Riveting 😏 www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

The Most Iconic American Artwork Is the Hardest to See

The Statue of Liberty is caught between the sublime and the souvenir, our critic Jason Farago explains. Look again: She’s much stranger than you think.

nytimes.com

@chanda.blacksky.app again clarifies for me what scientific knowledge does for the world (from their 2026 book _The Edge of Space-Time_):

Spot. On.

Ali Rıza Taşkale@alirizataskale.bsky.social · 3w ago

Tech billionaires didn’t misread science fiction. They performed an edit: keeping the frontier, the visionary, the chrome; cutting the public institution, the collective, and the warning. Every. Single. Time. My new piece is now up in Aeon.

Tempting…

James Greenwood-Reeves@jgreenwoodreeves.bsky.social · 3w ago

As an academic, I have decided to pre-empt AI taking my job, so I am going to take ITS job! I am going to start hallucinating, lying to my students, and drinking 700,000 litres of water

For all PhD candidates, postdocs, professors, group leads who’ve ever thought: “What if my work could actually change something out there?” Apply now for the DeepTech for Impact Competition, a format designed to help researchers take the leap from idea to market launch: deeptechforimpact.com

DeepTech for Impact Competition 2026 — Your Research. The World's Next Solution.

Bring your research from the lab to the world. Apply to the DeepTech for Impact Competition 2026 by ZOLLHOF. Competition Day 15 September 2026, Nuremberg.

deeptechforimpact.com

If the government is into wasting money, I could use $5B for my video games fund (just sayin’)

Münster, I’m coming to experience your @DGFA goodness later this week, and I’m thrilled. I hear that the cages have gone from the cathedral, though. Now I’m wondering where everyone will hang out.

Deepfakes, synthetic media, AI slop etc. have often been discussed in terms of a «crisis of truth» or an «erosion of trust». Fair enough. But in my impression, there’s something else that gets lost in waves of AI slop flooding our screens: a «sense of wonder» – surprise, amazement and awe 1/

Senior Assistantship in British/American/Anglophone Lit+Culture

UZH: Senior Assistantship in English Literary Studies

The English Department of the University of Zurich invites applications for a postdoctoral teaching and research position (Oberassistenz) in the field of English Literary Studies (British, North Ameri...

jobs.uzh.ch

Apropos what I was just sayin’

andré carrington@andrecarrington.bsky.social · 8mo ago

via The New Yorker, Ellis Rosen cartoon

If only there was an entire body of literature—indeed what some insist on calling a genre—that warned us…

Andrew Erickson@aderickson.bsky.social · 8mo ago

“In the absence of global governance, we will depend on the integrity of robber barons and authoritarian apparatchiks to build ethical guardrails around systems already being embedded in tools we use for work, play and education.” www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

“In the absence of global governance, we will depend on the integrity of robber barons and authoritarian apparatchiks to build ethical guardrails around systems already being embedded in tools we use for work, play and education.” www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

When the AI bubble bursts, humans will finally have their chance to take back control | Rafael Behr

The US economy is pumped up on tech-bro vanity. The inevitable correction should prompt a global conversation, says Guardian columnist Rafael Behr

theguardian.com

The final deadline for proposals for Fantasy's Present Pasts (Glasgow, 23rd-25th June 2026) is this Friday (12th December). The abstracts we've received so far are very exciting - it's shaping up to be a really good programme. More information here: fantasy.glasgow.ac.uk/index.php/20....

Fascinating interdisciplinary science with outcomes applicable for engineers, designers, cultural specialists and historians (to name a few) www.nytimes.com/2025/11/26/s...

Did the Giant Heads of Easter Island Once Walk?

nytimes.com

Can’t we just use chat gpt to decide these cases?

Business Insider@businessinsider.com · 8mo ago

OpenAI is facing lawsuits from seemingly every direction, posing major risks for Sam Altman and ChatGPT. Here are the top cases and where they stand.

Hashtag data science

Stephen Schwartz@atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Here’s something really graphic for Halloween:

Tricky

@darren32359.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Somehow it seems to me that the machines are not the problem but rather a symptom

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 9mo ago

AI models may be developing their own ‘survival drive’, researchers say

You guys, I made it, I’m now truly German Danke, Airbnb-Host-Erich!

What happens when a second peer reviewer meets a goodreads one-star review writer?

Some folks are learning entirely the wrong lessons from science fiction’s cautionary tales + shoutout to my colleague and friend, Karoline, for research that meets its moment (!) lareviewofbooks.org/article/life...

Life Finds an Investor | Los Angeles Review of Books

Karoline Huber discusses the phenomenon of “de-extinction” in SF and popular culture.

lareviewofbooks.org

Looking forward to joining Shoshana Zuboff and Cathy O'Neil this week at the Harvard Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights for a conversation on democratic resilience in the age of AI and tech power concentration. Join us October 16, 5-6pm ET. You can register here: www.hks.harvard.edu/events/surve...

It’s like they looked into my soul

✨ Join our team! In meiner Forschungsgruppe "Ethik und kritische Theorien der KI" gibt es bald neue Stellen: Professurvertretung, Postdoc, Ph.D., SHKs. Themen: #KI-Ethik, #Datenschutz, #Demokratieresilienz, KI & Schule. Infos: rainermuehlhoff.de/join-our-team/ #AI #Philosophie #STS #Bildung

Join our team! Offene Stellen in der AG Ethik und Kritische Theorien der KI

In meiner Forschungsgruppe gibt es in der nächsten Zeit neue Stellen auf allen Leveln (Professurvertretung, Postdoc, Ph.D., stud. Mitarbeitende).

rainermuehlhoff.de

Depression ist eine weit verbreitete Krankheit. Genauso weit verbreitet ist nach wie vor ihre Stigmatisierung. Menschen mit Depression haben oft mit gesellschaftlicher Abwertung zu kämpfen. Der 5. Oktober ist Tag der Depression. Ein Hinweis, besser mit dieser (oft tödlichen) Krankheit umzugehen.

Europäischer Depressionstag: Dauerkrisen und Belastung führen in die Erkrankung – Deutsches Ärzteblatt

aerzteblatt.de

Centering a diversity of perspectives remains essential to knowledge and truth www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Germany’s anti-diversity backlash isn’t fatigue – it’s strategy masquerading as neutrality | Fatma Aydemir

Neither Trump’s US nor the rise of the AfD explains it all. Self-styled progressives in the arts must take a hard look at themselves too, says Guardian Europe columnist Fatma Aydemir

theguardian.com

One is reminded that trains exist (and in Germany will be delayed until the management bros, who are definitely already working on how to use this cyber attack as an excuse to keep fucking up, are all fired and replaced with competent humans) :winkyface @deutschebahn.com

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 11mo ago

Flight delays continue across Europe after weekend cyber-attack

Monday mood: “this having meetings so we can plan to have meetings business is bullshit. I want to talk about ancillaries." —Ann Leckie, _Ancillary Mercy_

Reading remains an act of protest

Andrew Erickson@aderickson.bsky.social · last yr.

Ray Bradbury wrote in the afterword to Fahrenheit 451 that “you don't have to burn books, do you, if the world starts to fill up with non-readers, non-learners, non-knowers?” (225) That guy had seen the future—our present.

Agreed. Give us a Labour Party in which to believe. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Don’t sugarcoat this: Starmer’s government is weak and may perish. Here are my five steps to recovery | John McDonnell

After so many avoidable mistakes, of course people are angry. But with the far right looming, we need action not despair, says MP and former Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell

theguardian.com