Steve Silberman is so pissed about this Tylenol bullshit that he's screaming from the afterlife he didn't even believe in. Increased rates of autism are due to testing, a broadened definition, and greater awareness. It's not vaccines. It's not Tylenol. It's like his work never happened.

Toxicology principle that needs to be mainstream: The dose makes the poison. That’s true of everything. Water. Oxygen. Vitamin A. Vitamin D. Aspartame. Formaldehyde. A single pear contains 120 times MORE formaldehyde than what might be in a vaccine. 1/

Strong ANTI-recommendation of #AAA. Daughter had flat tire going to work, and AAA refused to assist b/c no physical copy of her AAA card. AAA said would email a copy; never arrived. Phone agent unable to help. Web site required password reset ... never came. After 27 years (!), canceling tomorrow.

I bumped into local canine search and rescue team at the gas station this morning. They’re out looking for an 82 year-old man who wandered off into the woods. I feel great sympathy for that man’s family. Now I want to retire and run search and rescue dogs. So many things to do when I grow up.

TIL the Turing Test had a third party, a woman Cassandra-type who, *if you listened to her*, would make the game very simple because she says the other guy’s actually a computer. The parallels to today, with the gender divide in AI ethicists/skeptics (as discussed in threads off this post) are 🤯

Critical part of the President's new $100,000 charge for H1-B visas: The Administration can also offer a $100,000 discount to any person, company, or industry that it wants. Replacing rules with arbitrary discretion. Want visas? You know who to call and who to flatter.

This is the exact situation of LLMs: "Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about." (Also doing strong work there, and reflecting social power is, "circumstances require".)

Asha is 100% right that in USA 2025 using law — as one form of action among others — is far better than giving up on it. Havel’s point was that even if you have no rule of law you still honor the idea and generate tactics by citing law.

If you're on #LinkedIn, this is the link for declining their use of your data for training their AI models: www.linkedin.com/mypreference...

"this is the first time I’ve seen a company policy explicitly state that [attitudinal] acceptance of 'AI' is a matter of [corporate] cultural compliance"

I can tell this site needs more sports knowers because everyone's been yelling about canceling Disney+ and Hulu all day and I literally haven't seen anyone yelling about canceling the new ESPN app, which was just rolled out and the success of which is existential for ESPN.

And also they are panicking because candidates are "cheating" by uh, using those same systems.

now that I'm alive again after a bad cold... WE ARE ONE WEEK AWAY FROM #DataBS Conf!!!! Sign up (free) for Wed Sept 24, 10am-5pm EDT, online-only data nerdery talks! Do it now before you forget! Let your data friends know! ti.to/databsconf/d... <-tickets databsconf.com/schedule/ <- schedule

I think one of the better, more subtle tributes to Robert Redford's life is the string of utterly iconic female co-stars who've come forward to eulogize him; each of them take-no-shit types like Fonda and Streisand, and every one of them without a single bad thing to say. A model for male behavior

Google PR: "We have set a climate moonshot to achieve net-zero emissions across all of our operations and value chain by 2030" Google in real life: 🛢️🔥📈

Happy Pythagorean Theorem Day (3-4-5) -> 9/16/25 When all else fails, math. www.npr.org/2025/09/16/n...

There’s a lot of “we’re In Here talking about people Out There” in inclusive design/accessibility circles and it’s really holding us back. Hire us, and then listen to us. Too often I’ve been the only disabled person in the room getting talked over by people who mean well but not well enough.

Truly, this is such a great piece. I guarantee you probably have no idea just how deeply and profoundly the "AI for good" narrative has become embedded into the superstructure of so many progressive movements - not least the climate movement. Go read @abeba.bsky.social's piece:

When we think of sexism, it's easy to think of *active* efforts to discriminate against women. But sexism also operates *passively* - like through our inaction on issues like childcare and paid family leave. In that context, return-to-office policies are sexist in consequence, even if not in design.

Everything is pretty awful so I went for a run and listened to the first episode of the new Star Trek show, Khan. It’s like listening to a weekly radio show, but a podcast. It’s really well done. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...

To my fellow cishet dudes: when we are quiet about supporting the trans community, the only voices anyone hears are the Charlie Kirks of the world. Don't let accusations of being "performative" or "virtue signaling" shut you up - that's their whole point. Our voices are needed now more than ever.

