Thomas Arnold
@thomasarnold.bsky.social
HRI, AI, religious studies, pragmatism | ethics-sullying at Tufts Institute for AI | he/him | current pencil: Tombow 2558 H | end theory: low | realism: visceral thomasarnold.scholar.st
The recommendation of Sara Teasdale now seems unrealistic because of its restraint, rather than-- as it did in high school-- the breadth of the machine's poetic references.
Adam Rawnsley@arawnsley.bsky.social · 2d agoToday, August 4, 2026, is the setting of Ray Bradbury’s short story “There Will Come Soft Rains” about a fully automated house continuing on after the family who lived there and the world around it died in a nuclear blast.
Looking forward to speaking with Christian Miller about honesty, AI, and virtue in a "This is fine" fire age. DM me for host promocode, still have some remaining. #philsky interintellect.com/salons/the-h...
[Upcoming Event] The Honesty Crisis in a Deep Fake Age: A Conversation with Christian B. Miller
Fakes, frauds, and cons are not recent inventions, but our contemporary age is bringing new zeal, technique, and scale to such enterprises. Beyond intentional scams, however, are even more unsettling ...
interintellect.com
The Coen Brothers have already done the Odyssey, it's time to let them plumb Minnesota darkness with Berryman's Dream Songs.
Michele Tepper@michelet.bsky.social · last wk.Greenlight Guillermo del Toro’s PARADISE LOST, you cowards
Really disappointed not to see @jgcarpenter.com quoted or cited here- sure seemed like she broke at least half this story on here almost 2 weeks ago
Carl T. Bergstrom@carlbergstrom.com · 2w agoY'all remember how they were going to put an AI teacher robot into a high school serving the Seneca Nation of Indians? OF COURSE it was built by a sexbot company. Gift link.
It took 9 years, but it seems this @tcarmody.bsky.social theory has manifested. kottke.org/17/12/lebron...
LeBron James and the Philly Beard Theory
LeBron James, as a basketball player, is arguably better now than he’s ever been. More importantly, LeBron James’s beard is inarguably better now than it’s
kottke.org
One of the many small details in @karenhao.bsky.social's Empire of AI that has stayed with me, amid many more gruesome others, is how OpenAI took the term "red-teaming" from cybersecurity without any adherence to its criteria and standards-- it just sounded cool, adversarial, accountability-coded.
Eryk Salvaggio@eryk.bsky.social · 2w agoI think the HF hack was “spin” rather than a marketing stunt. OpenAI should have anticipated what happened, but instead engaged in some sloppy engineering, and then framed it as “but what could we dooooo though?” while shrugging and pointing at the models they built doing what they built it for.
Showing Morass sums up so much of AI vibe-metaphysics
Emily M. Bender@emilymbender.bsky.social · 2w agoLots of sophistry and philosophical games. So in a way it's reassuring to see him showing his ass like this. OTOH, he'd probably retreat into some definitional morass about what even is consciousness. >>
I started writing a joke about the Odyssey in translation but then I saw on my screen "Chapman's Homer Beat Yanks 5/4" so I stole a better writer's joke.
🏳️⚧️ Alexandra Merideth Erin [she/her]@alexandraerin.com · 3w agoI started writing a joke about Polyphemus, but what if no one laughs?
Join us for this conversation (DM me for host promocode). This got me to look back at More's Utopia, where I realized Sebald's "Austerlitz" might be riffing off it-- both start with meeting a mysterious man in Antwerp, who unveils truths from colonial exploration. interintellect.com/salons/nowhe...
[Upcoming Event] Nowhere Good: Rethinking Utopia in the 21st Century
Utopia translates from the Greek outopos as ‘no place’. It is somewhere that can only be reached through the imagination. When he coined the term in his 1516 book Utopia, Thomas More told a story of a...
interintellect.com
As a robotics researcher, learning scientist, and author who has followed Realbotix for years, I'm compelled to do a Bluesky thread on this whole pivot that Realbotix is now trying, turning from humanoid sex robots to classroom "education" robots. Buckle up. nysfocus.com/2026/07/14/n... 🧵
Rural NY School To Launch Humanoid Robot Teacher
Plans to deploy a "lifelike" robot and avatar teaching assistant at Salamanca High School have sparked debate over the role of technology in schools.
nysfocus.com
Might be time for a Rorty reboot geared to AI, how the linguistic turn can serve a second-order "representation" and mirroring fantasy. Or a reboot of Wittgenstein, who would have vomited at the idea of LLM's vindicating anything from him other than his ear for Brahms.
Teresa Heffernan@tjheffernan.bsky.social · last mo.Finishing a paper on the myth that nature and Big Tech can ‘meet’ with no repercussions...a founding belief in the field is that AI replicates nature: ‘Getting machines to behave like humans and animals has been the quest of my life,’ writes Yann LeCun, former chief scientist at Meta’s AI lab.
