Rikker Dockum
@rikker.bsky.social
Linguist ‘n’ stuff. I was @thai101 on the other place. I’ll probably still talk about Thai too much. You can read stuff I wrote here: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=FeZWg9QAAAAJ&hl=en
Today I talked to my Intro Linguistics students about bias in LLMs. On the day of a lecture like this I poke around to see the various ways that current models still should not be trusted. Even on basic things. Last time I gave a talk on this (a few months ago) here's what Llama said. 1/9
In early 2023 I pitched this piece at a couple of glam journals ideophone.org/human-creati... I guess it was not AI-credulous enough 🤷 It turned out to be prophetic though. "We are currently witnessing the first cohort of people tempted into treating text generators as thinking companions."
Today I learned that apparently kids in school are being given the assignment "go home and ask your parents what their favourite meme is and write a report about it"
Abstracts are due today for the 57th Annual Conference on African Linguistics and the 3rd Bantoid workshop! To be hosted in Buffalo in May, with remote presentation options. sites.google.com/view/acal57/...
ACAL 57 & Bantoid 3
The University at Buffalo will host the 57th Annual Conference on African Linguistics (ACAL 57) on May 21-23, 2026. ACAL 57 is co-organized by members of the department of Linguistics at the Universit...
sites.google.com
Reuters reports: The cymbal says the robot monkey‘s lapse in judgment lasted for only a fraction of a moment.
a stuffed monkey wearing striped shorts and a yellow shirt is dancing .
ALT: a stuffed monkey wearing striped shorts and a yellow shirt is dancing .
media.tenor.com
Jesse Hawken@jessehawken.bsky.social · 9mo ago“Grok says” - you might as well be quoting a Magic 8-Ball, what the fuck is wrong with you
This is a thread of major media outlets falsely anthropomorphising the "Grok" chatbot program and in doing so, actively and directly removing responsibility and accountability from individual people working at X who created a child pornography generator (Elon Musk, Nikita Bier etc) #1: Reuters
this is worth reading. a longtime NYT insider confirms that the paper's abrupt turn into seething anti-trans bigotry came directly from the top: AG Sulzberg and his 2 deputies, Joe Kahn and Carolyn Ryan transnews.network/p/a-directiv...
'A directive from above': Former NYT editor lays out how the paper pushes anti-trans bigotry
In this in-depth interview, former New York Times editor Billie Jean Sweeney details how the paper shifted towards openly promoting anti-trans hatred, how some staff tried to stop it, how it's directe...
transnews.network
A man from Nantucket there was Who was joked about often because The things he could do Could have any hue But the blue ones got all the guffaws
I am filled with viceral rage at the fact that if you're a rich & powerful white guy, an abundance of email evidence that you're an actual pedophile won't cost you a damn thing. But if you're anyone else, sharing a damn risotto recipe without two factor authentication will ruin your career.
Ashton Pittman@ashtonpittman.bsky.social · 10mo agoMeanwhile, here's an example of the horrendous things found in Hillary Clinton's emails—the only story worth covering for any serious news outlet in 2016, apparently. This email is also regarding a child who suffered abuse from a grown man.
I didn't think I had a pin/pen merger but I guess I do. I caught myself saying, instead of centimeters, I said cinnameters, which I guess are cinnamon-flavored meters.
Hey. The fragmentation of the social media landscape has been hard on indie #scicomm 🧪 projects So if you'd like to follow a podcast that's enthusiastic about #linguistics, could you check out @lingthusiasm.bsky.social? And if you think your followers might like to, could you give this a repost?
Very Serious Linguistics going on today in phonetics/phonology. Congratulations to the tass for winning wug test creature of the semester, spring 2025. #linguistics
Oh hey, I get to do one of those posts! Stoked, thrilled, hyped, psyched, jazzed, amped, and chuffed to bits to share that I've accepted a tenure-track position in historical linguistics at Binghamton University (SUNY system). I'll also establish and direct the first linguistics lab there. Yay!
An important post from a friend of mine currently on a Fulbright in Estonia. Consider: the human impact on the individual grantees, the impact on the people they serve, and the hit that the image of the US takes when these folks leave. Fulbright has always been bipartisan. This is a disgrace.
