on a bunch of the things that he’s been talking about recently, like these “alternative benchmarks” from this video posted today:
youtu.be/o9Vbvp4awQU

The AI Question that No AI Person Asks

YouTube video by vlogbrothers

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specificsuggestions.com

Specific Suggestions: Simple Sabotage for the 21st Century

The most potent tools for fighting injustice are the ones already in your hands.

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I feel like Hank Green has a platform and is trying to navigate this with nuance

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Our team at @aspendigital.bsky.social put together some primers on AI and generative AI, in particular!
They both should be screenreader accessible and printer-friendly if you want the PDF versions
www.aspendigital.org/report/ai-101/ & www.aspendigital.org/report/intro...

How can we ensure that #AI is ACTUALLY helpful for the BIG challenges we face, like #ClimateChange and #WorldHunger? We need to listen to the experts who understand these problems best!
That's why @aspendigital.bsky.social is surveying people in #FoodSecurity: www.aspendigital.org/event/food-s...

Feeding the Future

We don’t just need smarter tech, we need smarter goals. Take the survey so your insight can shape the future of AI in food security.

Wow… I just experienced what I think is an active (automated?) disinfo campaign in real time?? 😳

Probably others have experienced this, but it’s my first time seeing it play out right in front of me…

It started with a reply I saw to this @propublica.org post: bsky.app/profile/prop...

ProPublica @propublica.org

“His GPA did not warrant it, his SAT scores did not warrant it. We thought for sure, there was no way this was going to happen. Then, lo and behold, Jared was accepted.” More on how the rich buy their children’s way into elite universities with massive, tax-deductible donations (published 2016):

The Story Behind Jared Kushner’s Curious Acceptance Into Harvard

ProPublica editor Daniel Golden wrote a book a decade ago about how the rich buy their children access to elite colleges. One student he covered is now poised to become one of the most powerful…

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This is also a place where folks have been compiling resources: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Fed Resource Directory

There’s so much to be disappointed/disgusted/outraged by with how the AI industry has been operating.

But we don’t have to accept this as the only way of doing things.

We can imagine other AI futures—thriving, democratic futures.

Write #PublicAI futures for the Protopian Prize!
protopianprize.com

We're giving away 100 FREE copies of Defining Technologies of Our Time for libraries, universities, government offices, and educational institutions! Don't miss your chance to snag one 👀
form.jotform.com/260566324386...

Because people think of it as a rash, many people don't realize that measles is transmitted by air.

Masking on transit (and in other places) can protect you and those around you!

kc is on a bookshelf with rbf @katecrane.bsky.social

not PATH measles 😭

NJ warns PATH, Light Rail riders of possible measles exposure

An infected rider rode several trains last week, officials said.

AGI is a bad goal.
We don’t need more intelligent systems; we need more helpful, beneficial, humanitarian systems. We should measure how “advanced” technology is, not by how well it mimics human capability, but by how it expands it.
www.aspendigital.org/project/ai-b...

Community-Aligned AI Benchmarks

Reimagining the technical machine learning benchmarks that drive model development to reflect and encode public values.

Don’t miss your chance! ⏳ Just about 10 days remaining to APPLY or NOMINATE folks for Rising Civic AI Leaders, a free leadership program new-to-government technologists.
www.aspendigital.org/project/risi...

Rising Civic AI Leaders

A fellowship providing recent tech-to-government civic AI leaders with the knowledge, tools, and support to navigate government processes.

I created the "Snippets" page on my website as a challenge to get myself to share things that are less polished, more fragmented, or just personal.
Here's one I just published highlighting some of my favorite #WEBTOON comics!
snippets.bcavello.com/webtoon-reco...

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yessss! People often don't realize that policy change is often a 2-3 year game of getting stuff drafted and socialized and "waiting in the wings" for the right moment.
NOW IS THE TIME

Brand concept: Himbo
Non-“smart” products that just work

Of all the crossovers, I never would've guessed that @trufelman.bsky.social's Articles of Interest would be giving me context for my AI policy work!
www.niemanlab.org/2026/05/erin...

Erin Brockovich made a map to track data centers around the country

Erin Brockovich, the environmental activist whose name and work you may recognize from the Oscar-winning movie Erin Brockovich, has created a tool to map data centers across the country, along with a ...

Reply to @b-cavello.bsky.social

Also potentially relevant: @metagov.bsky.social and the @publicai.network just released the Protopian Prize: protopianprize.com

The Protopian Prize | The Fiction Contest

The Protopian Prize is a fiction contest inviting you to share your vision of people working toward liberatory futures, meeting obstacles, and making real change. “Protopian”—a word coined by Kevin ...

Link to article: fortune.com/2026/03/18/h...

The national debt just crossed $39 trillion—almost doubling since Trump vowed to erase it | Fortune

Budget experts agree on one thing. The debt is on an "unsustainable" trajectory.

Dare Obasanjo @carnage4life.bsky.social

Just a year ago, we heard reducing the deficit was so important Elon Musk had to fire as many scientists, forest rangers and Black women on the government’s payroll that he could find. Now? 🤷🏾‍♂️

What are the best AI/LLM tools for collaboration? A lot of things seem to lend themselves to individual use, but I’m curious to explore more what is built to support teams and collective empowerment, decision making, etc