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...

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

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...