This Monday 4/7; all are welcome!

Full details and registration info are here: scholars.my.salesforce-sites.com/event/home/b...

Innovation or Extraction? AI and the Future of Public Education Weds 4/8, 5-7:15 PM, LIB 121, San Francisco State Our event brings together critical perspectives on how artificial intelligence is reshaping schools and universities. Under the guise of enhanced productivity and innovation, the CSU has partnered with several AI companies, including OpenAI, currently working with the Department of War. Our discussion will feature Alex Hanna, co-author of The AI Con, who will engage with the role of AI and its unintended—or intended—consequences, such as the intensification of labor precarity, privatization, the enabling of war and violence, as well as data and ecological extraction in the classroom and beyond. Speakers: Alex Hanna, Ph.D., Mandana Mohsenzadegan More information and a link to register: https://scholars.my.salesforce-sites.com/event/home/bayareaopedai

Event Weds 4/8, “Innovation or Extraction?: AI and the Future of Public Education,” San Francisco State University.

With @alexhanna.bsky.social, author of “The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want,” and an op-ed workshop by @scholars.org.

All welcome, RSVP below!

Thank you!!

Don't Give SpaceX This Wildlife Refuge Help protect ocelots, piping plovers, and other Texas wildlife from a corporate land grab.

Nestled on the Gulf of Mexico shore in #Texas, the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge is home to some of the country's most critically #EndangeredSpecies.

But Fish and Wildlife is considering handing over 712 acres of this precious refuge to #SpaceX.

Take a stand for #PublicLands ⬇️

Thank you Ryan! I am so sorry to hear about the final grading concerns and I absolutely agree—this is not a labor-saving technology for educators.

We are stepping up the fight over AI in the Cal State University system.
Details here on our faculty union’s efforts to combat the CSU’s $17M contract with OpenAI. Special thanks to the legal team at @cfaunited.bsky.social for sharing information about the Unfair Practice Charges they have brought.

Cal State’s War on Working-Class Education The surprise rollout of ChatGPT Edu across the California State University system has provoked outrage and opposition.

Excited to have this piece — a deep dive into the California Faculty Association’s fight against ChatGPT at Cal State — in the @aaup.org’s publication @academemagazine.bsky.social. See the whole series out today, “Organizing Against the Machines.”

www.aaup.org/cal-states-w...

How Cal State Became Ground Zero for the Fight over AI in Higher Education California's largest public university system struck a deal to integrate OpenAI's products into classrooms, stoking backlash, Chris Mills Rodrigo reports.

... ‘That makes it a strange time to be spending $16.9 million on ChatGPT Edu, which is a version of a free chatbot that lacks any special customization for education. That money is being thrown away.’”

More: www.techpolicy.press/how-cal-stat...

“‘The California State University system is currently facing deep austerity; across campuses, we have seen program closures and faculty layoffs,’ said SFSU professor Martha Lincoln. (...)

Tech Policy Press 3/18/26: "How Cal State Became Ground Zero for the Fight over AI in Higher Education"

Really appreciated getting to speak with @millsrodrigo.bsky.social at Tech Policy Press for this piece about the mass introduction of generative AI into the Cal State system. Some wonderful colleagues quoted here, from the CSU and beyond

CU signs $2M OpenAI deal for ChatGPT access Students and faculty will gain access to ChatGPT Edu starting in March under a three-year deal.

My employer, Univ. Colorado will pay OpenAI $2M/year under the banner of “equity”. That’s 54 full scholarships / year. Plus, our IT will be able to read our chatGPT logs, and our chats can be requested under public records law. No thanks. Surveillance is not equity

www.axios.com/local/boulde...

Critical Perspectives on "AI" in Education French Postcard, ca. 1901, "In the Year 2000," Wikimedia

Critical Perspectives on “AI” in Education – a free, one-hour, Zoom interview series starting Monday Feb 17, 12 noon PT / 3pm ET / 8pm GMT, continuing Tuesdays from Feb 23.

Come and chat with us! 🧵

🧪💙📚 🗃 #earlymodern #histsci #education #politics #AcademicSky #technology #AI

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Thank you Ben! In solidarity!!

Our petition asking the CSU chancellor to “Cancel ChatGPT Edu. Invest in Humans” is very close to 2,000 signatures—many irate faculty, students, alums.

