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Jacob Ward @byjacobward

CNN contributor. Investigative journalist covering AI, surveillance & power. Author of The Loop. Founder of The Rip Current. Subscribe now!

Joined July 2008
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Jacob Ward@byjacobward
3 Dec 2024
I'm launching a tech-literate, historically informed, fuck-it-let's-go Substack today, and I'm calling it The Rip Current. Here's the first post! Please subscribe, and check out theripcurrent.com to see the ethical standards I'll be observing in this new phase of life.
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At Davos, AI isn’t winning debates — it’s winning cocktail hours. When Big Tech throws the best parties, global policy starts following the guest list. This is how power actually moves now. #Davos #WorldEconomicForum #AI #BigTech #ripcurrent Full episodes at .
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Are we being censored? Not yet, in my opinion. But there’s every reason to believe it can happen! #tiktok #ripcurrent #business #tech #technews Full episodes at .
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Meta's internal goal: "total teen time spent." Google called it "solving kids is a massive opportunity." Instagram knew teens were weaponizing features to torment each other. They knew. They always knew. And now the documents are public. Full breakdown at #BigTech #Lawsuit
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We've always cared about two kinds of harm: financial (theft) and physical (injury/death). But behavioral harm? We blame the addict, not the machine. These lawsuits could change that. Just like we did with Big Tobacco, we're learning some technologies are more powerful than our
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Don’t believe the hype. NO TWO HUMANS CAN AGREE on shared values. #ai #artificialintelligence #ethics #ripcurrent #tech Full episodes at .
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This isn’t personal. It’s structural. Wall Street rewards cost-cutting faster than innovation. Executives get paid to shrink payroll. AI hype makes it easier to justify. Harvard Business Review opening the lid on this dynamic. #Career #Layoff #ripcurrent #Work #TechNews Full
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AI is being blamed for massive layoffs at companies like Amazon and Dow — but a new study shows something more unsettling is happening. Companies aren’t cutting jobs because AI can already do the work. They’re cutting jobs because they believe it will someday. That belief is
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Explosive internal documents from Meta, Google, YouTube, and TikTok are being made public as part of major lawsuits. What they reveal is damning: these companies knew exactly how much harm their platforms were causing kids — and they prioritized "total teen time spent" anyway. I
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In 1964, Nikolai Kardashev thought he'd discovered alien life. What he actually found changed how we think about humanity's place in the universe — and makes clear that we're wasting our one shot at existence. The closest potentially habitable planet is 200,000 years away. We're
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🚨 Watch to uncover how ICE is revolutionizing surveillance in the U.S.! From iris scanners to AI-powered mobile tools, this isn't just about borders—it's about our everyday lives. From tech shopping sprees funded by $75B, to using Clearview AI and stingray
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Superyachts, Melania, and Bezos vs $99k/year journalists. #ripcurrent #journalism #headlines #business #billionaires Full episodes at .
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#stitch with thewrightmuseum This is of course funny and sad at the same time, but it also illustrates an amazing psychological piece of circuitry. We transmit emotions without having to speak or talk it over. #ripcurrent #psychology #mentalhealth Full episodes at .
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Jacob Ward retweeted
CNN Communications
@CNNPR
Jun 3
Jacob Ward has joined CNN as an on-air contributor. Welcome to CNN, @byjacobward! bit.ly/4x8DQPK
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Opening arguments started TODAY in what could be social media’s “Big Tobacco moment.” But this isn’t about bad content—it’s about who designed these apps to be addictive in the first place. 🚨 What’s happening right now: • Meta & YouTube on trial in LA Superior Court •
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This is what you get when you get rid of the creative people. #ripcurrent #superbowl #creativity #hollywood Full episodes at .
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The Vatican named the mechanisms — algorithmic credit denial, data colonialism, invisible labor, autonomous weapons with no accountable trigger. Congress hasn't. The question now: who picks this up and builds with it? theripcurrent.com/p/the-vati…

The Vatican's Indictment of AI

Magnifica Humanitas is more technically literate than any law Congress has passed. Whether it becomes the moral foundation of an AI New Deal depends entirely on who picks it up.

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Ilya Sutskever is worth $5–7 billion building toward a goal he says nobody knows how to reach. That's the industry's whole deal. TheRipCurrent.com

The Rip Current with Jacob Ward | Substack

Someone else is deciding how you work, what you buy, and who you become — and they didn’t ask you first. I’ve spent 20 years tracking tech power for NBC News, CNN, Al Jazeera, and PBS. Subscribe to...

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This is what it looks like when there’s real political accountability in a Western democracy. #Epstein #Trump #RipCurrent #Accountability #Politics Full episodes at .
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None of us will have jobs, but it turns out the VCs might get canned first. So that’s something. #AI #jobs #economy #investing #ripcurrent Full episodes at .
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The Modern CTO podcast’s host, Joel Beasley, clicked right in with me on my thesis: that AI is going to do to fundamental human decision making abilities what Google Maps did to our sense of direction. Big thanks to him for having me on! #moderncto #ripcurrent #podcast
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