Saving the best for last! "The A.I. industry claims it wants to democratize creativity, but the real goal is dominance. It can seem inevitable that A.I. will rewrite the future of the arts...But the impacts of technological change are always shaped by human action." www.nytimes.com/2025/12/16/o...

"Seven News reported the bystander was a 43-year-old fruit shop owner from the Sutherland Shire named Ahmed. ... the father of two had been admitted after being shot twice."

"Remember that an AI girlfriend responding to your loneliness might just be a man in a Nairobi slum, wondering if he'll ever feel real love again" An important report here data-workers.org/wp-content/u...

So many connective labor-related (from @allisonpugh.bsky.social) use cases for AI make me so sad, and for so many reasons. This one makes me think of Enobarbus describing Cleopatra -- "she makes hungry / Where most she satisfies" -- which is the most hungry ghost description of desire I know.

Important thread worth reading

Are human beings becoming invisible? The Unseen (Allison J Pugh • Aeon) Our crisis of work and technology is one in which too many people feel that nobody sees them as a fellow human being. aeon.co/essays/our-c...

Fantastic piece by Allison Pugh. aeon.co/essays/our-c...

So grateful for Judy Wajcman's review essay on #TheLastHumanJob. "It is hard to convey how rich and evocative...this book is. It is beautifully written & so immersive that reading it I felt I got to know several of the interviewees personally...The book could not be more welcome"

Furthermore, they're fields where human beings do connective labor, the primary contribution humans make in an AI world. This is very short sighted. Did AI suggest this policy move? #TheLastHumanJob

Watching @kenburns.bsky.social The American Revolution, but why once again is The Battle of Alamance missing? In 1771 in North Carolina, British troops attacked 2000 farmers armed with hoes and shovels, shooting at them with artillery. The first site of the revolution was not Boston

ASA joined w/ 59 scientific orgs to sign a letter urging Congress to fund the National Science Foundation at the highest level in FY 2026 appropriations & accede to Senate report language for sustained funding for the Social, Behavioral, & Economic (SBE) Sciences Directorate.

At this point, I started laughing out loud... "The only problem with the date ad, he said, was that the girl wasn’t also using Cluely." www.theatlantic.com/family/2025/...

“Better than nothing” systems are no substitute for actual healthcare. @allisonpugh.bsky.social described this slippery slope to dystopia in her excellent book, “The Last Human Job; The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World.” (2024, Princeton university press)

My takeaway from every new Epstein revelation is that some powerful people victimized many powerless young women, many more knew, some actively enabled it--and we're still being told that MeToo and accountability for sexual violence have gone too far

A very powerful story www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/...

I look forward to listening to @allisonpugh.bsky.social talk about the value of these vital human moments at #AAMC25 and how we can better connect in a disconnected world. www.aamc.org/news/human-c...

Giant copy of the Constitution being carried down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Tomorrow (October 14th) at 9:00 and 10:45 am EDT, see keynote speaker @allisonpugh.bsky.social, author of The Last Human Job, at Planetree's Person-Centered Care Global Forum! Learn more about this ticketed event here: buff.ly/w4nuUaz

In Defense of Being Human aeon.co/essays/our-c... with @allisonpugh.bsky.social #LastHumanJob #digitalwthics

Allison J. Pugh @allisonpugh.bsky.social @jhu.edu received the 2025 Distinguished Scholarly Book Award during the ASA 2025 Annual Meeting for her book The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World. @princetonupress.bsky.social  #ASA #sociology #ASA2025

Next week, attend Planetree's Person-Centered Care Global Forum to see keynote speaker @allisonpugh.bsky.social, author of The Last Human Job. The Forum will run October 12th-15th, with Pugh speaking on the 14th at 9:00 am and 10:45 am EDT. Learn more about this ticketed event here: buff.ly/w4nuUaz

Sounds like an epitaph for our times: "longing for communion without the cost of mutuality" Putting ChatGPT on the Couch www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

Wanting to support intelligence behind #LastHumanJob www.washingtonpost.com/business/202... #furureofwork HT @allisonpugh.bsky.social

Today translators, tomorrow... We need to prioritize human-to-human connection. “The more we remove human elements from human interaction, the more it could distort relationships between people. Now more than ever, we need humans connecting with humans.” www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

I first met @allisonpugh.bsky.social on the page of her book, Longing and Belonging. I was instantly mesmerized by her writing and thinking. She offered a model of what I aspired to be as a sociologist. So grateful to have her support now as I publish my first book!

