An Effective Altruist writing about AI should be taken as seriously as a Scientologist writing about L Ron Hubbard webworm.co/newgods

The spirit gripped me today and moved me to write this essay on "good old fashioned artificial intelligence," which I position as opposite to the ethically compromised Machine Learning-based AI of today. I don't think people will like what I have to say. blog.wellssanto.com/revisiting-g...

Ben Goertzel, popularizer of the term AGI and creator of the Sophia robot, congratulating Jeffrey Epstein the day after Epstein was released from prison. Goertzel is mentioned in the files nearly 800 times, including well after the Miami Herald investigation in 2018.

New to me: the AI Now Institute's North Star Data Center Policy Toolkit, which is, "primarily geared toward stopping, slowing, and restricting rampant data center development in the US at the local and state level."

Great curated list of critical AI books from Prof. Dagmar Monett #AcademicSky monettdiaz.com/books-critic...

What Is Critical AI Literacy?

To anyone that needs clarification, "your best" is what you can accomplish without damage to your physical, mental and emotional health, not what you can accomplish by destroying them

I've been shouting this from the rooftops (and a podcast, and a book) since 2019. One extremely frustrating iteration is the people who say "Yeah, that was true of the 2021 models, but not today's models". >>

But it does it quickly and congratulates you for asking

“We reach for [LLMs] because our world is asking for altogether too much: too much work without the time to do it well, too much caregiving without the community infrastructure to support it, and too much pressure to perform academically without the foundational skills to make it possible.”

„… users of an LLM do something both powerful and concerning: they engage with an alienated abstraction of their own thoughts.“

The connections among Epstein, AI oligarchs, cognitive scientists, eugenicists, misogynists, rapists, and outright fascists are so strong it's stunning that they are not outlined in every account of AI development and deployment. If you are bullish on AI you might want to check yourself.

As these teens describe, AI can diminish human relationships; devalue art; threaten the environment; lead to laziness; give unreliable results; pose privacy concerns; and be misused. So, please, stop with the narratives of inevitability and let's embrace a pedagogy and politics of refusal.

"Students must learn to critically evaluate AI output" Have you seen common arguments for AI usage in schools? We collected some of the ones we see most often, and counter-points to them. Did we miss any? www.aicaution.ca/common-argum...

Happening today: "WE WANT TO BRING THE WORLD’S ATTENTION TO HOW THE FRIVOLOUS USE OF AI PROMPTS HAS A DIRECT EFFECT ON OUR WATER RESOURCES. SO, FOR ONE DAY, WE ASK YOU TO NOT USE AI, AND INSTEAD USE US. A GROUP OF LOCAL QUILICURA RESIDENTS WHO’VE COME TOGETHER TO SERVE AS YOUR AI." www.quili.ai/info

If the relationship to language is social, and if there is a machine that abstracts our language only to re-inscribe it, then that relationship-to-language becomes a “thing” — a manufactured commodity —that overshadows our relationship to language as a participatory social activity

The videos can be watched in any order and are intended for normal people, not experts -- there is so much confusion and misunderstanding out there. (For instance, I'm sending it to my students and non-academic friends). I've also included a very extensive reference list. Please share these widely!

So my team decided to start implementing this AI Assessment Scale into online programs. I am trying to help them think through this before diving head first. Anyone advice? aiassessmentscale.com

One of the best AI critiques I’ve seen read.dukeupress.edu/critical-ai/...

Happy new year friends! I have a new piece published in the Online Learning Consortium titled Paradigm Pivot: Envisioning a New Education System to Cultivate an Era of Human Intelligence onlinelearningconsortium.org/olc-insights...

Anthropomorphizing language can be cute when applied to your favorite car, but it helps to muddy the discourse when applied to tech sold as "AI". New from me & @nannainie.bsky.social on @techpolicypress.bsky.social -- how to spot & revise away from anthropomorphizing language applied to "AI"

The whole issue is pretty great! rethinkingschools.org/magazine/

If standard-based grading is to progress beyond the real difficulties that beset it, it must espouse curiosity over defensiveness, openness over dogmatism, empathy over insularity. @achiaravalli.bsky.social www.growbeyondgrades.org/blog/we-need...

