The Bearded Bards of BlueSky are back!!!! Join us online for two readings featuring stellar lineups of amazing poets and writers to raise funds for @translifeline.org. Check out the website for details (including zoom registration link): beardedbardsofbluesky.weebly.com

My new article looks at the impacts of #GenAI on planetary health, calling for going beyond a human-centric focus on digital health to looking at impacts on ecosystems of data centre expansion and e-waste academic.oup.com/heapro/artic...

reading _the seafarer_ next in the #oldenglish group. reminded of ezra pound's reading of his #translation. if you've never heard it, it's worth a listen. whew! www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ylM... #poetry #poem

My latest column for the Chronicle of Higher Ed is now live. It's an argument for including AI-critical voices in campus conversations and policymaking workgroups, and I'm proud to get this dissenting piece into the mainstream genAI/higher ed discourse. Please read and share if you're so inclined 🙂

at this point in my life, when i have a big thing to write, it's kind of fun watching to see when i'll finally start. (dear reader, it is not today.)

No, you do not need to add these technologies to your repertoire - especially to write IEPs - and rather than invest in and solidify Big Tech's capture of education, may I suggest using that money to support relationships between teachers and students unmediated by OpenAI, Microsoft, and Anthropic?

Greater Sea-spurrey Spergularia media (with Sea Aster Tripolium pannonicum), and Lesser Sea-spurrey Spergularia marina. Hampshire and West Sussex coasts, yesterday. @bsbibotany.bsky.social

favorite #oldenglish word from today's study of "exodus": blodegesan. (of blood-terror)

10th day before the kalends of october. 29th eccl'l moon. +st. otho, ocso, bishop of the frisians.

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity. 1/n

Getting close to 50k views and I'm wondering is it just everybody is scared to say this and pleased I did? Because if there's so many of us who agree, trust me I'd know if 1k people disagreed with me let alone 50k, why are we letting AI ruin our universities? Together we can turn back the tide.

once saw a tweet where someone said they thought art was just sensitive people telling everyone else what it was like to be a sensitive person. maybe. if so, i feel like the rest of human society is not-sensitive people telling sensitive people what it's like not-to-be-sensitive.

the ghost peppers are ripe.

i say again: "pretty much"?!

"pretty much"?!

also, why would anyone be impressed w/ software that can tell one how to make sauce?

this said, i'm still not sure why those radically critical of this technology and these companies continue to use the industry frame of "ai"; let's refuse to pollute our collective discourse with corporate obfuscation, no?

"A refusal of AI in creative work begins with a refusal of that product’s ideological packaging....The way out...is not to regroup around our treasured flaws..., but to launch a frontal assault. AI, not the human mind, is the weak, narrow, crude machine." www.nplusonemag.com/issue-51/the...

roman's 'secular cantatas' right now.

i find it disappointing (and kind of funny) that whenever i play a classical music piece on youtube and neglect to change it to something else when it ends, it takes about two videos before we enter "classical music for studying!" or "tranquil music to concentrate to" territory.

my latest in @benedictinesisters.bsky.social's magazine, _spirit & life_. ecological conversion: ember days and rogation days. #catholictwitter #LaudatoSi benedictinesisters.org/wp-content/u...

Participants join our Sisters for the Divine Office, daily Mass, Adoration, meals and work. Participants will also have input on discernment, prayer and different aspects of monastic life. There is no cost to attend. Learn more at benedictinesisters.org/come-let-us-...

the long march to the kalends of october: 18th day before. 21st ecclesiastical moon, astronomically third-quarter. +cornelius.

happy ides of september! waning gibbous for one more night. it was gorgeously orange over milwaukee last night as we exited the brewers game.

day before the ides of september. waning gibbous. +most holy name of the blessed virgin mary.

swamiji. youtube.com/watch?v=AksG... #benedictine #advaita #monastic #contemplative

so much fog on #milwaukee's east side this morning that the elm out front was raining.

getting to go thru #oldenglish phonology (w/ vocal practice) with students today; very excited.

just sent an email to a student with an attachment of a part of what i unselfconsciously described as "my favorite #oldenglish grammar." and you know, i'm finding in my middle-age that that's a very "me" thing to say.

+ambrose barlow, benedictine martyr, too.

grateful for caring and thoughtful colleagues.

4th day before the ides of september. waning gibbous. +blessed abbot oglerius, ocso.

working late. dead kennedys to, you know, stay awake. just a genius line: "hardcore formulas are dogshit, change and caring are what's real"

Here’s a great opt-out template to send to your school/district if you don’t want your kid being used as an AI guinea pig: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

the one and only @bcmerchant.bsky.social graced me with his presence to discuss whether AI will kill your job and the bubble is about to burst. oh, and i made him listen to a story about canada’s terrible AI minister.

pridie nonas septembris. 11th moon. +st. moses, prophet.

man, what a teaching day! "i learn from my students" isn't a throw-away comment. if we're inviting and encouraging real dialogue, it actually happens.

Mic drop from @abeba.bsky.social at UNESCO Digital Learning Week

👀

kalends of september. 8th eccl'l moon. +st. joshua ben nun.

pridie kalendas septembris. brilliant half-moon over south #milwaukee tonight.

1/2 in the midst of all the noise about #highered students not reading, not caring, whatever: happy to report that both my classes at @marquette were rarin' to go this week. _very_ eager to talk about higher ed thru a jesuit lens, the nature of lit & rhetoric, had clearly read.

4th day before the kalends of september. 5th ecclesiastical moon. +john the baptist.

What I've learned from and about Joseph Weizenbaum was one reason I ended my dissertation defense on Tuesday with this slide, asking my audience to replace "computer" with "generative AI":

1/2 "OpenAI is a company...worth as much as half a trillion dollars. It sells software products to millions of people, including to vulnerable users, & those products encourage users to harm themselves. Some of those users are dead now...

ChatGPT is "a clear-cut moral abomination and a logical culmination of modern surveillance capitalism. It is the direct result of tech companies producing products that seek to extract attention and value from vulnerable users, and then harming them grievously." Educators, we must refuse OpenAI.

Regarding the tragic death of Adam Raine, there are already narratives forming that blame vague "dangers of AI" or a broader moral panic. But this is not a story about the faceless perils of superintelligence. It's about a $500 billion tech company's core software product encouraging child suicide.

I understand why people in education say they're turning to this technology because they have too much to do and they think it can ease the burden, but this is not an AI problem. It's a labor problem that the AI is only going to make worse over time.

I considered writing a long carefully constructed argument laying out the harms and limitations of AI, but instead I wrote about being a hater. Only humans can be haters.