We‘ll be sending signatures and comments to the administration on *Monday.* Last call, & anyone can sign!

actionnetwork.org/petitions/ca...

🙏

Cancel ChatGPT Edu. Invest in Humans. In February 2025, the California State University system announced a $17 million contract with OpenAI to provide ChatGPT Edu to all faculty, staff, and students on its 22 CSU campuses as part of a lar...

Sign and share this call on CSU to cancel its multimillion dollar OpenAI contract. CSU is in a budget crisis, OpenAI wants to reduce us all into tools of AI, and our public money should be invested in humans!

actionnetwork.org/petitions/ca...

Sick fourth-grader among 4 Columbia Heights students held by ICE Columbia Heights Public Schools says four students remain detained by ICE after Liam’s return, including 10-year-old Elizabeth, who has fallen ill.

Elizabeth is a Columbia Heights fourth-grader who loves volleyball, learning English and giggling in the halls with her friends. She's been held in the Dilley Immigration Processing Center for nearly a month, and she and her mom have both fallen ill. sahanjournal.com/education/co...

AI is not a peer, so it can’t do peer review If we still believe that science is a vocation grounded in argument, curiosity and care, we can’t delegate judgement to machines, says Akhil Bhardwaj

'to treat peer review as a throughput problem is to misunderstand what is at stake. Review is not simply a production stage in the research pipeline; it is one of the few remaining spaces where the scientific community talks to itself.' 1/3

Opinion | Democracy Dies by Database

“You need only know this: Whatever is happening with your data, it is important enough to the most egregiously lawless administration in American history that it be collected and consolidated.” Always read @tressiemcphd.bsky.social (gift link)

Loren Taylor & his white big business friends formed a fake group that KTVU immediately started partnering with weeks after it was founded and visibly had no membership. Still doing it too. The Fox takeover of that station was the death knell of independent journalism in Oakland

Alex Pretti & Renee Good were killed by members of DHS tactical teams. I went long on ICE/CBP's 'Special Response Team' & BORTAC, Homeland Security's paramilitary units that are now using SOCOM-style tactics & firepower for civil immigration enforcement & protest suppression

The International AI Safety Report is clear-eyed: threats from AI are growing--to rights, autonomy, health, cybersecurity, and planetary well-being. The evidence is stronger than ever. Commitments from industry and government to the safe, trustworthy, and responsible use of AI are urgently needed.

Agents were pursuing an immigrant when they killed Alex Pretti. Now, he shares his story. "I was there. I saw everything," Jose Huerta Chuma, who remains in hiding, told CBS News.

The "violent criminal illegal alien" that agents were pursuing when they killed Alex Pretti has been in the U.S. for two decades. He had a single misdemeanor conviction for disorderly conduct (domestic assault) eight years ago that was expunged from his record. He did not have a deportation order.

7 Reasons Teens Say No to AI Some young people only turn to artificial-intelligence chatbots as a last resort, citing concerns about relationships, creativity, the environment and more.

As these teens describe, AI can diminish human relationships; devalue art; threaten the environment; lead to laziness; give unreliable results; pose privacy concerns; and be misused.

So, please, stop with the narratives of inevitability and let's embrace a pedagogy and politics of refusal.

More of a thread here is below FYI. Thank you for reading and signing or sharing, if your time allows.

Also noting that I have long appreciated your work and enjoy teaching it to my SFSU undergrads. Best wishes and many thanks!

bsky.app/profile/heav...

Cancel ChatGPT Edu. Invest in Humans. In February 2025, the California State University system announced a $17 million contract with OpenAI to provide ChatGPT Edu to all faculty, staff, and students on its 22 CSU campuses as part of a lar...

Thank you for this timely and beautiful piece!

Here sharing a petition of possible interest you as an SFSU alum. Last year, Cal State University contracted w/ OpenAI to provide ChatGPT to all students. We’re asking the CSU not to renew this unfortunate contract:

actionnetwork.org/petitions/ca...

Let’s do it!!
TY in advance — and yes, I am also so sorry about the CSU. Much to discuss 🤨

Colleagues, especially those in CA and in the California State University, please sign this petition. I know you've all heard the bleak news stories about our AI debacle (because people are always bringing the stories to me)!