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Mark Sample

@samplereality.bsky.social

Professor of Film, Media, and Digital Studies and Chair of the Humanities Program at Davidson College. I also make weird things online. Digital skulduggery and more ☞ https://www.samplereality.com ☜

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Mark Sample@samplereality.bsky.social · 4d ago

I love the term "folk forensics"—and indeed, many cloying tells of AI use—like lists of threes, words deemed statistically likely to be LLM output, and em dashes—are mere superficialities. Not only that, they distract us from the underlying logic of textual production in the 21st century.

Matthew Kirschenbaum@mkirschenbaum.bsky.social · 4d ago

Raise your hand if you look forward to a cultural future that consists of policing every artist, performer, entertainer, or author whom you love and admire for the slightest whiff of “AI,” defined by vibes and whatever set of folk forensics is currently in circulation.

Mark Sample@samplereality.bsky.social · 3w ago

Has someone written an actual pre-history of AI slop, that is, a pre-history of low-effort, high-volume content? Because the actual pre-history would include things like spam, shovelware, tourist tchotchkes, box scores, horoscopes, Family Circus, etc. & etc.

Mark Sample@samplereality.bsky.social · 4w ago

Pretty sure if you ran White Noise through an AI checker, it'd be flagged as AI-generated. DeLillo didn't invent staccato compound noun phrases or liberal use of words like "humming" or "fluorescent" (try John Dos Passos)—but he surely influenced the training data.

Mark Sample@samplereality.bsky.social · 4w ago

This reminds me that several months ago I filed FOIA requests with my town and several neighboring towns regarding any Flock contracts and Flock data they might have accessed. And in defiance of North Carolina Public Records Law, two of those towns have not replied.

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Robert Downen@robertdownen.bsky.social · 4w ago

Have not seen it pointed out enough that the Trump admin's targeting of the Smithsonian is being influenced by David Barton, the debunked amateur historian and Christian nationalist activist who has spent decades peddling claims that church-state separation is a myth.

Robert Downen@robertdownen.bsky.social · 7mo ago

David Barton, the self-described "amateur historian" whose debunked work has been central to mainstreaming claims that the US was founded as a Christian nation, says he and his son have been directly involved in the Trump administration's efforts to stop "woke propaganda" at the Smithsonian.

Excerpt from David and Tim Barton's podcast: "Yeah, I was going to point out that earlier in the year, the White House asked us to look at some of that," David Barton responded. "At that point, you were leading a tour of legislators in Washington, D.C. ... By the way, we love the American History Museum, the Smithsonian because of the artifacts, but not because of the way they present them. The way they present them is terrible. And so as the legislators went through, Tim, they came back to you and said, 'Oh man, this is terrible and this is bad.' And so you turned that over to the White House on how bad the stuff was, how misleading it was." "You were right in the middle of that story," David celebrated. "This is so encouraging that we actually have an administration saying, 'Let's tell the truth, let's stop this woke propaganda nonsense, let's tell the truth,'" Tim responded. "This is such good news and I'm so excited for what this could mean for the 250th celebration because this is part of what they're gearing it for; they want to make sure we're telling good stories for the 250th."