Holy shit this quote.

The soaring costs of public universities is a political decision. When these schools predominantly served white students, they tended to be free (UC, CCNY, etc.) But as the number of students of color has increased, funding for the public universities has decreased. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/25/b...

Public Colleges Are Passing the $50,000-a-Year Mark. For Locals. (Gift Article)

At the University of California campuses in Berkeley, Irvine and Santa Barbara, students get an unwitting education in navigating the housing market.

nytimes.com

The super wealthy, at present, represent a greater threat to democratic society than does artificial general intelligence. my column. foreignpolicy.com/2026/10/23/m...

The Real Danger of Big Tech

The biggest risks of AI and other advanced technologies have less to do with their growing power than the men behind them.

foreignpolicy.com

“Before Google’s arrival a few months ago, an estimated quarter of a million trees occupied the 330 hectares (815 acres) of forest… After the tech company illegally stripped the entire area to build a datacentre – taking even the top soil with it – all that remains is a vast expanse of mud”

‘Pure arrogance’: anger in Finland as Google illegally fells 250,000 trees for datacentre

Company ordered to stop work at two sites in country, which has found itself at forefront of tech firms’ latest push

theguardian.com

I love Bouie columns that open with “important thing said by historian” (Steven Hahn) then applies that to the news then finds other historical analogies (Charles I, Emma Goldman). He’s an incredible public historian.

Sam Bagenstos@sbagen.bsky.social · last wk.

Great @jamellebouie.net piece. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/21/o...

I somehow missed this when @anthonymoser.com published it last year. It's SO GOOD: "Because the makers of AI aren’t damned by their failures, they’re damned by their goals. They want to build a genie to grant them wishes, and their wish is that nobody ever has to make art again."

I don’t want my entire intellectual world to be consumed by convincing people that their brains are worth using 😭

Stories is such a good way of putting this. Can a novel be full of pain and suffering? Clearly yes. Does a fictional character suffer in the real world? They're fictional don't be a dumbass.

Emily M. Bender@emilymbender.bsky.social · 3w ago

2. But Anthropic researchers say they see patterns that suggest that Claude can. The employees at Anthropic are telling themselves stories based on the words they input into the software and the words that come back out. >>

I'm increasingly frustrated that people who are anti-AI aren't being taken seriously, and taking a page out of my thoughts on why the anti-trans backlash got as far as it did I'm starting to think the anti-AI side isn't extreme enough.

Anthropic is out with new nonsense about Claude (or the collection of models called Claude) deserving moral consideration and/or be able to feel distress, so my inbox is filling up with journos asking me to comment. I've also got a day job, so here is a brief set of public comments on this: >>

For the latest episode of @thefirethesetimes.com, I spoke with @hebagowayed.bsky.social about what it’s been like to raise our respective kids - both around 3 years old - as diasporic (US and UK) Arab parents since the Gaza genocide started. Wherever you get your podcasts: pod.link/1503094935/e...

"SOME leading scientists"? Can we have a list, please, of the leading scientists who say "nuclear reactor on the moon? nothing could go wrong!" So we can revoke all their degrees.

Zach Rabiroff@zachrabiroff.com · 4w ago

Really working to come up with a rationale for this that isn't "last 10 minutes of a Wolfgang Petersen film," but so far I'm drawing blanks.

Saving to read!!

Dominique Baker@bakerdphd.bsky.social · 4w ago

Writing something where I will be liberally citing @lilymasonphd.bsky.social's latest and realizing that I can't cite every single thing I would like to because then I'm just reprinting her work. So, I've gotta thread about it instead. muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...

No two words send AI industry advocates into fits of rage more than "stochastic parrots." The question is: Why? Why do they get so worked up over this particular critical framework time and time again? I sat down with @emilymbender.bsky.social, one of the coauthors of the original paper, to discuss

The two words the AI industry hates more than anything

I talk with computational linguist Emily M. Bender, co-author of the influential 2021 “stochastic parrots” paper, about why AI industry leaders can’t stop seething over the term.

bloodinthemachine.com

Friend shared this video of a man unveiling the library he hid when he fled Damascus in 2011. It’s incredible

I *hate* this "digital divide" framing for AI; even libraries marshal it to justify their "AI literacy classes," ensuring all have "access" for self-actualization and economic opportunity. Maybe instead some folks are sufficiently literate, and they're instead choosing *principled refusal*.

The New York Times@nytimes.com · 2mo ago

The Gates Foundation has pledged to spend at least $1 billion over the next two years to expand global access to A.I. and help “narrow gaps between the richest and poorest rather than widening them.”

100% describes my workplace

Jeff Sharlet@jeffsharlet.bsky.social · last mo.

New school year off to a stumble w/ three major higher ed AI fallacies: 1. “We must embrace it because it’s here to stay.” So are radioactive waste & heroin. 2. “MY students would never cheat.” A statement about the speaker’s ego, not their students. 3. “I can always tell.” Sure thing, Sherlock.

