Nick Seaver
@nickseaver.website
anthropology, algorithms, attention | he/him | The conversation is characterized by Nick's use of language, but the content of the discussion remains unknown.
not jean twenge catastrophizing from misleading data, I can’t believe it
Christopher Julian@chrisajulian.bsky.social · 3d agoI reanalyzed the CDC data behind the LGB “free fall” headline. It rests on a change in bisexual identification among one grade, in one wave, of one survey. Gay or lesbian identification did not change significantly. Calling it a "free fall" is sensational and just gives bad actors talking points.
folks we’re gonna need better studies than this news.berkeley.edu/2026/10/09/u...
Using AI for just 10 minutes erodes your ability to persist at hard things - Berkeley News
A UC Berkeley researcher co-authored a study that raises profound questions about how we interact with artificial intelligence in education — and daily life.
news.berkeley.edu
I appreciate that PBS opted to depict an older wiser Martina instead of reusing a youthful image, but they could have glammed her up a bit with some feathers or something.
PBS News@pbsnews.org · 18h agoMartina Navratilova was a high-profile force on the tennis court in the 1970s and ’80s with 59 Grand Slam titles. She has remained a big presence in the tennis world, commentating and mentoring, and is using her platform to weigh in on issues off the court as well. https://to.pbs.org/4rSfaJb
No, you deserve questions! Questions about your ideas, about other ideas you may not have considered, about where you want to go from there. You might not be getting them already, but if the answer is this, then there is no point in the whole enterprise.
what was the first R-rated movie you saw and how old were you? (and, I guess, were you scarred?) dealing with the first R-rated Godzilla movie over here…
folks coming to #4S2026, I'm organizing not one, not two, not three, but *four* panels on the social study of contraptions. come by my new home, the Wentworth room on the second floor of the venue this Thursday, to say hi
![Research [25] shows that people [26] enjoy the feeling of winning games [3,5,19]. Enjoying things can lead to longer life expectancy [2], higher economic productivity [9,22,33-40,302] and improve mental health [9]. Yet many games still include losing players [67,4]. A recent study showed that less than half of the players in a Chess [1] match win on average [42]. We have developed an LLM-driven co-creative [66], user-led [11], mixed-initiative [80] assistant for Chess [2], through which players can redefine the rules of Chess [3] using generative AI prompting such that they are the winner of Chess [4]. A study (n=3) showed that 100\% of people felt better, healthier and more self-actualised after using our tool, showing that this may be the way forward for games and human culture more broadly in the future.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:h5kgtr755iczaqxomeh2pmh7/bafkreicu2p2o3is64z5k37n222hgahp67ssca6ro3nggbjtpwasig2zzbi)
learned that @sthv.bsky.social uses a serial comma before the ampersand in its name today, very unsettling
"Were there any perverts before the latter part of the nineteenth century?" is a great essay-starter
New interactive/listenable blog post from me, exploring the expressive range of cat vocalizations in text-to-audio models. www.kmjn.org/notes/text_t...
Text-to-meowdio models
Expressive range of AI cats
kmjn.org
a goat carcass is the ball in this centuries-old sport www.cnn.com/2026/09/28/s...
A goat carcass is the ball in this centuries-old sport | CNN
For centuries, Kok-Boru has tested the courage, horsemanship, and endurance of players across Central Asia. At the World Nomad Games, CNN explores this ancient game through the eyes of Kyrgyz champion...
cnn.com
re-reading some of IN THE AGE OF THE SMART MACHINE for class prep, and this is so much more useful than the surveillance capitalism book
The Department of the History of Art and Architecture at Tufts University invites applications for a tenure-track position in Asian Art History at the rank of Assistant Professor, with a start date of September 1, 2027. All applications are submitted via Interfolio, at apply.interfolio.com/194232
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apply.interfolio.com
Rice University's history department hiring an Assistant/Associate Professor in the History of Artificial Intelligence!
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
apply.interfolio.com
really don’t see Seavers in the news that often (no relation, I’m pretty sure)
Rick CarBOOso’s Private Fire Crew@amandasmith.bsky.social · 2w agoDollywood has fallen. Send in Gerard.
fulfilling the university mission by getting advanced onto the ground by a car (I’m okay)
Nick Seaver@nickseaver.website · 2w agousing the wayback machine to figure out when exactly “fueled by evolving technological advancements” got added to my university’s mission statement
using the wayback machine to figure out when exactly “fueled by evolving technological advancements” got added to my university’s mission statement
Friends, send us your proposals, abstracts, thoughts, in English or French - and please help us spread the word about this journal issue on distraction we're putting together. The CFP is attached: intermedialites.com/en/call-for-...
CALL FOR PAPERS – NO. 51 “DISTRACTING / DISTRAIRE” – intermédialités
intermedialites.com
really the end of an era for one of the sweetest gigs going in my corner of academia socialmediacollective.org/2026/09/23/s...
The Social Media Collective Comes to a Close
It is with both celebration and sadness that we announce that the Social Media Collective, our research team of critical, humanistic social sciences at Microsoft Research’s New England lab, is comi…
socialmediacollective.org
was reminded today that tufts apparently has the only collegiate mime troupe in the US?