"I refuse." This is it. There's no reason we should accept a narrative of an already settled future which marginalizes humans and individual agency. No one wants this. No one asked for it.

Happy winter solstice! Here’s my short reflection on the darkest night of the year 🕯️🌲🖤 medium.com/@heatherlesl...

I wrote about using biomimicry in my course design. I am finding inspiration from 🌱Nature🌱 more so than artificial forms of intelligence 🤖

I wrote about my reflections going into the Giving Thanks season 🙏🍂✨ medium.com/@heatherlesl...

This is not the way, and @cnygren.bsky.social and I lay out in detail why it isn’t in this essay here. static1.squarespace.com/static/55577...

This whole thing is out of control.

Read Audrey Watters, always. "Technologies are often wielded in ways meant to imply that humans are weak, messy, slow, stupid, replaceable. We are strong, messy, awkward, flawed, irreplaceable. All of us. Our strength comes, in part, from this vulnerability, from our humanity."

I wrote about a recent book I read and the start of my journey trying to integrate regenerative values into my education design amidst all this AI disruption medium.com/@heatherlesl...

...When experts talk about artificial intelligence, for example, they always talk about tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and the day after that; very rarely do we hear about what has already been achieved to date." 2/2

This is actually the thing that worries me most about AI. It's "there is no such thing as society" implemented as software solution. Needing to ask people for help, advice, or information is part of how we build and maintain social and professional bonds.

“I already ban the use of generative AI in my own courses, and as a promoter of master’s theses. I explicitly tell my students they won’t learn anything by using it. [...] A general ban is necessary, but nobody dares to say so.” 🙋🏻‍♀️🙋🏻‍♀️🙋🏻‍♀️ apache.be/2025/10/24/b...

“The widespread use of these tools, in both school and work, feels like it's driven by a self-fulfilling prophecy: the promise of an employment landscape only AI itself can imagine.”

There's a nice chart on this page with alternatives. www.raspberrypi.org/blog/ai-educ...

"Life meanders like a path through the woods. We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again." *** Katherine May,  "Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times"

It’s time to post this quote again… “The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.” ― James Baldwin

So one thing I cannot stand are those AI-generated podcasts from Notebook LM. So many in higher ed are telling students to use this to understand dense academic articles. While I get the intent to make content accessible to learners to both: a break down the subject and b: present it in an audio

Just published an article in the Journal of Faculty Development on a new instructor orientation I designed that onboards faculty to teach asynchronous online courses. The orientation has received positive feedback and I’m happy to share our experience digital.sandiego.edu/ldc-scholars...

"I’ve concluded that instead of teaching students to read and write, I should be teaching them how to prompt AI better. If only I’d had a better education in AI prompt writing, I’d be able to get AI to create more AI-proof teaching materials for me."

This is so sad. Among other horrible decisions, reinstating grades and doing away with narrative evaluations are removing what distinguishes this institution and the quality educational experience it offers www.insidehighered.com/news/governa...

Really a must read. And very brave right now too.

🚨NEW RESEARCH🚨 AWU teamed up with @techequity.bsky.social & @cwaunion.bsky.social to produce a report - Ghost Workers in the AI Machine: U.S. Data Workers Speak Out About Big Tech’s Exploitation - documenting the working conditions of the workers behind the AI boom. cwa-union.org/ghost-worker...

Does anyone know of a meta-analysis of ungrading research? #ungrading

Read the long version here. www.artforum.com/features/gen...

This quote: “writing requires an unending effort at something resembling authenticity. Most mistakes come from not being yourself, not saying what you think, or being afraid to figure out what you really think.”

Everyone involved in committees and policymaking around genAI in universities should be required to listen to at least one episode of Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 with @emilymbender.bsky.social and @alexhanna.bsky.social before every meeting. www.dair-institute.org/maiht3k/

My very limited understanding of the technology had me believing that hallucinations were the wrong concept because (1) everything LLMs do is repeat statistical probabilities, and so have no grounding in reality or truth, and (2) LLMs are not beings and do not perceive and so do not hallucinate. 1/