These systems are changing our style even when we make a point of *not* using them. (From Ethan Mollick's substack.)
Anthropic’s response and influence on the encyclical is most evident in the claim that “even its creators don’t understand how it works.” In June, I wrote about what that actually means & why Anthropic says it. (Written while I was in Rome, FWIW). www.techpolicy.press/the-black-bo...
The Black Box Myth: What the Industry Pretends Not to Know About AI
Tech Policy Press fellow Eryk Salvaggio says it's a problem is that those of us outside of the AI industry don’t know what rules they are following.
techpolicy.press
“Nazir’s selection is less about him using AI and more about the irony of Euro-American conceptions about the unintelligibility of postcolonial writing.”
Karl Steel@karlsteel.bsky.social · 2mo agoThis is a good read of the Granta / Commonwealth mess and quite a teachable essay for undergrads, so bookmark for your Fall syllabuses africasacountry.com/2026/05/how-...
Closing out a fun week at ULisboa with a class on Poe’s graphology
If the hackers want me to give everyone an A+, grade nothing, and enjoy my summer, then yes I am down to blame private equity and comply
Canvas is down. Past me would be so disappointed to learn that current me is not absolutely *thrilled* that it's become technologically impossible for me to spend all night grading papers...
Turned in the book! Years of work funneled into one email. Supposedly they're gonna print it . . .
Zach Galifianakis seems to have experienced some kind of personal crisis, possibly bought a farm upstate, and now has a gardening show called Gardening Show that is an absolute soothing delight. Grateful for Zach’s crisis, hope he’s ok.
This is a very normal temperature for a professor’s office to be, right?
Moving forward, I will refer to books of fiction as “so-called novels.” Despite all the hype from industry shills, there’s nothing “novel” about the genre at all. So-called novels have existed for hundreds of years.
V short notice, but I'll be reading some poems by Marie Howe and talking about them at the Georgetown public library today at 2pm. Come by if you're in the area!
Waiting for some tiresome nerd to explain why, actually, this news once again confirms the generative grammar IS correct...
The more I learn about machine learning in general and transformers in particular — and while I have a long way to go, I've learned a LOT — the more I believe that none of it really ought to work. Slamming a set of matrices with training data and demanding with calculus that they figure it out…
This post confirms something I discuss in my book project: large, consumer-facing AI models now outdo specialty apps for handwriting recognition. Cohen doesn't mention that they can also tell which handwriting looks more "graceful," "angry," etc. newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/the-...
The Writing Is on the Wall for Handwriting Recognition
One of the hardest problems in digital humanities has finally been solved
newsletter.dancohen.org
Maybe they'll indict a ham sandwich, but not the hero who throws it!
Given that a very viral, very misleading story from WaPo helped to fuel the whole "AI kills the climate" thing in the first place, it's nice to see this more...informed piece from them. www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...
Column | ChatGPT is an energy guzzler. These things you’re doing are worse.
AI services have earned a reputation as energy-hungry beasts. But what about the other emissions in our digital lives?
washingtonpost.com
New white paper: “Measuring the environmental impact of delivering AI at Google Scale” Curious what people think of this. services.google.com/fh/files/mis...
services.google.com
Is Michael Camille's book, Image on the Edge, still the definitive study of funny/crude marginalia in medieval manuscripts? e. g. for lulz . . .
- Old old: your phone rings in the movie - New old: it’s in your pocket with the flashlight on
Did the scary thing! Wrote the first paragraph of the book. The first word of this book is “In.” Stay tuned for the rest . . .
Academics! I have space this summer to take on indexing work. Please message me if interested!
Recently had the pleasure of interviewing the founders of @leotranscribes.bsky.social and trying their platform, which is *very* effective with tricky manuscripts. If you’re doing a transcription project, check them out! Easier and more accurate than other common HTR tools today.
Leo 🦁@leotranscribes.bsky.social · last yr.We’re excited to launch our most advanced model yet. ATR-1 sets a new benchmark for automated text recognition, transcribing handwritten and printed text with unprecedented accuracy and reliability. blog.tryleo.ai/2025/06/20/i...