This is one of the objections I have when people talk about how useful LLMs can be for literature searches or for any kind of search, really. Even beyond the biases that inevitably (and, in some cases, intentionally) show up, part of a good literature search is seeing information *in context.*

Mike Boylan-Kolchin@mbkplus.bsky.social · 2w ago

Part of research is wandering in the literature and making unexpected connections, finding the questions you didn’t know to ask. I don’t see a good way to do that while relying mainly on LLMs to do literature searches.

Dolly Parton's Imagination Library gifted more than 332,000,000 books since it was first created 31 years ago.

Opinion | The Crisis in College Composition and Communication The dissolution of the field’s premier organization couldn’t have come at a worse time. By Jason Godfrey and Anne Ruggles Gere: https://bit.ly/4gtUvWI #EDUSky #HigherEd #AcademicSky

A good reminder that cities aren't loud. Cars are loud.

Miser@misernyc.bsky.social · last mo.

What a glorious day in NYC

A letter from the mother of Alex Pretti, six months after he was murdered by ICE.

c.org/vyVbttS2QK #teamrhetoric

Sign the Petition

Halt Dissolution of CCCC and Call for Transparency from NCTE #SaveCCCC

c.org

Hey @insidehighered.com @chronicle.com Want to report on how the professional organization for college writing (including the top required college course) was just dissolved by its parent org? ncte.org/press-update...

That "special topics conference" language is really getting under my grill. It reeks of the long history of seeing composition as an extension of and lesser than literature.

the audacity for the NCTE EC to say they're excited about the future. i just --

The silence from NCTE over the last two days is rather loud.

The CCCC Exec Committee released a brief statement on the NCTE’s intention to dissolve CCCC. "CCCC is the professional home for thousands of scholars, teachers, and researchers...with a decades-long record of shaping how writing is taught, studied, and understood."

CCCC EC Quick Response July 23

Public Facing Statement To be Shared With the General CCCC Membership We, members of the CCCC Executive Committee, were alarmed to learn of the NCTE Presidential Team’s plans to dissolve CCCC, which ...

docs.google.com

There is no way to use ChatGPT responsibly.

ICE has fatally shot 11 people since Donald Trump's second term began. These are not isolated incidents. They are the predictable result of a cruel, violent system. Abolish ICE.

SHOCK NYT REPORT: DHS now admits the man ICE killed in Houston wasn't even their target. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 35-year U.S. resident, was just driving to work when agents — with no body cameras — shot him dead searching for two other men who weren't even in the van. Gift link in reply.

“Cornell researchers found that at the current rate of AI growth, the burgeoning industry could represent 24 to 44 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030, the equivalent of adding five to ten million cars to US roadways.”

The Pollution Being Churned Out by AI Data Centers Is So Severe That It's Almost Incomprehensible

The extent of the pollution being put out by thousands of data centers is shocking. Some developers are exploiting regulatory loopholes.

futurism.com

Imagine writing this and sending it out to people like you thought you actually did something.

Marisa Kabas@marisakabas.bsky.social · 2mo ago

what a fucking asshole

JFC, STOP SHARING GEN AI IMAGERY. It's shitty. And it's bad. BONUS frustration if it has no alt text, because then you suck twice.

The integration of AI into writing classrooms should take heed on what's happening to programmers who use AI to "vibe code." These are people who already knew how to do the thing that's atrophying. Students don't have their writing practices set yet. www.404media.co/software-dev...

Software Developers Say AI Is Rotting Their Brains

“It's making me dumber for sure.”

404media.co

I am extremely alarmed by this.

A Professor Defended a Postdoc Who Was Deported. Now His Lab Has Been Suddenly Locked Down.

Work at an Indiana University biology lab was halted amid federal scrutiny, affecting dozens of researchers. “The damage is significant and mounting,” the department chair told The Chronicle.

chronicle.com

A school board in Wisconsin is probably going to censor an instrumental performance by children because the composer dedicated the piece to a queer icon. It’s why the calls by Democratic consultants to compromise on “the trans issue” is so unacceptable. You cannot compromise with this vile hatred.

Wisconsin school board considers pulling piece from spring band concert due to LGBTQ+ history ties

Watertown High School band students have spent months preparing for their May 18 spring concert. But a piece of music will likely be struck from their set list over its history.

wpr.org

“Use AI to brainstorm but not to write.” “Use AI to help you outline but not to write.” These are commonly proposed as “ethical” ways for undergrad students to use AI, but I’m sorry, brainstorming & outlining are just as integral to writing as the actual construction of sentences.

There's a kind of displacement in the idea that ai is both A) so easy to use that we won't need people to know how to do things B) itself something that requires significant skill and training to use

Jane Rosenzweig@janerosenzweig.bsky.social · 10mo ago

This below is in the context of computer science but we all need to be having this conversation about whether "using AI" in classes prepares you for future jobs or whether actually doing the thing yourself prepares you for a world in which you may or may not use AI. The idea that using AI to write/1

Randi Weingarten 🖇️📚✊🇺🇸@rweingarten.bsky.social · 5mo ago

I am increasingly worried about AI. And while we have to help educators control what tools are used when it comes to the seismic change Big Tech and AI are having in virtually every aspect of society, we also need enforceable guardrails/regulations. www.aft.org/column/techn...

I try hard to never to use "generative AI" because the phrase is itself industry gobbledegook that aims to erode scientific vocabulary through normalising such terms that superficially seem technical but are nonsense in their referent; more below:

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ@olivia.science · last yr.

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity. 1/n

Red state: we have cut gender studies because it doesn’t support our theology Blue state: we have cut gender studies because it doesn’t support our AI institute

Nick Sousanis@nsousanis.bsky.social · 5mo ago

As someone working at a Uni that should be welcoming profs from all over, should be a sanctuary for trans, queer, & all Ss who need a place to be, instead we have shuttered our hum dept. This is apt: “There are lots of quote-unquote ‘blue states’ making bananas cuts to their humanities programs.”

We have had several (I think four?) professors in my department retire in the three years I've been at my current institution and not one of those lines has been filled.

Tobias Wilson-Bates@phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Saw some discourse about the issue of older professors not retiring as if that’s the roadblock to younger academics securing jobs. This despite every institution I’ve worked at simply not filling lines when professors retire, which seems a much more prominent trend.

The desperate campaign to push AI down our throats is just what Nestlé did with baby formula, or Monsanto with patended seeds. Manufactured Intermediation—inserting a corporate tollbooth into a process that used to be self-sustaining, using a low initial barrier to entry to destroy the alternative.

Adam Conover@adamconover.net · 5mo ago

I don't recall any previous transformative technologies that had to be sold to the public so hard. No one in 1999 was going, "Guys. Cell phone? It's coming, whether we like it or not. I think it's important, FOR WOMEN ESPECIALLY, to learn about cell phone. So that we're not left behind!!"

If I were a senator or congressperson, I would not be on social media right now. Actually, I would be on social media. I would be live in an airport or on a train while on my way back to the Capitol to hold a sit-in with as many colleagues and camera crews as possible over this ****.

I feel sick to my stomach waiting around to see what atrocity Trump has in mind for the people of Iran this evening. It's hard to fathom our other elected leaders aren't able to check him in any meaningful way. It's an indictment not just of voters but of our whole system. We're ruled by a mad king.

I appreciate that "it doesn't really work this way", I just don't care. An imminent threat to end a civilization is a 5 alarm fire, even by Trump standards. If he can break the constitution to start a war, you can bend some procedure to stop a genocide. At least look like you're trying.