Nina Jankowicz@ninajankowicz.com · 2y agoThe State Department has also been forced to freeze the Fulbright Program and and Critical Languages Scholarships, among other exchange programs, because nothing says "America First" like "we don't care about understanding other places anymore"
Gonna start calling it trumpscrolling to try to trick myself into not doomscrolling
It is Black History Month. I am Black. Ain't enough euphemisms in the world to hide them facts! Here's some reading for y'all as we celebrate & remember! Solidarity & Collectivity in Decolonizing Linguistics: A Black Diasporic Perspective in Decolonizing Linguistics doi.org/10.1093/oso/...
Solidarity and Collectivity in Decolonizing Linguistics: A Black Diasporic Perspective
Abstract. This chapter takes a Black Diasporic perspective on the decolonization of linguistics. The authors interrogate longstanding false institutional a
doi.org
I'm not sure if people realize how quickly the Trumpzis can do enormous damage to US science, from basic research to translation. Really fast. REALLY fast. Labs with decades of irreplaceable domain and technique knowledge can break apart with a surprisingly short funding gap. When they're gone...1/
I understand that ChatGPT is down and fortunately this is not a problem for me as I have spent considerable time developing a local language model that I am able to run autonomously, fueled by Coke Zero and snacks
How do Philadelphians pronounce 'Passyunk'? It's complicated. Really appreciate how their first reference is to the original Lenape version(s) h/t @kendraserra.bsky.social 🧪 🐦🐦
Are we all saying ‘Passyunk’ wrong?
The word Passyunk today is something of a defining Philadelphia word. We found five different pronunciations.
inquirer.com
after days of grifters and con men at CES we stumbled upon the booth for VLC. they were all dressed as wizards and told us, "we have nothing to sell, we just decided to show up". i told them I'd been using their software to pirate media for 15 years and they said "keep doing that"
"To invoke #language when talking about #LLMs is to misunderstand the nature of language and miss its fundamentally lived and embodied character ... Where #AI promises magic, the most pressing need is for basic research driven by communities" A must-read: www.thedial.world/articles/new... #langsky
AI Won’t Protect Endangered Languages — The Dial
Combinations of characters on a screen mean nothing without agency and intention.
thedial.world
LLMs love racist stereotypes, which is why Meta’s Liv talks in mock AAE…all they’ve got is “yaaasss” and “tea” because they mimic what the internet thinks black people are www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8FYxhdy/
AI bots (and LLMs in general) reproduce racist stereotypes, especially about AAE, because of how they work. Meta’s “Liv” makes a mockery of us and our language, and reduces us to “yaaasss” characature...
TikTok video by Nicole Holliday
tiktok.com
I can tell I’m an elder millennial who thinks about the 90s too much because my phone just autocorrected “aim” to “AIM”
On the infinitude of language 🐦🐦 (h/t @rikker.bsky.social and @roryturnbull.bsky.social) Roses are red, Trump is a cretin...
Important analysis showing that people share outrage producing misinformation, even if they know it to be untrue. IMO, this is why one campaign relied so heavily on anger about things that did not happen, and why they were electorally successful.
Kate Klonick@klonick.bsky.social · 2y agoBigger Finding # 2: Outrage-evoking misinfo seems to have little concern for truth It is shared more w/out reading, but people still could tell you it wasn't true, they just don't care In other words, we basically prove the adage "YOU CAN'T BRING FACTS TO A FEELINGS FIGHT" 7/
“Top cover, your best years are behind you and your dreams will probably stay dreams”
The barcode lookup feature on my dead media cataloging app is so helpful lol. But I think we can all agree that Trolli Sour Brite Octopus Gummy Candy 4 was where the franchise really went off the rails, it just couldn’t recapture the magic of the first three films
Noah Webster's failed spelling reforms never fail to amuse me, even if we probably should have gone with more of them lol Why shouldn't I enjoy this nice SOOP on my TUNG, when it can GIV some CUMFORT for the AKE of my GREEF?
