Judges do not like AI.

In 2002, Senator Trent Lott was ousted from GOP leadership when he suggested segregationist Strom Thurmond should have been elected president. In 2026, the racist President is sharing racist memes and it won’t even be a story by this evening. The purest example I know of the End of Shame.

If you're trying to figure out what "Moltbook" is and why people are chattering about it, this NYT story by Cade Metz featuring @simonwillison.net is a helpful starting point. (Congrats, Simon!) www.nytimes.com/2026/02/02/t...

My friend and longtime collaborator @dylanpkane.bsky.social, a teacher in Colorado, went tech-free in his classroom for January. No Chromebooks, no AI, just old fashioned teaching. He reports on the results here and BOY is it fascinating: fivetwelvethirteen.substack.com/p/tech-free-...

Honestly I find this weirdly heartening. The seductive power of technology is that it’s useful in some way. If AI needs to be jammed down the throats of Meta employees by the HR department, as gross as that is it suggests the AI juice isn’t all that juicy.

New fuck/marry/kill list just dropped

“It was good to be a young conservative back in my day. It’s great to be one right now.” — David Brooks

I think often about the courage of these four young men. May we find a measure of it in the struggle ahead.

“I suspect that what we are witnessing now, both within and beyond Minnesota, is at least in part fueled by a similar transformation—an ever-deepening development of thicker and thicker empathy, supported by the experiences that community ties create.” The beauty and power of human solidarity.

David Brooks fantasyland: "It’s great to be [a young conservative] right now." @biblioracle.bsky.social realtalk: Witness the “groyperfication' of the Republican Party, where legions of young people--mostly men--are exposed to a steady diet of white nationalist, anti-feminist, authoritarian media."

Last year, Amodei suggested AI will double life spans to 150 years, and may lead to humanity achieving “escape velocity” from death itself. He’s an idiot. Stop listening to his predictions about the future.

Look at what’s happening. Watch the video. The courage of this woman in the moment of having three guns pointed at her. Abolish ICE.

This hits hard. No child should have to endure this, whether the 3,000 imprisoned by ICE or their classmates wondering why their friends have been disappeared.

I will keep saying it: It turns out that inventing a tool that counterfeits the experience of being human can have, or rather is having, adverse consequences. Shirky concludes with the same point I’ve been making, that we cannot wait decades to get ahead of this. We are warping a generation.

If anybody was going to find a way to make generative AI useful for teachers, @ddmeyer.bsky.social was/is the person to do it. This is super interesting and please please PLEASE note how the tech is being used “in the background” to foster good pedagogy. open.substack.com/pub/danmeyer...

I’m laughing to the point of tears. Not sure I should be, but I am. (The link just below this post is even better, if you want the uncensored version.)

Impressive work on the part of the Dartmouth admin comms team to manifest in human form the very same ethical and philosophically issues that plague generative AI.

I was just invited to appear on a forthcoming podcast, based in Canada, about the impact of AI on society. The name of the podcast, you ask? "Eh, I." As they say, perfect. No notes.

Here @colin-fraser.net lays out an argument I’ve been meaning to write up for months…”stochastic parrot” remains a brilliant metaphor for how LLMs do what they do, and I’m ready to defend its continued usage! But in the meantime read Colin’s thread here.

Big Tech is “no longer strategizing for voluntary adoption [of AI]…They are planning to cross the chasm by forced adoption. People will use it because they are told they ‘have to’ by their employer, by their school, by their president, or by the police state.” - @mattseybold.bsky.social

Follow-up question: Given the ostensible commitment of the UK government to evidence-informed education policy, what evidence is there that “AI tutoring” is effective for pupils? In particular, those from disadvantaged backgrounds? I’ll wait.

It turns out that counterfeiting human thought may have some adverse consequences.

“A lot of people say to me: 'Aren't you afraid that they're going to get behind?' And my response is: 'I know that when my students leave my class that they know how to think and they know how to write.” - @heymrsbond.com Inspiring. That’s the gig, folks, that’s what educating is for!!!

On 1/30 we are shutting it down, and, on 1/31, we are gathering across the country to demand ICE Out of Everywhere, permanently!

