“When it comes to AI, business leaders will confidently demand that the skilled professionals who perform the business's core functions use AI, even if those professionals don't think it will help.” 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

I should be less surprised at how flamboyantly and consistently Randi Weingarten has failed the challenges of leading one of the teachers' union in the US in age of gAI. Deeply uncritical, incredibly short-sighted, but most of all, pusillanimous.

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 6h ago

“Teaching educators about AI is a ‘moral imperative’, said Randi Weingarten, the AFT president.” “And without outside funding, it was a choice between taking big tech’s money or doing nothing, she said.”

Years before 2022, Lynn Hunt wrote a terrific piece about the essentiality of writing for the process of thinking. By relinquishing our writing to a machine, we are simultaneously relinquishing our ability to think. That can only be bad news for democracy.How do we help our students understand this?

Opinion | I’m Begging You: Never Write With A.I. (Gift Article)

It’s bad for your brain and worse for democracy.

nytimes.com

🚨BREAKING: Nearly a year after voting advocates launched a campaign to prevent a GOP gerrymander from taking effect in Missouri, Secretary of State Denny Hoskins officially blocked the citizen-initiated referendum on the new map from appearing on the ballot. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

Missouri blocks anti-gerrymander referendum from November ballot in attempt to silence voters

Voter advocates are expected to immediately challenge the move and ask the courts to ensure that Missouri voters have the final say on the map.

democracydocket.com

You will still certainly not regret assigning my book

Terrence Peterson@tgpeterson.bsky.social · 2y ago

I will even zoom into your course

Stolen valor bullshit

Adam Kinzinger@adamkinzinger.substack.com · 19h ago

This is a man who has a hard time looking in the mirror

Do you want to watch uni leaders cave, or do you want to organize collectively?

AFT@aft.org · 2d ago

“As with [Trump's] first compact, the best path forward is for higher education workers to organize and demand that their administrations and governing boards reject Compact 2.0. There is every reason to believe we can do so again." - @rweingarten.bsky.social & @aaup.org's @proftwolf.bsky.social

What the fuck

Justin Ling@justinling.ca · 20h ago

Holy shit. www.wired.com/story/a-civi...

Tomatomania continues

Sometimes I think, “oh shit. My writing sounds like tweaked Gen AI.”🤖 And nope. That’s backwards. GenAI sounds like a ghost of my writing because they trained the LLMs on piles and piles of work they stole without permission from writers like me.

Jesse@jaawerth.bsky.social · 2d ago

I don't think it's solely a function of people being unread. The prevalence of LLM slop just has everyone doubting *everything* and looking for patterns, enough to ignore or forget that some of these patterns are craft, and the LLM's do it because that's what they trained on

Words to live by: "I want to be an honest man and a good writer." James A. Baldwin, born on this day in 1924

This is so maddening. Solidarity with colleagues who were at Exeter.

Owen Davies@odavies9.bsky.social · 4d ago

So a whole lot of my talented Humanities colleagues are now unemployed as of today. A lot of understandable concern over Exeter. But for over two decades my Hums colleagues were in the top quartile for their research contribution to society. History top 10. Now gone with only a national whisper.

"Cunningham needed the culture war to get on the map, needing it as much as it needed her. ... The result is a star, the latest participant in an old game no more complicated than checkers but far less interesting."

David Ambaras@borderlander62.bsky.social · 3d ago

www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/a...

Turned on Washed Out tonight and immediately I was transported back to Madison WI circa 2009, riding my bike down the Capitol City trail on a cool summer evening after drinking a few beers on Willy Street

I understand, now, why Ukraine is winning this war

The issue is not detecting slop if you're looking for it, it's the vast amount of time and effort that has to be dedicated to mopping it up.

Ann Leckie@annleckie.com · 5d ago

For writers worried that they won't be able to "prove" their work isn't Spicy Autocomplete--worry not. You thought about every choice and will be able to talk about those choices easily and clearly. Folks who used the slop machine didn't make choices and won't have anything to say about why

Trying to enjoy the last weeks of summer but now our university administration is trying to ratfuck us out of our previously-bargained raises and unfortunately the faculty union bargaining chair is me

WTF

Matt Novak@paleofuture.bsky.social · 6d ago

Pentagon weighs eliminating civilian tenure at military academies and reviewing all curriculum

I agree with this, I see it in students, who are terrified of being critical of texts, because they "don't want to be mean" which can lead to them trying to give the benefit of the doubt to some truly awful historical authors, ideas and texts

Catherine Frieman@cjfrieman.bsky.social · 6d ago

Theory: The context collapse of the 21st century means many people read or consume media through a deeply personalised lens - everything is either about or for them specifically, so critical writing is experienced as confrontation

They examine how the AI industry relies on inflated expectations, question what AI can genuinely do and whether that even matters when selling a product, and explore how the technology is supercharging problems already embedded in our society ... open.spotify.com/episode/1iOC...

AI and the Enshittification Era with Cory Doctorow

The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart · Episode

open.spotify.com

I’d also like scholars to stop describing themselves as “slow writers” as if that were a flaw you need to overcome. In my experience the people who do this are careful, methodical, thoughtful, etc. You can lean into who you are. You don’t need to become someone else

youve heard of failing upwards. well academic careers in 2026 encapsulate the reverse: succeeding downwards. so many talented, highly qualified people, being punished for their achievements

“so you’ve spent decades becoming the world expert in this topic and instilling a love of it in students, we understand. but there’s no box for “inspiring” on the spreadsheet and honestly a unit with only 30 students taking it doesn’t sound v efficient you know”

will pooley@willpooley.bsky.social · 5d ago

debates about academic meritocracy arent new. but astonishing to see so many dynamics that involve literally penalizing success. when the consultants tell a university to fire everyone above X grade. when good teachers are rewarded with… more teaching. +specialists are ordered NOT to specialize

The level of inequality and militarized control of movement that created this situation shouldn't exist

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 5d ago

At least 18 die as 49,000 people cross to Spanish enclave of Ceuta from Morocco

Southern states are using the same tactics they used to intimidate civil rights activists in the 50s and 60s to harass and intimidate CAIR today. They’ve pointed to *no evidence* that CAIR is engaged in criminal activity. The whole campaign is just rank bigotry. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/31/u...

Texas and Florida Draw Up Terrorism Lists and Take Aim at a Muslim Group

The federal government designates terrorism groups. But Governors Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott have gotten in the game, and a focus is CAIR, a nonprofit.

nytimes.com

It's not a scam. It's money YOU paid for YOUR retirement

Senator Patty Murray@murray.senate.gov · 6d ago

"It's a big, gigantic, blown-up Ponzi scheme." THAT is what a Senate Republican said on the floor just yesterday. At a time when Social Security is facing insolvency, we need to fight to SAVE Social Security now and for future generations. NO cuts, NO privatization.

I dont think authors who do this deserve privacy; because this is fundamentally dishonest and they will do it again

Lincoln Michel@thelincoln.bsky.social · 6d ago

👀 Fascinated by the "withdrawn by its agents" detail. So the AI use was so blatant that the agents due a huge payday preemptively withdrew the contract?

*screams internally*

US government map of Africa mislabels every country at global conference

State department ‘takes full responsibility’ for erroneous, widely shared chart displayed at Aids conference in Brazil

theguardian.com

hear me out: Third World Cup

Guardian US@us.theguardian.com · 6d ago

Uefa nations have agreed to boycott all Fifa tournaments if the global governing body continues with its plan to sell off stakes in the World Cup

Mediterranean vibes