Enjoying this book and looking forward to the discussion interintellect.com/salons/nowhe...
[Upcoming Event] Nowhere Good: Rethinking Utopia in the 21st Century
Utopia translates from the Greek outopos as ‘no place’. It is somewhere that can only be reached through the imagination. When he coined the term in his 1516 book Utopia, Thomas More told a story of a...
interintellect.com
If you're an anthropologist of science/tech in the Boston area and want to teach an intro-level class at Tufts on the same this fall, well you're in luck: apply.interfolio.com/188534
A very short intro for Theology and Science, submitted with impeccable timing a few days before the papal encyclical's release. On AI ethics, Moloch, Greek tragedy, and care. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Prompt engineering, via Philip K. Dick's "The Penultimate Truth" (1964).
I loved talking to @npr.org's Meghna Chakrabarti for On Point this summer. They re-aired the interview this weekend if you're curious to give it a listen! Link in comments.
Excellent new work out from my lab exemplifying how philosophy, cognitive science, and computer science must put their resources together in order to make headway on characterizing the capabilities of AI systems, especially when those capabilities are in a mentalistic idiom.
Tania Lombrozo@tanialombrozo.bsky.social · 2mo agoDo LLMs *understand* language? Do educational AI agents *understand* the material they teach (or their students)? Claims about what AI systems do or don't understand are pervasive, but assessing them requires an account of MACHINE UNDERSTANDING
It was a pleasure to host yesterday's @interintellect.bsky.social salon with @carissaveliz.bsky.social. The book is superb, an exemplary work of what we sweet summer children used to call a public intellectual.
Carissa Véliz@carissaveliz.bsky.social · 5mo ago...often acting as the avatars of hidden (or not so hidden) power. Written with verve, acuity, and humour, this is essential reading for the times we live in.” To pre-order the #book: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/759692...
The theological arachnics she would have unleashed on the name, message, and prophesying of Anthropic appearing at a joint press conference about a papal encyclical... My Adam Curtis doc would note she passed away in 2010, the year of the first ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge...
in the u.s., print and ebook: bookshop.org/p/books/the-... in canada from arsenal direct arsenalpulp.com/Books/T/The-.... and the week we hit the bestsellars: lithub.com/the-independ...
The Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers: Fiction
Here are this week’s Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers for fiction, based on sales in hundreds of independent bookstores nationwide, generously provided by the American Booksellers Association. …
lithub.com
We are nearing capacity and the event date, and in addition to zeugma I have some free codes to offer. DM me in interested.
Thomas Arnold@thomasarnold.bsky.social · 5mo agoLooking forward to this book and the May @interintellect.bsky.social salon discussing it.
As tech companies have started blaming science fiction for their AI's shambolatry, it's time to face up to Melville's culpability for the Canvas hack.
Nate Wolff@natewolff.bsky.social · 3mo agoCanvas is down, ye say? Aye lad hearken to me and I'll tell thee of a time when a man might say canvas was down! When the leviathan booms his bulk upon ye an' thy splintered masts surrender their sails to the foaming, merciless drink!! then, lad, ye say might say with some authority that can (1/135)
A diamond in the rough podcast on health and AI, a rare combination of front-line ER experience with genuine knowledge of the AI research landscape. codeandcure.buzzsprout.com/2502446/follow
Code & Cure
Decoding health in the age of AIHosted by an AI researcher and a medical doctor, this podcast unpacks how artificial intelligence and emerging technologies are transforming how we understand, measure,...
codeandcure.buzzsprout.com
Theology as a subset of spiritual care makes much more sense, pedagogically and intellectually, than spiritual care as a downstream, unsophisticated repackaging of theology.
Samuel Perry@profsamperry.bsky.social · 3mo agoLooking back on my seminary days, I marvel at the mismatch between what most seminary courses train pastors to do (exegete texts, read theology) and what most pastors end up doing in their day-to-day (counseling, admin, organizing). Maybe that's the case for all professional degrees, but if so, wow.
"What is a problem with individual liberty revealed by Emerson? Palantir just needs to confirm its exact coordinates. Also, any 'close readings' of further Emerson will be reported to the administration."
Chris Hanlon@chrishanlon.bsky.social · 4mo agoMeet “ASU Atomic,” a subscription platform that claims to offer customized learning modules for fee-paying users. None of the ASU faculty whose course materials were harvested for the module I generated were aware that their image, lectures, lessons, or other teaching materials are being used.
Film you've watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Star Trek, Star Wars, LOTR, Marvel, Disney, or Ghibli.
a close up of a man 's face looking at the camera
ALT: a close up of a man 's face looking at the camera
media.tenor.com
A. M. Vincent@vincent.northsky.social · 3mo agoFilm you've watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Star Trek, Star Wars, LOTR, Marvel, Disney, or Ghibli.
