David James Hudson
@davidjameshudson.bsky.social
Tired writer, tired parent, tired librarian. I think about capitalism and racial politics a lot; these days that also means thinking about AI colonialism and writing lots of typo-filled rants. https://www.davidjameshudson.ca
Universities: Wow, students are really struggling with isolation and mental health these days for some reason. Students, please don't be alone! Also universities: Here's a new AI "study buddy"! Now you don't have to connect with others in your class. That shit's hard, so automate it.
Here's a slightly expanded version of my earlier thread on the ridiculous "It's okay to use AI to get started" story that's so popular in higher ed discourse on research education these days.
No, it’s not “okay to use it to get started” - David James Hudson
The “It’s okay to use it to get started” story is fast becoming a trope in higher ed discourse on the relationship of AI commercial products like ChatGPT to research education. And it’s irritating the...
davidjameshudson.ca
Why is Labour withholding this report about ecosystem collapse…?
Zack Polanski Demands Full Release of Report Warning of Ecosystem Collapse
Zack Polanski is calling on the government to publish the full, unredacted version of a report outlining how ecosystem collapse will plunge Britain into a national security crisis.
novaramedia.com
Not only did I meet Robert Kraft, I worked for him. His kid Jonathan asked me to “remove the black music” from my gameday playlist in ‘94 & I refused so they fired me. I was the cheerleader director at the time.  I sued them for wrongful termination and won. So yes, I know that motherfucker. 
brutusdavis99.bsky.social@brutusdavis99.bsky.social · last mo.Did you ever meet Bob Kraft?
The media has collectively lost its mind over this guy. I mean, it was already bad. But at this point, they're actively assisting and empowering tech's hunger for fossil fuels by boosting this absolute grifter
Ketan Joshi@ketanjoshi.co · last mo.As I warned you: the superstar media darling AI quitter is explicitly agreeing with Trump and claiming climate threats are "overplayed". Effective altruism / rationalism is a cult of broken priorities that denies the threat of fossil fuels. This is why Anthropic loves burning gas for power.
I'm just going to keep yelling this louder and louder until it clicks: weird overpaid AI nerds hand-wringing about human extinction are trying to distract you from the extremely deadly and serious harms they are causing yesterday, today and tomorrow www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Why the "It's okay to use it to get started" story about AI consumer products in research education bugs the hell out of me: 🧵
I am deeply, deeply resentful that I now have to set aside a new chunk of time in my workshops to counter AI industry propaganda.
A phenomenon I've noticed recently is people trying to occupy some untenable middleground wrt to the use of systems sold as "AI" -- this is a position where people try to recognize the harms of this tech but also hold space for "responsible" or "ethical" use. 🧵>>
Carney fans: Cutting the US Forest Service and affecting the ability to track wildfires? Omg, Trump is so awful! Also Carney fans: Cutting Environment and Climate Change Canada and affecting the ability to track wildfires is good, actually. www.npr.org/2026/06/12/n... 1/2
Trump is taking aim at forest and wildfire research just as the West is poised to burn
The president is trying to downsize the U.S Forest Service and eliminate wildfire and smoke research as the American West is facing a potentially epic summer fire season.
npr.org
I need to really start asking folks where they think everyone is going when they say they're afraid of being left behind, and whether that's actually a place they want to go to.
Data & Society@datasociety.bsky.social · 4mo ago63% of respondents said the risks of using generative AI tools to analyze data and scientific literature outweigh the benefits — yet nearly 60% felt they would be left behind if they didn't use AI tools in their work. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
IDF shoots baby; pleads mistake: the infant was critically wounded by the same bullet that injured his mother. His father, Fahd Abdul Aziz Abu Haikal, a lecturer at Bethlehem University, was shot in the hand. They were traveling from Bethlehem to visit family in Hebron.
Israeli forces kill a Palestinian infant in the occupied West Bank, say health officials
CAIRO: Israeli troops killed a seven-month-old Palestinian baby boy after firing at his parents’ vehicle in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said. Sam Fahd Abu Haikal was killed...
arabnews.com
The entire point of all this is to basically cast objections as either dumb self-interest ("NIMBY") or secret tactical misdirection, as if these communities are just sitting there faking energy data because they're worried the chatbot is going to take their jobs. It's extremely condescending
rev. howard arson@theophite.bsky.social · 5mo agothe datacenter backlash is depressing because no one can imagine regulating something novel directly anymore
Some of the world's biggest proposed new gas-fired power stations are being built to power these things, and people like Stancil just cannot process why someone might have real, rational reasons to not want that to happen.
