Hollis Robbins
@anecdotal.bsky.social
AI is disrupting higher ed: how can we be ahead? Writing at https://hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com. Former Dean of Humanities & now Special Advisor for Humanities & AI at UUtah. Former Dean @ Sonoma State University. PhD Princeton, MPP Harvard KSG
Some propositions about the aesthetics of looking at buildings. 1. A beautiful encounter should not require recollection. 2. An aesthetic theory should not require the job of picturing. 3. Remembering an experience and reproducing it .... hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/how-i-look...
How I look at buildings, with aphantasia
A photograph is not a substitute
hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com
Some propositions about the aesthetics of looking at buildings. 1. A beautiful encounter should not require recollection. 2. An aesthetic theory should not require the job of picturing. 3. Remembering an experience and reproducing it .... hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/how-i-look...
How I look at buildings, with aphantasia
A photograph is not a substitute
hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com
Meanwhile at University of Utah... dailyutahchronicle.com/2026/09/21/p...
This campus parking ticket policy delays registration for some students, withholding diplomas and transcripts – The Daily Utah Chronicle
Commuter services says this policy is meant to enforce accountability. Some students say they can't afford it.
dailyutahchronicle.com
😺"Some people want a kind of boy scouts program to counter 'brain rot' and 'cognitive decline.' Jonathan Haidt’s four proposed norms call for keeping kids away from smartphones and social media, advocating 'more independence, free play, and responsibility in the real world.' Basically boy scouts."
Darwin and AI
Relax. Humans are not degenerating.
hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com
H.G. Wells has had an outsized influence on how people think about evolution, about how technology (like AI) will turn us into helpless, hairless blobs. Humans will be fine. There is no Brain Rot. hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/darwin-and...
Darwin and AI
Relax. Humans are not degenerating.
hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com
Most student born after 2006 have never held a dictionary in their hands. Never understood the weigh of words and they are There for the using, as tools. hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/aristotle-...
Aristotle and AI
Before tokens, words
hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com
Confused about the story about the OpenAI agent swarms and the Hugging Face incident in the news? Look no further. hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/just-one-m...
Just one more thing....
What Columbo might say about the Hugging Face postmortems...
hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com
4/ Hollis Robbins @anecdotal.bsky.social likens PRoB to a "revitalizing spa for the mind." pghrev.com/hollis-robbi...
Hollis Robbins on PRoB - Pittsburgh Review of Books
Please support PRoB so that we can continue publishing engaged, incisive, and smart cultural criticism for many years to come.
pghrev.com
That "big five" personality test was never robust and it is the worst possible instrument for giving AI a personality. hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/teaching-t...
Teaching the Ocean to Swim
Why LLMs keep failing their Big Five personality tests
hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com
There's no envelope when you're chatting with an LLM. There's no presumption of privacy at all. The medium is eating the message. hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/the-singul...
The Singularity is Post-Privacy
The medium eats the message
hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com
There's no envelope when you're chatting with an LLM. There's no presumption of privacy at all. The medium is eating the message. hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/the-singul...
The Singularity is Post-Privacy
The medium eats the message
hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com
If you saw that viral Talenti gelato piece you know what I'll be saying about higher education. Quality has declined but nobody notices because of the nice packaging. hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/what-if-wi...
What if Wirecutter Rated Universities?
It might be the end of the shell game
hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com
Those Uncivil people seem nice but their better argument is there's no scholarship in civility. @uncivil-s.bsky.social . Also read @ryanequinn.bsky.social piece today. So good. www.insidehighered.com/news/student...
The Heated Discourse About Civil Discourse
Groups advocating for “dialogue across difference” and finding better ways to discuss and disagree about controversial topics are themselves part of a polarized debate.
insidehighered.com
@anecdotal.bsky.social that old dilemma of texts & reception
Erik Gregersen@ctgriffes.bsky.social · 2mo agoAs an adaptation of Homer’s epic, the Honda Odyssey is a complete disaster. With its roomy cabin and rear entertainment system for the kids, the minivan foregrounds concerns that only arose with the American nuclear family and say nothing about the brutality that underlay the Bronze Age.
If you saw that viral Talenti gelato piece you know what I'll be saying about higher education. Quality has declined but nobody notices because of the nice packaging. hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/what-if-wi...
What if Wirecutter Rated Universities?
It might be the end of the shell game
hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com
Yes, you might have said this in the piece but it's interesting that while in the 1970s computer research was the pride of universities, and to some degrees biotech and robotics are for today's university, but nobody shares excitement in AI research. Also nice footnote on the public phones.
Colleges & universities are successfully saying 'no' to AI. Whether that's a win or not is up to you. hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/universiti...
Universities would prefer not to.
AI and the degree monopoly
hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com
Part 2 -- learning outcomes as a Gordian knot and a Hippocratic miasma. hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/the-miasma...
The Miasma Theory of Education
The knockoff educational product economy (Part 2)
hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com
Why the questions you ask will have more and more similar answers. open.substack.com/pub/hollisro...
Stereotype Threat
Inference and prejudice
open.substack.com
This was written in response to a conversation about how hiring more conservative faculty was the most important problem higher ed should address. Ha. hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/look-on-my...
Look on my Outcomes, ye Mighty and despair
The knockoff educational product economy (Part 1)
hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com
Part 2 -- learning outcomes as a Gordian knot and a Hippocratic miasma. hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/the-miasma...
The Miasma Theory of Education
The knockoff educational product economy (Part 2)
hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com
This was written in response to a conversation about how hiring more conservative faculty was the most important problem higher ed should address. Ha. hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/look-on-my...
Look on my Outcomes, ye Mighty and despair
The knockoff educational product economy (Part 1)
hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com
Why the questions you ask will have more and more similar answers. open.substack.com/pub/hollisro...
Stereotype Threat
Inference and prejudice
open.substack.com
On all the philosophers working to make AI "better." hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/why-cant-a...
Why Can't a Model Be More Like a Man?
Everybody's Alfred P. Doolittle now
hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com
On all the philosophers working to make AI "better." hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/why-cant-a...
Why Can't a Model Be More Like a Man?
Everybody's Alfred P. Doolittle now
hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com
I'm tired of politics and so here is cultural politics: hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/how-to-lis...
How to Listen to a Tarantino Movie
Starting with "Django Unchained"
hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com
Thrilled to see "Notes on Spite" in the @pghreviewofbooks.bsky.social ! pghrev.com/notes-on-spi...
Notes on Spite - Pittsburgh Review of Books
Many things in the world have not been named openly; and many things, even if they are admitted, have never been described. One is the unsung sensibility – a
pghrev.com
I'm tired of politics and so here is cultural politics: hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/how-to-lis...
How to Listen to a Tarantino Movie
Starting with "Django Unchained"
hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com
Why to resist posting what everyone else does. open.substack.com/pub/hollisro...
Amor Fati Entropy
Avoid eternal return
open.substack.com