This 👇

As an object: AI systems are themselves social phenomena and social artifacts. They are built by particular institutions, trained on particular human outputs, governed by particular interests. Treating them as merely technical misses most of what they actually are and how they are used in society.

Three things said about AI and social science: it's a topic to study, a thing to critique, a tool to use. My new Daedalus essay argues these aren't three conversations; they're one. A 🧵 on "Field Theory: AI as Social Science Question, Object, and Tool." www.amacad.org/publication/...

exciting news! truly living the dream—Wired is launching a book club this summer, hosted by ME! more details to come, and sign up here: www.wired.com/newsletter/b...

📬 You asked for it, we listened! Now you can opt-in to email notifications whenever a PREreview is published for one of your requested #preprints. ✅ Start tracking your PREreview requests and enjoy reading community feedback in real time: prereview.org/my-details #OpenScience #PeerReview

App is out! 😃 Thanks for oodles of feedback, Bluesky! Go give me ten stars, it’s free ;)

SOME NEWS! the folks at Anthology Editions / Mexican Summer decided to print another 1500 copies of #othernetworks (out in Oct.) because it sold out so quickly! THANK YOU to all of you for ordering a copy & helping to make this reprint possible 😍 1/2 loriemerson.net/books/other-...

The Seattle Times published a full obituary for Juniper Blessing. It's a moving tribute to a life well-lived. May she rest in peace, and may UW honour and carry on her legacy. Scholarships named for her might be a good start.

Thousands are marching in Selma calling for a full restoration of the voting rights act.

Students, if you’re thinking about dropping a note to that teacher or professor about what their class/project/mentorship has meant to you, but you worry it will be cringe or cheesy, let me just tell you they will coast on the fuzzy feelings prompted by that note for months, if not years

I very much understand the challenge of producing this kind of guidance in a fraught and changeable time, but I'm afraid I see this as fundamentally flawed in centering AI throughout the discussion rather than human writing/communication. Without grounding in the human, everything is reactive to AI.

This thread might make us think of McLuhan’s “medium is the message” but we should take care not to fall into technological determinism, emphasizing instead how the specific deployment of AI we are “enjoying” now shapes the ideology of its delivery and there could be other, alternative deployments.

Some theses on #slop. A thread. Slop is automated ideology. It's content made of content, optimized for circulation, prompted, shaped, and refined through feedback loops of adaptation to platform conditions 1/

No democracy is an island, not even Taiwan.🇹🇼 No university is an island, not even one as enlightened as @uofcalifornia.bsky.social Santa Cruz.💫 Halls of higher education can be our gardens of #CivicAI & democratic renewal — they’re fertile fields of change!🦋 ▶️ My speech: civic.ai/plurality-uc...

If you want to live in a big, beautiful home that's easily accessible for both NYC and DC, wired for fiber internet, in a walkable, green, safe neighborhood with easy access to commuter rail but also lots of off-street parking ... DM me. Available starting August.

It has been my mission for the past week to warn the public about the pending harms of the Instructure/Canvas hack. I told 404 Media it is “the biggest student data privacy disaster in history” and am grateful I was able to share my concerns and help students. www.404media.co/the-biggest-...

The head of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) prefers this spelling of his name: Ka$h. <end of post>

so ecstatic and honored to co-author this article in @educause.bsky.social EDUCAUSE Review on #GenAI & #OER with my friend, mentor, colleague, friend, Larry Davis...such a delight learn & write together! er.educause.edu/articles/202...

I frequently links to maps and visuals that are over the Bluesky image resolution cap. I’ve never maintained a centralized location, so here is that. If anyone is interested, there are a couple of hundred here and growing. The viewer itself is for motor accessibility; the raw files are there too.

Can we please stop calling people being stalked “love interests.”

Attending a meeting with some other cats in Palermo

I move we call these “metafauxs”…pronounced “foe” as in “faux pas”…

“By a stroke of fate, I ran out of tokens.” 🤣

On May 5, at the Yale Peabody Museum, I'm joining other folks to talk about boxes: crate houses, mousetraps, snow globes, and (my contribution) tool boxes 🧰☺️

Here's the full piece. lu.is/2026/04/wiki...

This is your regularly scheduled periodic repost of my all-time favorite graphic. Thank you, carry on.

Pastiche or cliché? What Pelham II might mean for AI outputs Regular readers will know that I have been interested in the pastiche exception for a while now, mostly because it has always struck me as the most underused exceptions under modern copyright law in Europe and the UK. Perhaps it is not…

Open source projects provide opportunities for people to build leadership skills while learning how to positively influence without the power that comes with more traditional managerial roles. Thank you to the crew at @allthingsopen.bsky.social for sharing my post! allthingsopen.org/articles/pow...

Is social media dying? How much did Twitter change as it became X? Which party now dominates the conversation? Using nationally representative ANES data from 2020 & 2024, I map how the U.S. social media landscape has changed Here are the key take-aways 🧵 Full paper out now in in JQD:DM!

AT THE HEART OF MODERN CULTURE, A NIGHTMARISH VOID Me, in @currentaffairs.bsky.social www.currentaffairs.org/news/the-ban...

Did Trump actually “save HBCUs? Read more at @contrabandcamp.bsky.social

This is a dance off. If you see this, repost with a dance or get eliminated.

This is a dance off. If you see this, repost with a dance or get eliminated.

This is a dance off. If you see this, repost with a dance or get eliminated.

come to think of it I actually do hate Kantinential philosophy

Leibniz: But let us set our differences on the matter of calculus aside for a minute. Perhaps you would care for a biscuit? I have some delicious chocolate-backed confections, far superior to those fig-based monstrosities that have become so popular recently. Newton: now hang on just a minute…

The Entire Archives of Radical Philosophy Go Online: Read Essays by Michel Foucault, Alain Badiou, Judith Butler & More (1972–2022)

going to try coining a new term there's a genre of LLM usage side-effect where someone will start being ever so slightly more impatient, less curious, less able to think critically (by which I mean examine problems from multiple perspectives, use empathy, use doubt as an interrogative tool) […]

Hello, they will genuinely be so excited. Save some water; fuel a librarian.

Post the best picture you have taken of your pet. Nigel and William evolve their standard "yin-yang" nap formation into a perfect heart shape.

Pinker’s shtick is eloquently projecting mischaracterizations of topics that knows nothing about into the public sphere. He masquerades as an expert, despite never seriously engaging with the fields he critiques. He’s the Trump of popular science writing. www.currentaffairs.org/news/steven-...

644 days: New personal record for elapsed time between job application and resolution. I'm sorry your hiring process was so drawn out...thanks for letting me know!

are there any more things like this

customer slopport. is this anything

Banksy unmasked! wrong answers only

Timothée ChalNOTamet amirite

to all who celebrate this annual tradition

Job opening here at ITHAKA's JSTOR: Digital Collections Curator, Reveal Digital, focusing on important cultural, social, and political histories, especially those that have been dispersed, under-described, or difficult to access at scale. Full job description: www.ithaka.org/job/46724530...

Wow. I was JUST thinking about that Bradbury story. This Soviet animation takes the story a bit further. Some days I feel like that bird at the end, trying to escape into the screen of utopia while the victrola is still playing a sad song…