Folks, you can't report the United States to its manager. There's no superhero coming to save us. We don't need one giant act of heroism. We need millions of small acts of solidarity. Help one person in your community for nothing in return. Then, do it again. And again. That's the revolution.

The US town that pays every pregnant woman $1,500: ‘We’re not OK with our babies being born into poverty’ www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Pet parrots which typically live alone (whilst those in the wild live in large flocks) were given the technology to call each other. They would use it for up to three hours a day, and developed favourite friends 💔 on.ft.com/3K05vhS

The Last Human Job author @allisonpugh.bsky.social returned to @hiddenbrain.bsky.social to answer audience questions about connection:

Thanks to the Hidden Brain for revisiting #TheLastHumanJob! Still getting used to the personal angle that Shankar prefers: Preschool! Garlic! A false start in my dissertation! But I get how it helps the ideas come alive... Check it out! My part starts at 50:10 hiddenbrain.org/podcast/esca...

That's telling: "Guides are not required to have teaching licenses or an education background." For $65,000 a year, a teacher-less AI private school comes to Virginia www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...

Friendly reminder that AI data centers are working overtime to help cook the planet. If the fires are scaring you— start using ‘-AI’ at the end of all Google searches to cut out any AI response to your query. Refusal is possible & responsible. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

"internet and the artificial neural networks that enable generative AI arose out of basic research at U.S. universities. So did the most fundamental discoveries in molecular biology, (..) potential cures for painful genetic diseases such as sickle cell." And I'd add, so so much more! Save science!

How States Could Throw University Science a Lifeline www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Another one is people starting fandom subreddits for their chatbot “friends” so that other people can form para-parasocial relationships with them, in a similar way to how people make social media accounts for their cats

Related recommended reading by @allisonpugh.bsky.social

I wish it was more common to acknowledge that kids are people with rights, not the property of their parents. Their consent should matter.

Tracking kids is fine, but adults are not? The whole cautionary note of this reporting is about how the tech could, conceivably, be used to track adults without their knowledge. Not a whisper about the product's explicit intent re kids techcrunch.com/2025/07/30/s...

Thanks to @philipncohen.com and Micah Altman for this important piece. "The government’s war against science is a disaster for both" not to mention all the rest of us thehill.com/opinion/whit...

I'm so tired of @chronicle.com's AI cheerleading. When you quote someone who suggests grading is "administrative work" good for automation, recognize this as a discursive move to make space for more AI & not actually true. Have the grace to push back, rather than let them have the last word

NEW in CASBS's partnership w/ @laviedesidees.bsky.social & Books & Ideas A look at "The Last Human Job," a book partly written at CASBS by 2016-17 fellow @allisonpugh.bsky.social The book steps back from discourses portraying AI as a necessary solution to problems laviedesidees.fr/The-Irreduci...

"When I take off my chef’s hat and put on my sociologist’s hat, I can’t say I’m surprised at [Oz's] comments. The US has a long history of food shaming, particularly the food choices of people who are poor." Thanks to @msnbc.com for letting me say: LET US EAT CAKE! www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

The unsubtle subtext here is that, when the inevitable shortage becomes a point of political contention, “better than nothing” algorithms & hyped up “ai” will be shoved down the students throats. @allisonpugh.bsky.social wrote an excellent book about this.

Inevitable response to LLM arms race (and yet another site of voluntary altruism ruined by the ChatGPT revolution). Fellow Profs: your students are doing this in papers already 'Positive review only': Researchers hide AI prompts in papers asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tec...

This is very good 😂 Have you read The Last Human Job by @allisonpugh.bsky.social? So many of your chaplaining posts make me think of it!

Just started reading The Last Human Job by @allisonpugh.bsky.social, and I'm already nodding along and thinking that this book was written at exactly the right time press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

Wow—what an insightful article about depersonalization and the effects it’s having on us as individuals as well as a society. Thank you for sharing this thoughtful piece by @allisonpugh.bsky.social

It's not a loneliness crisis. It's a depersonalization crisis, in which tech, standardization and efficiency stop us from seeing each other fully. Wonderful article by @allisonpugh.bsky.social (author of The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World). aeon.co/essays/our-c...