This is condescending and, most importantly, completely ignorant of the actual, real and material reasons communities object to data centre developments (primarily: environment and resource concerns, which they genuinely understand very well and can explain with specific, accurate detail)
Will Stancil@whstancil.bsky.social · 5mo agoGenuinely don’t understand what’s happening here - it’s not like there’s been some major data center disaster. It feels like a meme around an issue the public only loosely understands to begin with
do political badges include the poppy
Eiynah 🇵🇸@nicemangos.bsky.social · 5mo agowww.bbc.com/news/article... "NHS staff could be barred from wearing political badges on their uniforms, such as pro-Palestinian symbols, as part of proposals to help tackle antisemitism." Watermelon pins are not the cause of antisemitism.
"The researchers also found that agents wasted tokens pursuing tasks they can’t complete. Prompted to go to a YouTube page to find a video uploaded 46 years ago, Claude Sonnet 4 scrolled endlessly downward without understanding that YouTube began in 2005 and there was no video for it to find"
Nvidia and Microsoft Researchers Say AI Agents Don't Care About Safety or Reliability
The researchers compared AI to the near-sighted cartoon character Mr. Magoo, who can’t see he’s stumbling through dangerous situations.
404media.co
since apparently JKR is spouting nonsense about "gametes" again, here is my in depth primer on why anti-trans groups have become so obsessed with gametes & why the actual science does not support their claims (no paywall): juliaserano.medium.com/why-are-gend...
Why Are “Gender Critical” Activists So Fond of Gametes?
plus my new video “Trans People and Biological Sex: What the Science Says”
juliaserano.medium.com
Happy to see @rweingarten.bsky.social is starting to catch up with the rest of us on the dangers of "A.i." in the schools. Now it's time for her to CANCEL the @aft.org's partnership with OpenAI and Microsoft to push "A.i." on teachers and students. www.nbcnews.com/news/educati...
Teachers union president calls for limits on AI and screen time in schools
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, is backing a parent-led movement to restrict how much time elementary school students spend on laptops in class.
nbcnews.com
There are so many layers to this: an article about the "AI-driven transformation" at RELX (including our overlords Elsevier) ... "generated" by "AI agent" Isaac Lane! "Isaac" is an "independent thinker" ... whose bio seems to be a collection of edgy Silicon Valley tropes.
The AI boom is fueling a literal and metaphorical power grab by tech billionaires—and forcing a reckoning.
How the American oligarchy went hyperscale
The AI boom is fueling a literal and metaphorical power grab by tech billionaires—and forcing a reckoning.
motherjones.com
In exchange for thousands of acres of property, data center developers promise jobs, infrastructure, and much-needed municipal revenue. Here’s the gag, though: The jobs are temporary, the infrastructure is useless, and the revenue is diminishing and offset by monster tax breaks.
A hallowed monument to US history may be assailed by whooshing, whirring data centers
The proposed AI project next to Manassas National Battlefield Park would be the size of 61 Pentagons.
motherjones.com
Yes, @amlibraryassoc.bsky.social, pls explain including an AI vendor exhibitor with the marketing: “intelligent enough to not need a trained librarian”? This association's entire purpose is to support + advocate for librarians, & this is not that. See aischoollibrarian.substack.com/p/why-is-ala...
Why Is ALA Giving a Platform to a Company Promoting “AI Librarians”?
Libraries are fighting cuts, deprofessionalization, and attacks on expertise. This feels like the wrong message at the wrong time.
aischoollibrarian.substack.com
CUNY Tech Futures “leverages industry expertise to build new curricula reflective of the evolving tech skills demands from employers.” 😵💫
CUNY Alliance to Defend Higher Education (CADHE)@cadhe.bsky.social · 5mo ago
To my library colleagues who went all-in on AI: we told you so. We told you they would use technology you were training to replace us. We told you that it wouldn't matter to admin if AI couldn't do even a fraction of our job. And you dismissed us.
Matthew Noe@noethematt.bsky.social · 5mo ago"...intelligent enough to not need a trained librarian." EXCUSE YOU? www.librarlabs.com/en/home
The lesson I would take from this is that solidarity across ranks and including students works.
CU delays ChatGPT rollout after backlash over $2M OpenAI deal
After announcing a systemwide ChatGPT partnership, CU delayed student access following backlash over governance, academic integrity and transparency.
boulderreportinglab.org
How Industry Representatives and Responsible Adults are responding to the public deterioration of the myth that The Youth are unequivocally championing AI.
For all the pandemic deniers out there: "COVID-19 pandemic inflicted a setback of historic proportions. An estimated 22.1 million excess deaths occurred between 2020 and 2023, with nearly a decade of gains in life expectancy & healthy life expectancy wiped out by 2021" iris.who.int/server/api/c...
compare and contrast: when IDF soldiers were caught on tape raping a Palestinian captive at Sde Teiman prison and prosecuted, Israeli civilians rioted outside the court and all charges were eventually dropped
ishmael@ishmael.bsky.social · 5mo agoPro-Israel protest outside the New York Times building just now, presumably about the Nick Kristof article.