Absolutely heartbreaking. We won’t be silent while our friends are gunned down.

Minnesota National Guard members have arrived at a federal building and were directed to distribute donuts, coffee, and hot chocolate to anti-ICE protesters. Guard members were issued reflective vests so they would not be mistaken for federal agents.

www.cnn.com/2026/01/24/u... Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital. Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately he will not be with us to see his impact.

Been thinking a lot about this. @indivisible.org and @50501movement.bsky.social have been effective mobilizers in opposing American fascism. I’m ready to travel to Minneapolis for a display of mass resistance and I suspect I’m far from alone.

What’s going on with that new paper suggesting LLMs can make sense of Jabberwocky language? @eryk.bsky.social nerds out on it while making a nuanced defense of the stochastic-parrot metaphor. (Link to follow)

The montage towards the end hits especially hard. www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_71...

I keep thinking of the crowd chanting in Philly two weeks ago after Renee Good was murdered, led by local activist and artist @samantharise.bsky.social: Hey Oh, We Won’t Be Silent While Our Friends Are Gunned Down. We won’t we won’t we won’t.

There has been an increasing sense in Minneapolis that we are on our own, that our elected representatives are unwilling and/or unable to take action to get these murderous Nazi thugs out of our community. I really hope that changes today. The time for pleading TV hits ended weeks ago.

“Federal agents briefly detained our reporter at the scene, who says he was tackled to the ground and had a gun put in his face.”

Another execution in the open streets. There’s no car here, just multiple agents beating someone senseless before firing into him on the ground. Hard as this is to watch, we must bear witness to the violent fascism unfolding, it destabilizes the regime. But my god. My god.

“Trump Administration conspired to violate Constitution, take political prisoners” is the headline you meant to write, New York Times.

We have to get rid of Jeffries and Schumer. We have to. It’s unendurable that these men are the most prominent Democrats of the moment. They are two of the most broadly undistinguished men I could imagine in politics, zero fire, zero fight, zero zeal, machine politicians with sinecures.

This is an incredible conversation, touching on several distinct and worthy issues -- not just AI, but even more so science and how we approach it, the pervasive confusion of correlation and causation, and a bit of current politics/events at the end. Well worth a read.

"Maybe there will be artificial sentience. But I don’t think any sane person thinks large-language models are that. They don’t have inner autonomous agency. They’re a tool that you either use or you don’t. They're not intelligent machines that have lived experiences in the world." - Jessica Riskin

Genuinely think world leaders need to watch Back to the Future and focus on the character of Biff, who the screenwriters expressly modeled on Donald Trump. In the 1980s! There is one way to deal with bullies and it’s not by accommodating them.

Students know what’s up. This sharp seventh grader raises the obvious question about what teacher use of AI implies for student usage.

The ACLU should be all over this. This is as blatantly UNCONSTITUTIONAL as it gets. Good on the woman for filming and standing up for her rights. She can and should sue.

Amazing to think a quarterback will be canonized before the age of 25.

One of the best summaries of what’s happened to America that I’ve read. There is still time to save democracy in the US but we’ve got to get annoying about. Ask your friends, ask family members: “What action did you take this month to fight what’s going on?”

This is so great. Humor is more powerful than bullets.

Arguably the best thing I read about AI in 2025. If you haven’t checked it out yet, please do.

A nice thread wherein @vcarchidi.bsky.social raises thoughtful questions about why so many seem insistent on LLMs serving as a mirror to human intelligence. He speaks to why I remain insistent on calling them tools, because that is what they are — no more, no less.

Man, I could have sworn when Charlie Kirk was assassinated, NFL teams paused for a moment of silence before the games that followed. Must have missed it when they did that for Renee Good this weekend.

Seriously. Today I blocked a small contingent of pro-gun lefty numbnuts excited for armed confrontation with ICE. And it’ll happen again with anyone who tries it in my timeline.

NYT managing editor: "So, godlike AI system, what do we mean by this?" NYT reporter: "“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.” [beat] NYT managing editor: "Make sure there's a period after the A and the I. Ship it."

ICE kidnap 17-year-old U.S. citizen working at Target then dump him bleeding and crying miles away in a Walmart parking lot… 🤬