“The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill recently rolled out a new policy that permits university officials to record classes without notifying the instructor. It’s a practice administrators have used in the past to investigate professors but have now formalized in writing.”

I’m grateful to share that I received a Dean’s Special Award for Professional Excellence for my work integrating AI into the Magis Core Curriculum at Creighton. I got to see the best in my colleagues during this process and I appreciate just how engaged faculty were in this difficult conversation.

It is with a heavy heart that I share the passing of my father George Franklin McHendry Sr. (1941-2025). He is survived by his children Debra Lynn, Dan, Laura, Heather, Perla, Erin, and Guy.

Happy last night of Hanukah

Where I’m at right now… Doctor: You need surgery. It’s in-patient and you will probably spend 1-2 nights in the hospital. Insurance the last business day before surgery: Sorry, pre-auth denied. We consider this out-patient. Doctor: Fine we will make it out-patient but it’s not best for patient.

Even if we accept the notion that AI increases productivity, increased productivity doesn’t mean increased learning. Quantity isn’t quality.

My latest AI hot take is that AI will probably make college harder in the long run. Harder to teach, harder to grade, harder for students. That will probably make the grade inflation crowd happier, but I worry it will create an accessibility apocalypse for students. That’s a huge problem.

Right now I feel like AI “knows” too much to be useless and too little to be useful. It is just powerful enough to tempt us to our doom.

Check your kid’s Halloween candy this year. A tech bro tried to hide AI in my child’s candy bar.

I think this is especially true for unstructured and unsupervised uses like independently clarifying concepts, creating study materials, and [shudders] summarizing readings. Some of the harms here might end up being more acute than the so-called end of the essay.

At the moment I feel strongly that need to respond to generative AI in higher education is its inevitability and not possible educational benefit. I just don’t see the gains in learning yet outside of very specialized cases.

Have we settled on a specific translation of Aristotle’s Rhetoric? Asking for a friend.

“The technology is producing a generation of eternal novices, unable to think or perform for themselves.”

My hot take is that generative AI’s impact for most people will be mundane rather than revolutionary.

So people supposedly concerned about government overreach are going to buy the Dear Leader branded gold spying device

Tech bros made a machine that’s just like them.

My “no people will not ‘literally die’ with the One Big Beautiful Bill” shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt

This is such a good example of how these systems are designed to give a probable answer even if it is wrong.

Is Highway to the Danger Zone playing at the airport bar a good or bad omen? Please help, I board soon.

When I remarked that the endgame was to build the operating system for your entire life, @savasavasava.bsky.social called it OSyou.

Feature not a bug

And?

Unpopular opinion: While the name is dumb and they will inevitably screw it up, Dems are way behind in terms of influencers on social media. If young men keep voting in higher numbers Dems are dumb to not try and sway them.

Some scenes from Lake Michigan

LLMs are "’extremely good at playing into cognitive biases because of their ability to respond and adapt quickly to the user.’ She [Dr. Christin Chong] likens this to a psychic or medium performing a ‘cold reading’ on a customer to create the illusion of special knowledge about them.”

Cannot state this enough: These systems are designed to deliver the most probable answer (one word at a time). They are not programmed to admit when they don’t know or to check the truthfulness of an answer.

Entirely expected development.

This is just un-freakin-believable. Having dealt with a toddler having a seizure yes it's scary. I can't believe anyone would take the time to consult ChatGPT... let alone trust its advice over calling 911 first.

If you load this page it contacts 82 IP addresses executing 256 separate HTTP transactions to download 18MB of data writing 64 cookies to your device to tell you “no”

“…many students at institutions experimenting with AI solutions say they are willing to risk mistakes to have a human touch.”

Remembering that one time a few moths ago I overheard a woman complaining to a friend that the guy she is dating has one hobby: ChatGPT. I’m guessing it didn’t work out.

👀👀

We can’t talk about the energy consumption of generative AI without also talking about the much larger energy consumption of our existing data infrastructure.

Companies are quick to say their ai results are “not ads” but what I rarely see addressed about bots they claim will “act on your behalf” is this: what is your assurance that a bot is catering to your needs rather than just acting as more stealthy advertising?

The only idea they have left is to try to sell surveillance.

Such fragile masculinity

The structural weakness is a strength, actually.

A little weekend trip on the SS Badger

Just a reminder to the weirdly gleeful AI enthusiasts in my mentions who keep insisting that any day now LLMs are going to be writing all the novels. Oh heck no they absolutely will not be. (Also it’s WEIRD that anyone thinks that possibility is anything other than horrifying.)

“It’s not creativity it’s statistics.”

Where do I buy my portable microphone jammer?

You cannot responsibly write about AI without writing about politics. "AI" is an intensely political project, especially in its current formation, where development is led by tech giants that increasingly depend on the state—for contracts, land rights, and, of course, for deregulation.

very cool that for ten years people at the heights of political commentary insisted to the point of rage that the paramount threat to free speech was “censorious” college students

The effect of AI devices/wearables will be an army of always on microphones and cameras able to process & mine data in real time without the consent of those being recorded. It will make current data collection and analysis practices look like child’s play. This is the end of privacy as we know it.

Also:

Wow, the discourse here can be just as bad as the other place. I see you Bluesky.

Making room to explore AI in all it’s complexities is so important for students and professors and should be part of any responsible teaching space

Our faculty just approved adding learning outcomes related to generative AI to our undergraduate core curriculum. This was an effort I lead, not because I am am a true believer in the hype. On the contrary, my constant battle with the tensions between cautious optimism and utter despair pushed me. 🧵

Tired: Federalism Wired: Techno-Feudalism

I know this doesn’t include when the machine does a racism because it says “errors.”