Nick Proferes
@profprof.bsky.social
Studies tech, discourse, and how sometimes things mean other things. Opinions are my own. Grading while listening to death metal enthusiast.
Resurfacing online to mention: my book on the history of Speech Rec, NLP, and data-driven AI is coming out in a couple of weeks! Just got my author's copy from @uchicagopress.bsky.social and it finally feels real! press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...
Divination Engines
A revealing and surprising origin story, showing how attempts to render human speech and language computable led from the era of big data to today’s AI. Since the advent of computers, society has fant...
press.uchicago.edu
Ahead of a hearing before the House Science, Space and Technology Committee tomorrow, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has released a 120-pg report, "Science: A New Golden Age" www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u... Here's the summary from the press release:
new game show idea "is it rhetorical technology" you have to guess which technologies are meant to actually do something, and which ones are just providing cover for what someone wanted to do anyway
I have a foolproof way to make sure that your papers contain absolutely no fake references . . . . . read the papers you cite.
Attention philosophers, x-philosophers and moral psychologists - I'm hiring! Two, 3-year research fellowships on an interdisciplinary project in the Philosophical Moral Psychology Lab at the Uehiro Institute, Oxford. Pass it on! For more info and to apply: tinyurl.com/mrwwuyaw
a penguin is sticking his head out of a hole next to a job application
ALT: a penguin is sticking his head out of a hole next to a job application
media.tenor.com
A senior staff scientist at Google’s artificial intelligence laboratory DeepMind, Alexander Lerchner, argues in a new paper that no AI or other computational system will ever become conscious.
Google DeepMind Paper Argues LLMs Will Never Be Conscious
Philosophers said the paper’s argument is sound, but that “all these arguments have been presented years and years ago.”
404media.co
Issue 29.2 of M/C Journal, 'twitter', is now live and free on the M/C Journal site. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we did creating it. 🩵🩵🩵 journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mc...
Vol. 29 No. 2 (2026): twitter | M/C Journal
M/C Journal - a journal of media and culture, founded in 1998.
journal.media-culture.org.au
The most interesting finding from our survey with @askhistorians.bsky.social is a relationship between someone's belonging and a sense of AI use. The more someone thinks AI is being used, the lower they rank their sense of belonging. This may help explain how AI contributes to community collapse.
🥁🥁🥁 Newly out from us today in Science Advances: “Biased AI Writing Assistants Shift Users’ Attitudes on Societal Issues”. Large Language Models are providing users with autocomplete writing suggestions on many platforms. Could these suggestions shift users’ own attitudes? (spoiler: YES) (1/7)
Really enjoying the smooth jazz before paper sessions start at CHI.
Apparently there is *no way for authors to opt out of AI generated podcasts* displayed prominently on the ACM digital library publication page. #chi2026
Do #CHI2026 authors that had an AI podcast made of their paper on the ACM Digital Library have any way to have it removed? Are they aware their work has been used in this way?
📣 We're excited that the program for this year’s #GESISfallseminar in Computational Social Science is out & registration is now open! 🗓️ 31 Aug – 29 Sep 2026 📍 GESIS Mannheim or online More info at gesis.org/fallseminar. Full program & registration at t1p.de/FallSeminar2026-Program. @gesis.org
All recent posts in the APA Blog's reanimated "Teaching and Learning Video Series" can be found here. This quoted post is my initial series reintroduction, and I will add posts to this thread as they are published. Please reach out if you are interested in contributing to the series.
Gregory Convertito@gregconvertito.bsky.social · last yr.It feels strange to share any sort of professional news right now, but I’ve recently become the editor of the APA Blog’s revitalized “Teaching and Learning Video Series.” Here is my post reintroducing the series. Please reach out if you’re interested in 1/ blog.apaonline.org/2025/03/19/c...
“Internal researchers can observe patterns, risks, and harms at a scale and level of precision that is simply unavailable to outside scholars.” metasinternalresearch.org
Meta’s Internal Research
What The Company Learned About Social Media and Harms to Mental Health from Dozens of Internal Studies
metasinternalresearch.org
This puts its finger on it: “‘Once a computer can use computers, you’re off to the races,’ Dean Ball, a senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation, told me.”
Justin Hendrix@justinhendrix.bsky.social · 6mo ago"For much of the country, AI has come to mean ChatGPT, Google’s AI overviews, and the slop that now clogs social-media feeds. Meanwhile, tech hobbyists are becoming radicalized by bots that can work for hours on end, collapsing months of work into weeks, or weeks into an afternoon."
At 9:18, 3rd period of the Finland-Switzerland women's ice hockey QF game, the ice crew came to clean the ice during a pause What follows is the funniest use of the slo-mo alternate angle tech I've seen them use during these Olympics of one of the crew members falling
I totally missed this, but it seems like First Monday is closing down as of May after 30 years of publication. firstmonday.org/ojs/index.ph...
First Monday @ 30 | First Monday
firstmonday.org
"The reason these aspects of our jobs have been so challenging to automate is that they rely on something even more precious than our time: namely, our capacity for scientific decision-making. It is worth considering what we lose when we cede that—and our agency—to machines."
Found the coolest website that takes random found cassette tapes people submit and digitizes them. I’m listening to an NYC hip hop station from 1994: intertapes.net
Intertapes — Main
Obscure tape finds and their stories
intertapes.net
Join us in Frankfurt or online: "Social Media Access Days" - Social media data between research and infrastructure – sustainable archiving, cataloguing and access. March 17-19. Featuring a keynote by @snurb.info. Full program and registration details at: www.dnb.de/EN/Kulturell...
Social Media Access Days
Social media data between research and infrastructure – sustainable archiving, cataloguing and access.
dnb.de
I'm co-chairing the Society for Social Studies of Science @4sweb.bsky.social Conference in Toronto, Oct 2026. #STS #scipol #innovation Theme: "TechnoPower • Technoscientific Futures". Open panel submissions portal is open! ls! Deadline: 2nd February 2026 www.4sonline.org/about_the_co...
About the Conference
4sonline.org
From claims about implementing consciousness to arguments about cognitive architecture & ChatGPT, 'Great Philosophical Objections to Artificial Intelligence' introduces the philosophy of AI. Order: https://bit.ly/4poIMLh Preview: https://bit.ly/3YXvieO Exam/Inspection copies available
Great Philosophical Objections to Artificial Intelligence
An entertaining introduction to the clashes between philosophy and AI over the last 70 years, from claims and counter-claims about the ability to implement cons…
bloomsbury.com
In the midst of massive anti-regime protests, Iran’s govt has completely disconnected the country from the global Internet. www.kentik.com/analysis/ira...
Iran Goes Dark as Government Cuts Itself Off from Internet
Move comes as protest movement grows more widespread In response to a growing anti-government protest movement, the government of Iran has…
kentik.com
The CFP for #AoIR2025 in Mexico City is now posted. The theme is "Regeneration(s)". Submissions are due March 1. aoir.org/aoir2026/aoi...
Please share - @pewresearch.org wants to hire a data archivist who will be an advocate for data users, helping to ensure that our datasets are easy to discover and reuse by researchers, journalists, and the public. pewtrusts.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/CenterExtern...
