Are you teaching TechComm this semester and wanting to discuss AI? Consider using my short accessible piece about “Extractive AI” that recently came out in JBTC: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

TOP AI IN EDUCATION FAILS ... so far:

If you’re looking for a critical perspective on AI that’s accessible to students in a course on media, tech comm, or rhetoric and writing studies, consider this: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... Extractive Artificial Intelligence and Its Challenge to Technical Communication - Collin Bjork, 2025

Uncivil is a FANTASTIC podcast! I teach it to my uni students in New Zealand. And I teach your Transom stuff on voice and vocal delivery. Congrats!

This is very bad. Although entirely predictable. Once more the humanities are being cut back to prop up STEM and, increasingly, AI investment (including at the expense of bench science). In the past, cuts to humanities were promoted on two separate logic streams that do not hold true: /1

Canvas just became one of the most powerful surveillance, IP theft, & data monetization tools in the world. OpenAI bought a user-base locked in to long-term contracts. But they can’t make us use their trashware. Boycott. Luddify. Open source. Don’t let them have your work or your students.

In addition to owning Canvas, KKR also owns Simon & Schuster (one of the Big 5 publishers), OverDrive (which owns Libby and has a monopoly on e-lending at public libraries as they get rid of physical books), bankrupted Toys 'R' Us, and bought nursing homes that then became sites of abuse and neglect

Silicon Valley AI and Academic Publishing are both extractive industries. Not surprising, but still infuriating.

Good ppl, doing important work. Apply today!

This is good reporting bc it’s often hard to get the specific numbers. But I’ve written about this before: Turnitin is a predatory EdTech tool that uses mora panics to siphon public edu funding into private coffers at the expense of student IP and educators. calmatters.org/education/hi...

“To call AI a con isn’t to say that the technology is not remarkable, that it has no use, or that it will not transform the world (perhaps for the better) in the right hands. It is to say that AI is not what its developers are selling it as: a new class of thinking—and, soon, feeling—machines.“

We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard. www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1...

"I had no idea science could be so bad."

New blog post: Recognizing AI Hype Masquerading as Research (a reworking of my previous LinkedIn post) refusinggenai.wordpress.com/2025/05/21/r...

#TheAmbies are proud to honor @james.crid.land with the International Impact Award! From launching the first UK radio podcast to shaping the future through Podnews and Podcasting 2.0, he has made a lasting mark on the global audio community. 👏 Congrats, James! @podnews.net

Read the article open access: openpraxis.org/articles/10.... Award announcement: facebook.com/share/p/18hN... Judges praised it as “innovative, interdisciplinary scholarship advancing the field” with a critical literacy toolkit for AI discourse.

How much air pollution are people in Memphis inhaling so Elon Musk can make an algorithm that’s better at spouting racist conspiracy theories?

Excited to announce our keynote speakers for C&W 2025: @jsanofranchini.bsky.social & @jasontham.bsky.social. We'll share more about our keynotes soon! In the meantime, Early Bird registration is open until 3/31! www.english.uga.edu/computers-an...

Consider submitting to POROI. We now accept multimodal (video essays, podcasts, etc) submissions too!

From 2022, still relevant. www.editorialboard.com/ten-actions-...

Experts on democratic backsliding make a similar argument: goodauthority.org/news/us-demo...

If you need something to listen to on your way home from #4C25 (or to take a break with whether you’re here or not), I gotta new podcast episode for you! Interview with Ashley J. Holmes on place-based writing and teaching: rhetoricity.libsyn.com/where-the-wr...

techpolicy.press/data-colonia... Super smart piece from @couldrynick.bsky.social and Mejias about the dangers of Musk’s data colonialism via DOGE

Nearest #Handsoff rally to Midland was 1.5hr round trip drive to Big Spring, TX. 30 proud ppl there in the cold wind standing for democracy. Solidarity.

When I take a university rental car, the uni already tracks me. And it sends a driving report to my manager

And those price hikes will be followed closely by more firing of academics (tenured and non-tenured) and more closures of humanities depts and more closures of universities. It’s digital colonisation, and their extractive goal is to suck us dry.

