The sociological imagination is not just about observing society; it’s about understanding how people challenge systems of power and create change. In the magazine’s June issue, @carinrunciman.bsky.social‬ and fellow scholars reflect on what it means to think sociologically. buff.ly/R9DWhvA

So we did a thing… 🧵 You’ve heard about the erasing of LGBTQ history on National Park Service websites. Egregious changes made to the Stonewall National Monument site (erasing all instances of trans and queer) & the disappearance of resources like the monumental “LGBTQ America” theme study.

One of the smartest sociologists of this generation. @tressiemcphd.bsky.social delivers knowledge.

“So yes, we've experienced a coup, not the old fashioned kind, no tanks or mobs, but an undemocratic and hostile takeover of government. It is cruel, it is petty. It can be brutal. It is at once chaotic and surgical…The question is, will the rule of law hold?”

Looking forward to participating in this tomorrow!

NIUS and others on the far right are trying to roll back the expansion of German memory culture of Nazi victim groups over the past thirty years as it has expanded beyond the Holocaust of European Jews to include recognition of Roma, disabled, homosexual, trans and Afro-German victims.

Someone has adapted East German singer Ernst Busch's song Ami - go Home! for the present day conflict between the Trump administration and Canada.

Generative #AI is already having an impact on how we perceive #archaeology🏺. In her @us.theconversation.com essay @clmorgan.bsky.social urges for critical yet constructive engagement with digital technologies in our investigation of the past. theconversation.com/how-ai-image...

Whoever could have imagined the AI headline generator would make shit up amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/01/...

Throwing tomato soup on a painting seems like an under-reaction, to be honest

Since Die Hard is a Christmas film, a brief thread on my own head canon of how the Gruber brothers disparate bios are tied up in postwar German history.

My 2024 in review on LinkedIn: eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A... Have a great break everyone! See you in 2025

Fun to have contributed to this with a chapter called ‘Splintering’ the Memory-Activism Nexus: State and Market Forces in the Vortex of Civic Memory. Thanks to the eds Astrid Erll, Susanne Knittel & Jenny Wüstenberg & to Ann Rigney whose work inspired the book. www.degruyter.com/document/doi...

Basically think of the o3 results as validating Douglas Adams as the science fiction author most right about AI. When given longer to think, the AI can generate answers to very hard questions, but the cost is very high, it is hard to verify, & you have to make sure you ask the right question first.

Promote or perish

The full open access special issue of Memory Studies Review dedicated to #AI and Collective #Memory is now out. It was edited by Sarah Gensberger and Frédéric Clavert and represents the collective efforts of the @artificialmemory.bsky.social network. It is available here: brill.com/view/journal...

The history books will tell the story of this era of erasure with the derision it deserves, but until then, the only thing I know to do it to show that it is happening & help families & communities be as safe as possible. Document, share, and ensure this can be told. It’s such a shameful moment.

“Writing a single email with ChatGPT can use as much energy as driving a two-ton electric vehicle half a mile,” @laurenleffer.bsky.social reports. www.audubon.org/magazine/how...

Unsurprisingly, the far-right needs AI to generate images of both the nostalgic past & the alleged invasion of migrants. For these myths real footage seems hard to come by. Here's an inquiry into the use of AI generated propaganda by Dutch nationalists. www.groene.nl/artikel/het-...

Strong recommend! This will no doubt cut through the AI hype with a bullshit-proof knife! (And while we wait for May, listen to the podcast, it's great! Unless you've written AI fluff, of course, in which case I'm sure it'd be terrifying!)

THE AI CON: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want (by yours truly & @alexhanna.bsky.social) is now available for pre-order! All the details here: thecon.ai

Bsky is being flooded with German speaking AI powered bots. A thread on why this is important, ultimately making all social media is unusable. #deutschland #trolls #AI #election 1/ What happened? All these responses to a @zeit.de post have something in common (spoiler: they are not real):

Two years into the AI boom, it's imperative we understand the true power of "AGI"—as a narrative tool useful for winning investment, talent and headlines. My report for AI Now details how OpenAI used the story of a rising AI that will replace humans to replace the need for an actual business model.