I’m at a panel discussion where the rule is: when you ask a ?, you have to join the panel — that is, move your 🪑 up to the conference table at the front of the room. The hosts ultimately want EVERYone in the room sharing their expertise ON the panel. I ❤️ it when ppl mess with event hierarchies 😊

A GOOD THING HAS HAPPENED

Just one of these all along the light rail.

Your regular reminder that, whatever problems they may have, there are exactly <zero> societal institutions that are <more> protective of disagreement & debate & viewpoint diversity than universities.

> @weisenthal.bsky.social #UMich

Sometimes you can't makes sense of what's going on, but maybe even the failed effort is worth doing. I wrestle with how what happened at Texas A&M this week makes it feel like the work of teaching and learning is becoming impossible. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

The aesthetics here are so spot on that I almost didn't read it --- not wanting to deal with any doomerish crap so early in the morning. But this is hilarious and it keeps on going.

This is so crucial. When people think about these land comparisons, they don't think about the entire sprawling infrastructure behind FF.

If anyone has any good articles/essays/posts critiquing "critique the AI output" assignments, please let me know! I'd love to add it to my toolkit & pass resources on to others. My advice: just don't do it!. I was also teaching Benjamin, Noble, Freelon, Browne, etc., so it wasn't in isolation.

The best site I've seen in at least a month! 🤣

Google brags (especially internally, I've heard) that it treats data workers "well" because workers are in places like the US & paid accordingly. The reality is different: www.theguardian.com/technology/2... As so often, the so-called AI is largely an algorithmic expression of exploitation 😢

Meanwhile AI is still a great advancement, congrats techbrahs

Well, Washington State is a two party consent state (no recordings of private spaces unless everyone consents). So presumably such glasses would never record any glances into a yard, through windows, into automobiles, of children playing, of law or medical office spaces, etc., etc. Right? Right??

I spend a good amount of time with my university's academic catalog. There is not a single university in the country, probably not a single department, that would meet TAMU president's directive that "course content must match catalog descriptions for each and every one of our course sections."

Update: The Professor was fired, the Dean and Department Chair who (rightfully) defended her were removed from their positions, and every course at the University is now being subjected to a state audit. archive.ph/2025.09.10-0...

Remember: there's no audience for AI-produced content. Nobody in the AI ecosystem is there to read or listen - only to publish their own slop.

I keep saying, one thing we need to do everywhere is mobilize professional ethics against AI (and along the way forge it into a sense of class consciousness as well)

I always love those lists of "35 under 35," but as I get older, I find that I would love to know about innovations/art from people over 65. "65 over 65" please. Elders have incredible ideas that are the result of having seen the full lifecycle of previous ideas and learned from it.

One tiny piece of good news today (amidst all the bad news): Went to CVS, got COVID + Flu shots (no RX needed in WA State). Pharmacy was packed with folks getting vaccinations!

Despite several attempts to export the idea, Seattle remains the only U.S. city with a democracy vouchers program, which provides money to residents to donate to the local candidates of their choice.

Hey, survey researchers? Don't do this. Headline in my inbox this morning: "23% of U.S. adults now use AI language models like ChatGPT – the tipping point." Actual survey question (which I had to click a link and read 17 pages deep to find): "Have you ever used an AI language model or a chatbot."

Wonderful to see this out. Kudos to @conultl.bsky.social, my colleague Aoife Coffey with @ucclibrary.bsky.social, and everyone else involved. Seriously impressive stuff. zenodo.org/records/1702...

Excellent 🧵 and I'll comment also on the implicit narcissism of AI. "If a class doesn't discuss me [AI], how could it possibly be useful?!?"

Dangerous: #1 story in the Guardian today. It implies people in Oregon, California, and Washington can't get the COVID vaccine. But they can ... and so can many others. The limitations are bad! But not quite that bad. See instead www.axios.com/2025/08/29/c... www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Common theme of people I've interviewed recently. At universities, in research centers, in diplomacy, in the legal system, dealing with refugees or immigrants: The reality inside is much worse than you would think from the outside.

Instead of going all the way to the store, I bought a cash register for my room, so now I can skip the entire shopping process and just print out a receipt for whatever I was supposed to buy. Lean Shopping saves me time and money, and produces pretty much the same result as regular shopping. 2/

If you think the LLM told you something, ask yourself: What is your belief about who's talking? What is feeding that belief?

Linguistics lesson for the day: Accountability is crucial to interpreting language. We make sense of something based on who we believe said it. Synthetic text extruded by LLMs was not said by anyone -- so a crucial step in the chain is broken. >>

Anyone caught doing this should lose their license and be prohibited from practicing medicine.