Today's post was inspired by a paper on #polysemy, hype and #AI by @travislacroix.bsky.social et al and deals this time not with #metaphor but with multiple meanings (polysemy and ambiguity) and how they can be manipulated makingsciencepublic.com/2026/05/08/p...

It's always a treat to read Ted Chiang's thoughts on AI. www.theatlantic.com/philosophy/2...

For weekend readers a post on how a 1970s sociologist foresaw some flaws in AI (with an added Aaron Sloman quote) #AI #sociology #histsci makingsciencepublic.com/2026/06/05/p...

Are we being rAIsed?

It’s time to try defying gravity. I think I’ll try defying gravity mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-t...

The AI ‘Revolution' is Not a People's Revolution www.techpolicy.press/the-ai-revol...

AI as Faktenfabrik

Deepfakes, synthetic media, AI slop etc. have often been discussed in terms of a «crisis of truth» or an «erosion of trust». Fair enough. But in my impression, there’s something else that gets lost in waves of AI slop flooding our screens: a «sense of wonder» – surprise, amazement and awe 1/

@bnerlich.bsky.social 10 AI metaphors and their implications in today’s Observer!

Had a great time at Earth Stories Film Festival last night. Saw some incredible & inspiring films made by young people from all over the world. They were all articulating their concerns about the climate crisis. You can watch the Winners and Runners-Up here: youtube.com/playlist?lis...

OpenAI's discontinuing its video model #Sora just a few months after a spectacular deal with Disney shows just how little these AI companies care about their so-called products. AI video apps are, to quote Hito Steyerl, «onboarding tools»—their function is less commercial than ideological … 1/

In the past I have dealt with metaphors for how we work with AIs and metaphors for how AI works. In this post I deal with metaphors that creep into AIs' workings. makingsciencepublic.com/2026/03/20/m...

AI Killed My Job: Education workers | Blood in the Machine open.substack.com/pub/bloodint...

‘I wish I could push ChatGPT off a cliff’: professors scramble to save critical thinking in an age of AI www.theguardian.com/technology/n...

on tumblr we have been building a collection of these under the "#youtube standard english" tag #youtubestandardenglish www.tumblr.com/tagged/youtu...

You know, just in case I ever blind Claude and he tries to call out to the other AIs #TheOdyssey #Polyphemus

A couple of great bits in the @restofworld.org's newsletter yesterday...

Sipping an oat milk latte, my friend showed me his #Wordle score for today: 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Wordle 1,698 -1/6

Last term I tried an experiment: I walked into my Tech and Design Ethics class, admitted that I had *no idea* what to do about ChatGPT - so I would let them figure it out. As in: their first project was to decide and write the ChatGPT policy for the class. Here's what happened:

The best way of describing someone who’s all talk and no action that I’ve ever heard in the UK, by far, is “they’re all wardrobe and no Narnia.” * read on for fun ways of saying “all talk and no action” in other languages (a thread)

Wikipedia at 25: can its original ideals survive in the age of AI? theconversation.com/wikipedia-at...

This is brill. I'm not sure I entirely agree but it's still a great read. A Folklorist visits a Data Centre esnorthey.substack.com/p/a-folklori...

Anthropomorphizing language conceals the limitations of AI, promoting misplaced trust. @emilymbender.bsky.social & @nannainie.bsky.social suggest focusing on a system’s functionalities: instead of saying a model is “good at” something, say what it is “good for." www.techpolicy.press/we-need-to-t...

Found a documentary on YouTube called Johatsu: Into Thin Air about "evaporated" people in Japan who decide to leave their lives and vanish, often in the middle of the night, with the help of "night mover" companies. I started watching it one night but then went to sleep. Now it's gone. So on brand.

'The New Aesthetics of Fascism' by Ben Hoerman www.youtube.com/watch?v=UD4_...

The most brutal way of telling someone they’re a few sandwiches short of a picnic that I’ve heard in French is t’es pas la truite la plus oxygénée de la rivière. It means “you’re not the most oxygenated trout in the river.” * read on for similar insults from around the world (a thread)…

I just saw someone use the abbreviation “AI;DR” and I’ll be laughing for a while.

If you believe certain tech bros and the AI hype/cult, at least. More like 'technologically hinder a band'.

Technologically advance a band: ChatGPT

another take on if MrBeast is devil open.substack.com/pub/howtodot...

Tired: Zeno's paradox of Achilles and the tortoise. Wired: Douglas Luiz's transfer from Juve to #NFFC

deep-sea creatures are the result of a brief but fruitful period of collaboration between H.R. Giger and Jim Henson.

For weekend readers, a post in which I follow the semantic development of 'vibe' over time, from music to politics #linguistics makingsciencepublic.com/2025/08/01/v...

Well that does suggest what the word would be.

All worried about how easy it is for GenAI to influence people because it's able to statistically sound like a conversational partner, meanwhile look at this rock YOU ARE HARD-WIRED TO THINK THIS ROCK IS ALIVE AND FEEL SORRY FOR THE SAD ROCK. POOR SAD ROCK.

"digital asbestos" is fantastic framing.

After the latest round of grading papers, I wrote about AI, ChatGPT, the death of the student essay, and what it means for the future of human cognition.

I heard someone being interviewed on the radio say "let me just double click on something you said earlier" and I did a full body shudder

Called it! www.bylinesupplement.com/p/the-myth-o... @bylinetimes.bsky.social

Critical humanities discourse on AI will be doomed if it does not come up with better metaphors. Corporate AI is not a «cognitive entity» or some «other intelligence». It's a political project and a system of surveillance, extraction & exploitation 1/

Dire Wolves or Liar Wolves? Metaphors in the Colossal Bioscience ‘De-Extinction’ Discourse #Metaphors #DireWolves 🐺 www.drliamvoice.co.uk/vocemeamblog/dire-wolves-or-liar-wolves-metaphors-in-the-colossal-bioscience-de-extinction-discourse

Dire Wolves or Liar Wolves? Metaphors in the Colossal Bioscience ‘De-Extinction’ Discourse #Metaphors #DireWolves 🐺 www.drliamvoice.co.uk/vocemeamblog/dire-wolves-or-liar-wolves-metaphors-in-the-colossal-bioscience-de-extinction-discourse

For a not so sunny Easter weekend a somewhat longer post by Kate Roach and me on dire wolves and de-extinction and #metaphors and myths and also #scicomm blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/makingscienc...

Somehow, the future is both going to be a dystopian techno sci-fi hellscape AND we're gonna have coal and measles and robber barons and a permanent underclass. Philip K. Dickens

Biggest commitment to a 3 second joke I've ever seen

Noooo! I've lost my Wordle streak. I was at 638 days. Back to 1!Turns out I missed yesterday's puzzle entirely. I was so sure I'd done it. I looked up yesterday's word: DOPEY. Wordle is mocking me!

Just found out there are two more Deep Blue Sea films! How did I miss them? But I am greatly disappointed to see they are not called Deep Two Sea and Deep Blue Three.

the death of capital letters: why gen Z loves lowercase www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

My mum saw a van that had 'Trump is a loony' written in the dirt and I'll be damned if that wasn't more accurate news reporting than the entirety of the New York Times and Washington Post.