🫶🏼 it hurts a lot but sometimes that's what the tax money I am paid is for in my opinion: to protect academia however far it has fallen; it can be stopped from falling further, and even improved, if we are lucky and work hard enough
Ron Belmont
@ronbelmont.bsky.social
High energy nuclear physicist. Lover and purveyor of physics and death metal. Hater of enshittification and ensloppification. he/sé/él/il/er/hän/він/他 Views are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.
Open Letter: Stop the Uncritical Adoption of AI Technologies in Academia It's been a year & people tell me they've changed their mind, feel safer now to sign, etc. So I'm sharing it again for them. We're almost at 2k & anybody from anywhere can add their names. openletter.earth/open-letter-...
anyway, I hope people enjoy deadly, generational crash courses on why regulators you took for granted are important and how everybody employed at a libertarian free market think tank should be sentenced to hard labor community service for a decade
You do not need more reasons to be off X. But at this point, if you are not, you are knowingly supporting the malicious degradation of women everywhere, and we see you.
404 Media@404media.co · 5h agoNonconsensual AI images are getting much harder to spot.
This is why I get so annoyed with university admins who insist we must teach AI or our students will be left behind. Fine, then require one class and leave the rest of us alone. (After about two weeks in the class, they’ll be like, “shit, what do we do now?” but that’s not my problem.)
Drew McKevitt@drewmckevitt.bsky.social · 16h agoLet's assume for a moment that "the left" takes a "massive generational L" and AI is everywhere and we all have to use it. I think we'll all be ok because it takes like 30 seconds to learn how to use because it was designed so dumb fucking babies can use it
there is no rhyme or reason to an entire “AI” department, much less an AI school. There is no curriculum, as such, because AI is not a school of thought. It has no theory, no method. It’s just a tool. Two or three courses, max, if someone is obsessed with it should suffice.
modernizing broadband speed goals would inconvenience Elon Musk and his congested Starlink network
FCC abolishes gigabit speed goal, suggesting it is unfair to slower technologies
FCC decides 1Gbps is too fast, standard must be "technologically neutral."
arstechnica.com
We shouldn't discount the fact that at least part of the data center backlash (and by extension the broader techlash) is because people feel like the tech industry has not given them anything cool, inspiring, beautiful, or useful in a long time
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants AI smart glasses to replace smartphones. Other tech giants are following suit with more wearables. In a world where anonymity is already a precious resource, what does that mean for privacy? New by me for @theguardian.com: www.theguardian.com/technology/n...
Did someone wearing Meta Glasses film you today? Are you sure?
People say they’ve been secretly filmed in their own homes, at concerts and at work. Are the wildly popular smartglasses the final nail in the coffin of personal privacy?
theguardian.com
University professors generally do not make very much relative to our training levels. Most of us, especially in STEM, could make a lot more in industry (and deal with a lot less bureaucracy). Grant money mostly goes to paying students, postdocs, and staff, and is heavily vetted and scrutinized.
Riley Bruce@rileybruce.bsky.social · last wk.What’s a thing from your area of expertise (or special interest) that you think it would behoove everyone else to know?
this makes me miss the days when someone would have been embarrassed to publish something like that
Richard Van Noorden@richvn.bsky.social · 2d agoDean of Science at Stellenbosch University writes that although AI generates almost all the words for his articles (including this one): "AI did almost all of the writing. I remain the expert and the thought leader behind the piece." www.nature.com/articles/d44...
Meta using disabled students for cover. Absolutely positively despicable.
Maggie Harrison Dupré@mharrisondupre.bsky.social · yesterdayMeta removed most of the specific videos we flagged to them from Instagram. TikTok removed all of the specific videos we flagged to them. Meta also provided the following statement:
NEW: Teen boys are using smart glasses — mainly Meta's AI Glasses — to film themselves harassing classmates at school, following girls around and "rizzing" them or "ragebaiting" them w/ insults. In several videos we reviewed, girls plead w/ the poster to stop filming. futurism.com/artificial-i...