A report this week from Nunatsiaq News shed light on a news correspondent in Nunavut that is completely AI generated. Jennifer Laewetz says AI has essentially automated plagiarism and Indigenous identity theft at the same time. Truth & Politics: youtu.be/PbaM59QUE5c

"Refusal is not just some impotent act of nostalgia, and the extent to which we think so is a measure of our contempt for the prospect of taking democratic politics seriously." This, by @edwardongwesojr.com, is a wonderfully good and urgent piece of writing. www.thetechbubble.info/p/the-future...

The Future Is Not Tech-Forward

On artificial intelligence, data centers, technological politics, and who gets to build the future.

thetechbubble.info

rejecting AI isn’t a failure to prepare children for an “inevitable” future, it’s a vital statement of belief in our agency to chose a future for them, rather than letting it be dictated to us by a small group of the richest men, who are increasingly - I wish this was just hyperbole - openly fascist

Chris Moran@chrismoranuk.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I am so pleased we have Daniel Susskind writing for us today about LLMs, parenting and learning (and not just because he mentions my little project PlotLines). It’s essential we have informed, balanced dialogues about GenAI’s strengths and weaknesses www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Ive been thinking the same thing, and kind of hesitant to say it out loud because we're already a group considered to be luddites and technophobes, when its really our sense that students absolutely must train their own minds to read primary sources, and think/write with primary+secondary sources.

Elise A. Mitchell@bydreamphd.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I’ve had this convo privately enough times in the last week to go public: I don’t think there is any valuable way to use AI in a history classroom.

Harvard is launching AI avatars of its faculty, and closing its writing center. UChicago is handing out free Claude, and then banning AI use in core courses. The University's response to AI is a mess. My new post, where I try to understand why: blekhman.substack.com/p/universiti...

Universities are failing this AI moment

The standard university response to a new challenge takes years. AI is not waiting.

blekhman.substack.com

I think what I find really depressing about AI in higher education is how so many people didn't even wait for the evidence/research before we decided on telling students "how to use AI responsibly" which often includes things like checking grammar, and obviously, we shouldn't have been

@rweingarten.bsky.social, this is a horror. Teachers cited in this article say they're using "A.i." to develop lesson plans for kids with disabilities and imply that they're feeding student data into LLMs. This is using untested, dangerous teach on vulnerable kids AND possibly violating privacy law.

The Spook Who Sat by the Ring Doorbell@hypervisible.blacksky.app · 3mo ago

“Teaching educators about AI is a ‘moral imperative’, said Randi Weingarten, the AFT president.” “And without outside funding, it was a choice between taking big tech’s money or doing nothing, she said.”

I feel like this report overall stands apart from so much else we've seen from education institutions around guidance and vision in response to AI, so I took some time yesterday trying to go through it and reflect on the reasons why: thebrokencopier.substack.com/p/reading-th...

Reading the MIT Report on AI as a High School Teacher

I think there are some really important things we all can learn

thebrokencopier.substack.com

New MIT report on AI calls for less emphasis on grades, more on project-based learning, recognition that programs for undergraduate research assistants are educational experiences that should not be replaced even if AI agents can do the research for less $$, more emphasis on community. /1

Thousands of books are pulped each day for paper recycling. What makes a book burning different is that it is ideological theatre. I’m glad journalists are working to make the AI industry’s book destruction public. 🎩 : Portable Magic by Emma Smith

I remember when the pitch was that the tech would free us up to do the "important work", which would seem to include getting to know your child while AI did something like collate spreadsheets but here we are. (Also, here's a newsletter in which teachers contemplate what the important work is)

The Important Work | Jane Rosenzweig | Substack

Teaching Writing in the Age of AI. Click to read The Important Work, by Jane Rosenzweig, a Substack publication.

theimportantwork.substack.com

The Spook Who Sat by the Ring Doorbell@hypervisible.blacksky.app · 2mo ago

A consistent pitch by the makers of ai wearables is that they solve the problem of getting to know your child. www.businessinsider.com/parents-brea...

Very interesting analysis here worth digging into. Also, @benjaminjriley.bsky.social makes some points beyond the data that are worth talking about more. First, the inevitability narrative is strong. I have an article coming out this fall that, among other things, digs into "AI is here to stay"/1

Benjamin Riley@benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 2mo ago

"Kids are told AI is 'inevitable' and acting accordingly. This is harming their cognitive development and foreclosing their life opportunities. Generative AI is cognitive cancer and we are doing next to nothing to stop it from spreading."

1) I absolutely agree with Sonja 2) I agree with this policy 3) We're going to see more "humans for rich people, machines for the poors" divide in education. *yes not all U of C students are rich, I know. But U of C is rich.

Sonja Drimmer@sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · 2mo ago

This is what I’m talking about! Our institutions should be doing the work for us and not leaving us to jury rig together the collapsing infrastructure around us. More of this. chicagomaroon.com/53262/news/s...