Seeing an influx in AI medicine coverage in the news the past couple days which is poignant given the US Governments new official stance on autism. AI can certainly be a powerful tool for healthcare, but I wonder if it will always be correlated to anti-intellectualism.

Presenting Dr. Billie Anderson!!! B successfully defended her dissertation on Wednesday on monstrosity and disability in film. I've been blown away by her dedication and passion for this project, and I'm so excited to see where her research goes next. Congrats @billieanderson.bsky.social

I liked this article, and appreciate @paulbloomatyale.bsky.social pointing out that AI friends don't mean the end of human friends for everyone, but that some people who may otherwise have had friends will struggle. A more measured take in a polarizing field. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

So it turns out a handful of business owners CAN use free AI tools and handmade signs to completely dismantle a necessary transit improvement. No city as big as Toronto should be so easy to manipulate. Just embarrassing. www.torontotoday.ca/local/transp...

Cool study from @bikewaysto.bsky.social detailing a traffic count on Bloor Street taken on June 11 with a camera at 412 Bloor West. During the peak of the afternoon rush, bikes outnumbered cars. I repeat: bikes outnumbered cars. drive.google.com/file/d/1ctd4...

I think the counterpoint to the "young people are lonely, lazy, and addicted to TikTok" rhetoric is that public services all over Toronto are seeing massive boosts in popularity. Young people want to be outside, social, and connected to their communities. Politicians should take note!

Loved getting the chance to speak at this conference and learn more about current research in epidemic injustice in psychiatry, lived experience expertise, and potential futures for the field that improve both its ethical and epistemic outputs.

My conspiracy theory is that they’re using AI to write these things, which is both a fascinating and terrifying thought. A new regime founded on LLM definitions for complex ideas.

Not the official death date printed on this Scarborough RT cardboard model 😭😭😭

To me this constitutes a pretty huge deal. If local consultation can’t even happen without AI disinformation campaigns how can we ever hope to have a reasonable democratic society again? Summerhill Market should face some kind of consequence for this.

I’m so exhausted.

My wife is only a cyclist because there are big bike lanes with enough space to make her feel safe with both e-bikes and cars. Building more of this infrastructure WILL convert non-cyclists into cyclists.

First they came for my cars made partly in Canada, then they came for my movies that make Toronto look like New York. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

The Toronto School Board has a deficit of $70 million. Wonder if any of this money could instead be going to keeping the schools in Canada’s largest city open?

Very funny to see American news celebrating Carney’s decisive victory when this is kind of a nightmare result for a parliament. You Americans really live with this kind of polarization all the time eh?

The first publication on perceptions of diagnosis and social media use of youth in psychiatric treatment is out now! We are now conducting interviews with these patients and the conversations have been fascinating. Very excited to share those results soon. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Would love to write an Atlantic-style article (light on the facts, heavy on the sensationalized opinion) about how American culture is no longer dictated by Hollywood but by the LDS. Everything from fashion and celebrities to cookies seems to be coming out of Utah these days.

Just nice to see Canada’s national public media stand up to the bullshit. We don’t have to give space to people whose agenda is to destroy our democratic institutions.

From Rosemary Barton re. “The post-debate scrum has been cancelled due to an altercation”: “Let me be clear, this was not a fight between journalists, these were right wing extremists with their own agenda who harassed us”

It’s always fascinated me that TO has several major news outlets that all cater directly to suburban rage for the city. Normally I wouldn’t care but it’s especially bad when the province has the power to destroy the city based on what these people think Toronto is.

When we talk about social media algorithms we often ascribe them agency (e.g., TikTok knows me better than my parents; TikTok wanted me to see this) But it’s unclear what people generally think their relationship to these agents are. Are they the experts? Are we equal partners?

Got to share some of my thoughts for this piece in Western’s undergrad magazine. It was great to chat with Hannah, and to see students thinking critically about how social media shapes their identities, especially relating to mental health.

A peculiar justification for the US declaring war on Canada is that it will hurt Canadians, and this is evidence that they’ve somehow taken advantage of the US all these years. It’s like punching someone in the face and then using their nosebleed as evidence that they’ve taken advantage of you.

The thing about the “You need a car for winter in Canada” crowd is that my car is the first thing I stop using when TO gets 50 cm of snow. Why would I risk my life and sanity trying to drive right now when every other option is easier?

They're going to make us use AI in our writing whether we like it or not eh?

Tim Hortons is an American company.

Love carrying a disposable camera around because I can capture moments like this. Carollers sheltering from the snow and wind on Bloor Street. Not all heroes wear capes, but these ones sorta do.

It’s -7°C in Toronto today, but I had to get all the way from my apartment to midtown and then back downtown in under an hour. Thanks to safe cycling infrastructure on the 3 roads Ford wants to tear up, cycling was not only possible but also the easiest and most enjoyable option. No need to drive.

It finally happened. I found a way to talk about Severance with my students. Rewatching the first episode I really think you could structure a whole survey philosophy course with it.

Been mostly posting about bike lanes these days but since this is a new platform w/ new followers I’ll shamelessly plug my recent publication! I wrote about the ADHD TikTok phenomenon, spoke with some influencers, and tried to connect it to PhilSci. Check it out :) muse.jhu.edu/article/930492

Working on something re. AI friends and whether the fundamental issue with them is a mistaken belief that people are fixed categories. These friends seem to always be coded to portray a set of fixed categories and I wonder if that’s how the developers really see people too. Never changing/growing.

Loved getting to speak a bit about this in @billieanderson.bsky.social’s section of the class yesterday!

I have a strong feeling that a lot of the things I love and think are good will be destroyed over the next few years. So I’ve been trying to focus on what’s good now, and what can’t easily be touched by bad faith politicians. What are some things that make you happy these days?

This keeps happening. If even one TTC vehicle hurt a driver we’d have calls to ban public transit, yet what is this the 3rd time in the past few months that careless drivers cause massive collisions? Where is the enforcement? Why are we debating bike lanes?

What’s insane to me about the AI Coke ad is that like the only reason Coke is popular is because of its ability to connect real human emotion with the product. Like 90% of the budget should be in these ads alone. Do these people not understand their own marketing?

TTC running smoother than I’ve ever seen it. Conspiracy theory is that the Swifties did this. If so, I thank them. True power lurks in teen pop sensations.

Awesome vibes at the Fight for Bikes rally today! This is the kind of positive energy that gives me hope we can defeat Bill 212.

Look forward to seeing many of you #BikeTO folks at today's protest against Doug Ford's Bill 212. Meet 2 PM at Christie Pits. #TOpoli #ONpoli #VisionZero

Among the many, many very bad things about a Trump presidency, I’m deeply concerned about the future of AI regulation. We need to be having the tough AI conversations and instead we’re going to get Elon Musk slashing every regulatory body. It’ll be a disaster there’s no way around it.

Just thinking about “subjective” disciplines because a student told me yesterday she prefers science over philosophy because of how subjective philosophy is. It’s not. There’s a method/methods philosophers use that can be verified. It’s just not taught in school.

I think people call the humanities “subjective” because they’re taught the scientific method in school but not taught about other methods.

Revising a paper is so lame. I said what I said, can’t the journal just accept that?

A new social media? In this economy?