Teen Boys Are Using Meta Glasses to Harass and Bully Girls at High Schools and Middle Schools
Teen boys are using Meta's AI glasses to harass and bully victims -- overwhelmingly girls -- at middle schools and high schools.
futurism.com
Zuckerberg lied about concern for child safety, Meta whistleblower testifies at landmark trial www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Zuckerberg lied about concern for child safety, Meta whistleblower testifies at landmark trial
Arturo Béjar, former Meta safety engineer, tells jury tech company was aware of products’ potential harm to children
theguardian.com
It’s ironic that the people hailed as “job creators” are now intent on spending trillions to use AI to kill jobs. Jokes on us I guess.
www.thenerve.news/p/cory-docto...
Cory Doctorow: The people who tell you ‘AI is changing everything’ are lying
It has become impossible to tell managers mesmerised by artificial intelligence that the tools are not, in fact, helpful. So employees just play along with the fiction to keep their jobs, writes our t...
thenerve.news
We tracked a purchase of rare books to an Amazon warehouse that scanned and destroyed books. @emanuelmaiberg.bsky.social on our investigation and why the practice of cutting books, which libraries do to preserve knowledge, is different when AI companies do it. WATCH: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sf2...
This is genuinely great - thank you, @aft.org! Would love to see a similar statement urging teachers and students to cancel their ChatGPT accounts due to OpenAI's support of ICE! www.technologyreview.com/2026/02/10/1...
A “QuitGPT” campaign is urging people to cancel their ChatGPT subscriptions
Backlash against ICE is fueling a broader movement against AI companies’ ties to President Trump.
technologyreview.com
AFT@aft.org · yesterdayNEW: As teachers and families head back to school, AFT is urging people to shop at retailers other than Target for school supplies. Target refused to condemn unlawful ICE activity and failed to respond to good faith outreach efforts. Find local stores that respect labor rights at ShopSmart.AFT.org.
“AI adoption raises homework scores by 18% and reduces completion time by 30%, but lowers monthly exam scores by 20% within six months” 😳
Brendo@brendoelfrendo.bsky.social · yesterdayLink to the referenced paper: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
This is, of course, always where this was headed. We must ban it.
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · yesterday“The records indicate Clearview AI searches formed one component of larger intelligence files that combined facial recognition results with vehicle records, social media and other investigative data.”
New for @techpolicypress.bsky.social: Stalking, misidentifications, invasions of privacy - we're already seeing plenty of harms from ALPR networks like Flock But the biggest dangers from this surveillance tech are what comes next if we don't seriously rein it in www.techpolicy.press/unless-flock...
Unless Flock is Reined In, Mass Video Surveillance Will Grow Even More Pervasive
Automated license plate reader (ALPR) systems are facing a moment of public reckoning in the US, writes Jake Laperruque.
techpolicy.press
I don't think people understand the extent to which this has been a decade plus long billionaire funded campaign (obviously Thiel is involved). We've tried to ring the alarm about these eugenicists but it is too easy for them to get parroted by the mainstream media. bylinetimes.com/2026/08/18/t...
The Peter Thiel-Linked Race Science Network that Penetrated Cambridge University and Targeted Jason Arday
The media's coverage of the academic's life was fuelled by the campaign of an established far-right network
bylinetimes.com
sometimes I wonder if people in other fields have any clue what we go through as women in computational fields... (graph from: www.npr.org/sections/mon...)
I wish more people talked about how universities embraced AI and this helped create a perfect storm for supposedly most students now cheating using chatbots. Many ways of undetected cheating have always existed, but were never promoted as ways to study or write. The complicity is flagrant. 1/
Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ@olivia.science · 6mo agogot inspired by some questions from phd students the other day — and also really irritated by senior academics who seem to refuse to get the issues and continue to blame students; hope useful for you! 🩷 olivia.science/cheating
ngl finding out my reporting may have contributed to what happened in PA is wild and one of the biggest accountability journalism moments i have ever had
jae holzman@jael.bsky.social · 2d agothis comes after heatmap news reported that shapiro’s office offered amazon web services early access to the fast track program before members of the public
this comes after heatmap news reported that shapiro’s office offered amazon web services early access to the fast track program before members of the public
Governor Josh Shapiro@governor.pa.gov · 2d agoThat’s not all: We’re also removing ALL data centers from our Fast Track permit program and stopping any office or agency under my jurisdiction from signing an NDA with AI data center developers.