Yeah. It’s not a good business model. But what I’m worried about is that once these AI companies get sufficient market penetration and all the unis hooked on the tech, I expect them to flip from a subscription model to an energy consumption pricing model, which will astronomically raise prices.

techcrunch.com/2025/04/02/a... I’ve said it before: we should be highly skeptical of Silicon Valley AI and higher education. They need our revenue more than we need their low-quality products. Also, they know nothing about teaching and learning, just growth. This is an extractive industry.

Since anthropic announced its new university AI release this week, it’s worth circulating my “Clones in the Classroom” article. Silicon Valley AI are predatory EdTech companies designed to Hoover up public funding for education instead of investing in teachers theconversation.com/clones-in-th...

With Anthropic’s launch of a university AI product this week, it’s worth circulating what I wrote about this last year. Silicon Valley AI is designed to extract value from students and staff and public money…not to boost teaching and learning. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...

Since anthropic announced its new university AI release this week, it’s worth circulating my “Clones in the Classroom” article. Silicon Valley AI are predatory EdTech companies designed to Hoover up public funding for education instead of investing in teachers theconversation.com/clones-in-th...

With Anthropic’s launch of a university AI product this week, it’s worth circulating what I wrote about this last year. Silicon Valley AI is designed to extract value from students and staff and public money…not to boost teaching and learning. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...

techcrunch.com/2025/04/02/a... I’ve said it before: we should be highly skeptical of Silicon Valley AI and higher education. They need our revenue more than we need their low-quality products. Also, they know nothing about teaching and learning, just growth. This is an extractive industry.

So, #AIliteracyday is supported by OpenAI, Microsoft, MagicSchool, & Khan Academy. "AI literacy" means something different when you put "critical" in front of it & consider AI as the object of inquiry- as, for instance, @charleswlogan.bsky.social 's approach sketched below.

Had a really fruitful conversation with @melhogan.bsky.social on the Data Fix podcast about “extractive AI” and Indigenous AI and what kind of futures these technologies propose for us. If you haven’t started listening to the Data Fix podcast, now’s the time. It’s a smart community critical scholars

Talked with @andersoncooper360.bsky.social about what is, and what IS NOT, DEI. And what Trump & his confederates are trying to accomplish with erasing the accomplishments of non-white people, women and LGBTQ people.

#podcaststudies alert

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... Excited to share my new article about true crime podcasting and TechComm. I show how the first season of Serial oscillates between “objective reporting” and more “subjective storytelling,” but it’s the “objective” parts that do the most harm.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... Excited to share my new article about true crime podcasting and TechComm. I show how the first season of Serial oscillates between “objective reporting” and more “subjective storytelling,” but it’s the “objective” parts that do the most harm.

Hi, friends. Everything is on fire, but @nobugsnous.bsky.social have a new article looking at writing process surveillance and how process surveillance interfaces "facilitate normative constructions of embodiment and time that embed ableism in writing process instruction."

I’m doing a research project on emerging podcasting canons, so I’m looking forward to spending more time with this smart piece for LOC.

Also, be sure to listen to their latest podcast about a forgotten NZ drug empire: Mr. Asia. www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/mr-asia-p...

Thrilled to share the latest Pod Uni interview with the rockstar Bird of Paradise production team Noelle McCarthy and John Daniell. Here's one of my fav quotes: "every good interview is an exercise in empathy." open.spotify.com/episode/6IXE...

www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view... Did you hear that @aucklanduni.bsky.social is using AI tutors now? Here’s a critique I wrote about these decisions a couple months ago. BigTech will benefit from AI in universities so much more than students or staff will.

theconversation.com/clones-in-th... In light of @aucklanduni.bsky.social using teaching clones, here’s what I wrote a few months ago about the risks of this strategy. It may seem cheaper now, but it’s not. I’d wager this is a cost-saving decision that’s masquerading as teaching innovation.

www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/universit... I’ve already warned against using teaching clones in university classrooms.

A single word can be a lie. For example, journalists are still calling what Musk and his child army have been doing an operation in pursuit of government efficiency.... www.meditationsinanemergency.com/to-use-their...

so here we are. I wrote this when RFK Jr's presidential campaign was being laughed off by the self-styled serious people. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

WHAT NOW? With Trevor & Christiana: youtu.be/1VRCfuKEGdo?...