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...

Congrats to @allisonpugh.bsky.social for this well-deserved honor. I'm honored that she'll be participating in an Author Q&A with our #podnetwork summer reading group tomorrow. If you'd like to join, please message me and I'll add you to the meet. www.newswise.com/articles/the...

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...

@allisonpugh.bsky.social This hits (slaps?): “What is missing here is what scholars call ‘recognition’, ‘mattering’ or ‘being seen’ – the notion that you are seen and heard, even emotionally understood, by the people around you, as opposed to feeling insignificant or invisible to others.”

Excellent piece.

Brilliant research on depersonalisation, the way our economy can reduce capacity for existentially recognising others, and the empathic failure built into the profit motives of tech.

Who profits from loneliness? Why are we being sold a "crisis of loneliness" and what else is actually going on? See my essay for Aeon based on #TheLastHumanJob Our crisis is not loneliness but human beings becoming invisible | Aeon Essays aeon.co/essays/our-c...

Read Allison Pugh’s books!

"Connective labor is not just a task, Pugh says, nor is it reducible to measurable ends. It is an inalienable part of humanity itself, without which the social fabric is left threadbare and thin." A thoughtful discussion of #TheLastHumanJob and three other books on AI in Public Books!

So proud to be a part of this amazing morning. Location ocean beach San Francisco #nokings

Brilliant reframing of the conversations we should be having : future of ai - The Last Human Job brava @allisonpugh.bsky.social

Therapists for me, and chatbots for thee. Doctors for me, and telehealth for thee. Tutors for me, and Duolingo for thee. Thanks for sharing! Allison Boye and I have a session on @allisonpugh.bsky.social 's work at the Virtual Gathering in a couple of weeks. Looking forward to the discussion.

Congratulations to @allisonpugh.bsky.social on this richly deserved recognition!

I am honored and thrilled to have The Last Human Job win this award. Thanks to ASA & the many who read/gave feedback along the way. This award is dedicated to all who do connective labor when it is under threat by data analytics & AI. Connecting is what makes us human! Let's preserve and protect it

The article itself is studiously balanced. (To a fault to my mind, but that's my perspective.) But this very dry paragraph in the middle is the whole deal. Why would an educational institution make this leap without any evidence of efficacy?

"The experts found numerous and troubling flaws: the code relied on older, general-purpose models not suited for the task; the model hallucinated contract amounts, deciding the agreements were each worth $34 million when they were sometimes worth thousands" www.propublica.org/article/insi...

"Replacing nurses, coaches, therapists — even business people — w/ AI may seem efficient, but Pugh’s practical advice & compelling examples reveal the stakes for any org. Job titles alone can’t describe that go-to person who listens deeply and makes quiet change." www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/...

This is a hell of a thing to read.

It does strike me that education is always looking for an 'answer' (AI, cogsci, slant, learning styles, brain gym, etc.) when actually it's more about the daily work of just turning up and building strong relationships with learners.

So happy to present w/ Allison Boye at this year's Virtual Gathering, co-facilitating a session entitled "Bearing Witness to (our) Humanity: Making Meaning in Educational Development," influenced in no small part by the work of @allisonpugh.bsky.social and her (excellent) book The Last Human Job.

The comment period for this ends in 3 DAYS. Please leave a comment telling them EVERYONE should be able to get covid boosters. www.regulations.gov/commenton/FD...

As predicted by #TheLastHumanJob... You need people to talk to people "After claiming that its AI chatbot could do the work of 700 reps, Klarna is turning back to people to help w/ customer service work." Klarna changes its AI tune customerexperiencedive.com/news/klarna-re… via @cxdive

If valedictorian addresses had a strong tradition of being apolitical, that would be one thing. But they're routinely characterized by conventional center-left political pieties presented as obviously shared, we-all-love-apple-pie, aspirations for the future. And that's OK! 1/

Two cases out of 110,000

What could go wrong w/ AI answering calls from concerned seniors re their SS benefits? The agency claimed to be “constantly improving the feature,” which is “affected by many factors, including background noise, quality of the connection & clarity of speech.” www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

And here's the kicker: "The components of an excellent college education — asking good Qs, grappling w/ evidence/investigation, developing deep knowledge, making good judgments & acting on them — support civic life. Investing in high-quality college education is, itself, investing in citizenship"

Re: AI & creative writing: Least-skilled students using AI after seeing a guidance video wrote better than those who didn't use it at all *and* those who used AI w/o guidance. More skilled students didn't benefit at all & their writing got worse w/ unguided AI use www.chronicle.com/newsletter/t...

Terrific take on current Big Tech thinking: "Our job is to raise this,” he said, pointing upward—to raise the ceiling on how prosperous/enjoyable society can be. “Your job”—media, banks, elected officials, the East Coast—“is to protect the floor.” (East Coast lol) www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...