30 Years Ago

A starter pack for interdisciplinary #memory studies accounts. Let me know if you want to be added to it (or removed!). #memorystudies #rememberance #commemoration #memories go.bsky.app/4SnXbJU

The importance of ensuring critique keeps up with technological development and further evidence of the need for terminological specificity and clarity. What is really open about open source LLMa and what isn’t?

Posted the first photo on LinkedIn got the second back from a friend. Posting here while reflecting on the different cultures of LinkedIn and Bluesky. The first is self-promotion on steroids the second is driven by a nostalgic longing for the Twitter of old and the simple times of the humble brag.

I am trying to find more memory studies accounts to follow and to add to this starter pack: go.bsky.app/4SnXbJU Please share and join!

Today, our Director is speaking about AI, Holocaust memory and education at the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance conference: AI in the Holocaust Education, Research and Remembrance Sector.

Robert Williams from USC Shoah Foundation shares some answers about what the #Holocaust #Memory and #Education sector needs to do to move forward productively with #AI.

Great panel on #Tech #Memory and #Ethics with Rik Smith, Samuel Merrill, Yael Richler Friedman. Moderated by Martin Winstone

The thing that is hard to get about LLMs is that we expected AI to be awesome at math & be all cool logic. Instead, AI is best at human-like tasks (eg writing) & is all hot, weird simulated emotion. For example, if you make GPT-3.5 “anxious,” it changes its behavior! arxiv.org/abs/2304.11111

Hot off the presses! New investigation from @lhreports.bsky.social reveals that "secretive algorithms deployed in Sweden's vaunted welfare system cast suspicion on innocent women & migrants while ignoring men & the affluent." www.lighthousereports.com/investigatio...

“ARTISTS ARE NOT YOUR UNPAID R&D,” the letter said. “we are not your: free bug testers, PR puppets, training data, validation tokens.” www.yahoo.com/tech/openai-...

Hi, so I've spent the past almost-decade studying research uses of public social media data, like e.g. ML researchers using content from Twitter, Reddit, and Mastodon. Anyway, buckle up this is about to be a VERY long thread with lots of thoughts and links to papers. 🧵

I was asked to write a short explainer about Bluesky for The Conversation - I hope I haven't done anything to annoy the more committed community members (I was an ambivalent and pretty slack early adopter). theconversation.com/what-is-blue...

So here’s the update. The billionaire owner of the Guardian preparing to get rid of a core part of the news org + 100 journalists. If you’re a Guardian or Observer reader, please share this. The need for a strong, free & independent press couldn’t be greater. Yet, here it is.

Sure is a good thing universities outsourced email services to third-parties. amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/11/...

That book and it’s cover - an enduring symbol of my and so many others’ undergraduate training in archaeology.

Royal Society fellow Dorothy Bishop (@deevybee.bsky.social) resigns over Elon Musk membership. Bishop claims Musk has violated RS code of conduct, and is not prepared to treat him "collegially and with courtesy" as that code requires. Free to read. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-c...

Absolutely mad piece about a random man who has more imagination about what record companies can do with their archive than the record companies do www.bbc.com/news/article...

Vor 32 wurde der Antifa und Hausbesetzer Silvio Meier von Neonazis getötet. Hier gibt es einen Überblick über alle verfügbaren Plakate für Silvio-Meier-Demos und -Gedenken und Nachfolgeprojekte: politischesplakat.noblogs.org/post/2024/11...

Monorail! OpenAI, Google, Anthropic admit they can’t scale up their chatbots any further pivot-to-ai.com/2024/11/14/o...

Haven’t forgotten @scotinoz.bsky.social Hope all is well!

📣 2-years postdoctoral position in the study of digital interfaces of mobilization and participation in the INTERFACED project at the Department of Communication - University of Copenhagen 👉🏽 employment.ku.dk/all-vacancie...

“In 2022, YouGov asked “What percentage of Americans do you think are ___?” The results were hilarious. Trans: 21% Muslim: 27% Jewish: 30% Black: 41% Live in NYC: 30% Gay or lesbian: 30% The errors are off by orders of magnitude. The trans estimation by 2,000%.” www.thebulwark.com/p/americans-...

Bluesky's firehose is a treasure trove of public data for researchers and developers, and it's completely free. Check out our developer docs: docs.bsky.app

Nice quick read on #GenAI, model collapse and Borges’ Library of Bable theconversation.com/an-83-year-o...