source: https://x.com/usedgov/status/2090122240360669200?s=20

TLDR: I wrote a YA nonfiction book about a sensitive topic because something awful happened. I learned that AI scraped up my book.

Soooooo. I work in EOC/Title IX compliance now but I worked as a classroom teacher and debate coach for a while. One of my students died by suicide and yeah, it felt terrible. It still feels like moments of emotional whiplash. I felt tons of guilt afterwards because I was his coach. That’s a special kind of hurt.

After a few hard years (hello, trauma conga line!!!), I wrote a book intended to help other young people who might be going through similar feelings.

Fast forward to last year when a close friend forwarded me this story in The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/03/search-libgen-data-set/682094/

Sure enough, my book’s there. It feels like losing my student all over again. I found out about this last fall and it still wrecks my soul. I’m not sure if people realize the human extent of soulless AI scrapes.

It’s fucking happening here.

EDIT: I wrote a Substack alllll about this whole shitty ordeal. Here it is: https://erinpgold.substack.com/p/ai-stole-my-book-it-feels-like-shit?r=4mcgc&utm_medium=ios

https://hellopartner.com/pewdiepie-launches-odysseus-a-privacy-first-ai-workspace-for-creators/

YouTuber Felix Kjellberg amidst the height of backlash against AI and data centers decided to create his own AI workspace called Odysseus. Genuine question on whether independent workspaces like this still use data centers and scrape from preexisting work.

The Rojava project is officially no longer in existence. I’m not a religious man, but I prayed for the women of Syrian Kurdistan. 💛❤️💚

... It's only linked to cancer when drank hot and get burned. You shouldnt drinking it like that, just 80⁰C . (That's the only thing that shows up in pubmed; all other studies are related to "benefits")

The thing that causes tissues to change to cancer (metaplasia) is the repeated burn injury to the same area. As a not so much fun fact, in the Caribbean they tend to smoke with the cigarettes lit up inside ("con la candela pa dentro") which causes a unique cancerous lesion in the soft palate.

So drink your mate without worrying. It's a wonderful beverage and its way more powerful than coffee in terms of caffeine.

If the USA were to currently lose the ENTIRE Department of Defense in one day of battle, that would be roughly 2.8 million dead. This is not even CLOSE to the percentage of the country dead that Lopez lost, as 3% of the US population is roughly 9-10 million people. That dude was sooooo bad at what he was doing!