Fantastic article on the damage AI is doing, from Lauren Elise Daniels via the @ruadanbooks.bsky.social website: ruadanbooks.com/an-editor-on...

An Editor on Generative AI: The Tool That Blunts the User - Ruadán Books

by Lauren Elise Daniels Over the past eighteen months, an increasing number of people using generative AI have requested my editing services to support their attempts at creative writing. By gen AI, I...

ruadanbooks.com

The problems these grading machines solve: grading fast, more, and cheap, are quite different from the problems writing instructors, writing tutors, writing center solve: developing ideas, human conversation, learning.

Marc Watkins@marcwatkins.bsky.social · 7h ago

There's a new ultra cheap LLM on the market called Jev. It rates and evaluates text, but does not generate it. I tested it across a number of grading tasks and can see how this may upend how we assess students. I will be shocked if this doesn't go live soon in an LMS.

this one doin numbers on mastodon but bsky doesn't let me have enough characters

It ys tyme for Tulip skeptics to face some difficulte trouthes. Tulips are the waye of the future. Yf you do not invest yn Tulips you are way behinde. Yf you do not teache your children about Tulips thei will not be able to compete on the jobbe market. Onlye Luddites dislyke Tulips.

Rewatching Trueblood and it is truly awful, but the highlight is Ginger, who must be a professional horror-movie screamer

I can't really swim, and am terrified of water, but maybe this would work for me??

The Onion@theonion.com · 2d ago

Trans Teen Hatches Nefarious Plot To Undergo Years Of Medical Treatments And Counseling To Win At Swimming https://theonion.com/trans-teen-hatches-nefarious-plot-to-undergo-years-of-m-1850433563/

Trans Teen Hatches Nefarious Plot To Undergo Years Of Medical Treatments And Counseling To Win At Swimming https://theonion.com/trans-teen-hatches-nefarious-plot-to-undergo-years-of-m-1850433563/

I am delighted to be on several “unhinged about AI” lists because of my firm believe that human beings should not participate in our own deskilling and replacement for the further enrichment of tech billionaires. Yes, please block me. Cleanse my timeline of your creepy pick-me energy.

📣 Now Hiring: Events, Conferences and Marketing Administrator (12-Month Fixed Term) 📣 Salary: £23,500pa Contract: Full-time (34.5 hours per week) role for a fixed 12-month period Application deadline: Friday 25th September at 1pm Please visit our website for full details and how to apply.

If I was in charge of an educational institution and learned that a technology fostered “cognitive surrender” in young people, I’d like to think I would do everything in my power to keep it away from the young people who pay my institution to educate them. But I guess I’m just a weirdo.

It's always astonishing to me how effective "THEY don't get it, but YOU have the special insight and intelligence to get it" is at suckering people into cults. High achievers and strivers are easy marks precisely BECAUSE their achievement and high self-regard renders them susceptible to this line.

Elizabeth Sandifer@eruditorumpress.com · 5d ago

The problem is that "while you weren't looking the tech industry was comprehensively taken over by a cult based around a piece of Harry Potter fanfic" is self-evidently an absolutely ridiculous claim that can't possibly have happened, which is a real problem given that it 100% did happen.

Frog and Toad stayed on the island all afternoon. They ate wet sandwiches without iced tea. They were two close friends sitting alone together.

Always top autistic representation here

MurderBotBot@murderbotbot.bsky.social · last wk.

“SecUnit, you need to get to Medical!” I checked the feed again; still no alerts. “What happened in Medical?” “You happened, you got shot.” Oh, right, that.

I have learned, as a Humanist, to stay in my lane re: AI. Do what you want in your disciplines. In the humanities, and in English in particular, AI-generated writing and ideas are inappropriate and destructive.

The Atlantic@theatlantic.com · 2w ago

Many educators are trying to make AI simply go away—but in doing so, they are abdicating a sacred commitment that has guided American higher education for centuries, the president of Dartmouth College, Sian Leah Beilock, argues.

My courgette plant gave birth to the Eraserhead baby

I have seen two Irish changeling folk-horror films revolving around fairies in 'ancient woods' that are obviously commercial softwood plantations, and I am unreasonably annoyed by this. I get that you probably can't film in sensitive environments like primary temperate rainforest, but...

I saw it in Bayeux when I was 4 or 5 and already obsessed with Harold being shot in the eye. I admit I rushed through most of it to get to that bit :(

Lucie Matthews-Jones@luciejones83.bsky.social · 2w ago

I REALLY want to see the Bayeux tapestry& it’s familial: 1 branch of my paternal granny’s tree starts with men arriving on boats in 1066 with Norman the Conquer. Who’s to say I won’t see my v v v distant grandfather sewn in stitch. Anyway, I naively didn’t realise it would be so hard to get tickets

Technology being everywhere doesn’t mean it belongs everywhere. The tech industry wants us to believe that AI in early education is not only inevitable, but necessary. We don't see it that way. This week, we announced a moratorium on generative AI for public school students in 2-K to 8th grade.

Pollution levels in London after 10 years of advancing sustainable transport.

I do think “every rich person went insane during covid because it was the first time they’ve been inconvenienced in decades” felt a little reductive at first but damn if isn’t more and more compelling as the years drag on

Refuse the brutal world the fascists make.

Watching the netflix documentary about Dr Raygun breakdancing. As an academic this is intensely stressful and a warning to us all to stay quiet and never leave the house, much less roll around on the floor in front of an audience.

What if the Weyland Yutani Corp actually has a point and the weapons division creating a lot of value for shareholders is a worthy goal

Literally the moral of A Christmas Carol is “the system would work okay if business owners didn’t hoard wealth or mistreat their employees,” not “get out the guillotines Now.” It’s not even anti-capitalist! So…they’ll be making the case for hoarding wealth & mistreating employees, I guess???

If you have a Gmail account, you need to read this. Google's AI now scans your emails and attachments, bank statements, tax files, medical letters, all of it. It turned on by default, and there's a class-action lawsuit over how. Here are 5 moves to shut it off, the switch is hidden in two places:

Listening to the audiobook of The Exorcist, and still can't understand why people found the film or the book scary. Obscene, yes. But every time I see a possession/ excorcism movie I just think 'give them a slap and tell them to stop making a show of themselves'.

absolutely horrible episode of Human Remains, except for this one moment when the Diana-obsessed Julia Davis' character holds up this souvenir tray next to her face, and her friend marvels at the uncanny likeness

Hot Take Saturday: I think we are on the cusp of a MASSIVE humanities revival. I’m talking handmade, craftsmanship, maximalism, art collection for everyday folks, rich music, unfettered written masterpieces, deep thought experiments…all in rejection of AI and our corporate overlords.

My favourite film actually is 'two unemployed actors go on holiday, discover the cottage is awful, and then come back again'. The real challenge would be to make it sound exciting.

Dan Hon@danhon.com · 3w ago

Make your favorite film sound as boring as possible without giving away the title: A chief technology officer is worried about keeping his spreadsheets private.