I don't recall any previous transformative technologies that had to be sold to the public so hard. No one in 1999 was going, "Guys. Cell phone? It's coming, whether we like it or not. I think it's important, FOR WOMEN ESPECIALLY, to learn about cell phone. So that we're not left behind!!"
OpenAI: We’re burning money like the Joker. A miracle needs to happen for us to turn a profit
Microsoft: Please please use our AI systems, we’re teetering on the edge here
Anthropic: I wonder what’ll kill us first: lawsuits, regulations or model collapse
Media and universities: AI is here to stay
So please, give me university leaders who can understand and effectively convey this message to government, and stop hiring wanna-be corporate CEOs who think we are selling widgets and subsidizing power-point training here.
I think the reason AI propagandists are so flustered by the fact that no real writer wants to use their idiotic tools is that they themselves don't enjoy writing. They see it as a boring arduous chore to be avoided, while real writers actually enjoy writing and actually care about the quality of it.
I know this is impossible for us discuss in this current moment but... People want to do interesting, thoughtful, creative, day to day work. They want to care for each other, and feel like they are contributing to something bigger.
It should be where we start when we think about our communities.
Truly uncanny to see universities all doing the same suicidal things: centralizing decision-making, erecting bafflingly expensive new buildings, stacking the board with money guys, hiding info about the budget, throwing money at consultants. Atriums everywhere! They all got the same memo.
This is also an issue of ownership. You pay for the software-based things but you don’t own them. They can be altered or taken away altogether at any moment.
The potential for upheaval is precisely why economic elites wield AI as a weapon to threaten workers, even as we've seen time and again that AI cannot actually replace what humans do.
You can take these dynamics seriously without buying into the framing of the people doing the threatening.
God the people mad about music like this must live such sad miserable little lives
News from central Jersey: I'm running to represent New Jersey's 12th Congressional District.
By entering the fray, I hope to bring ideas of repairing our frayed republic. Not only to defend it in 2026, but to build something stronger, for generations to come!
samwang.substack.com/p/entering-t...
Abstract Al assistance produces significant productivity gains across professional domains, particularly for novice workers. Yet how this assistance affects the development of skills required to effectively supervise AI remains unclear. Novice workers who rely heavily on AI to complete unfamiliar tasks may compromise their own skill acquisition in the process. We conduct randomized experiments to study how developers gained mastery of a new asynchronous programming library with and without the assistance of Al. We find that AI use impairs conceptual understanding, code reading, and debugging abilities, without delivering significant efficiency gains on average. Participants who fully delegated coding tasks showed some productivity improvements, but at the cost of learning the library. We identify six distinct AI interaction patterns, three of which involve cognitive engagement and preserve learning outcomes even when participants receive AI assistance. Our findings suggest that Al-enhanced productivity is not a shortcut to competence and AI assistance should be carefully adopted into workflows to preserve skill formation - particularly in safety-critical domains.
‘Novice workers who rely heavily on AI to complete unfamiliar tasks may compromise their own skill acquisition… We find that AI use impairs conceptual understanding, code reading, and debugging abilities, without delivering significant efficiency gains on average.’
arxiv.org/pdf/2601.20245
Right wing white dudes finally noticing things a lot of women do for their kids, offices and communities on a daily basis:
PROFESSIONAL GRADE LOGISTICS
THREAD of offers of guest lectures (via Zoom) for Minneapolis-area classes so faculty can offer their students a top-quality education while dealing with other crises
Seeing tons of extremely generous offers. I'll try to post 'em all here--please add your own w topics you can cover & how to contact
my new AI powered lamp is trained on millions of lamp interactions so it understands that 50% of chain pulls are to turn it on and the other 50% are to turn it off. and honestly, it's a little spooky how it knows exactly what i want almost half of the time
UMass head football coach Joe Harasymiak was paid $1.4 million last year, making him the third-highest paid public employee in the state of Massachusetts. His team went 0-12 last year.
I actually teach programming, machine learning, and “AI” (which doesn’t exist).
Other work tech I think students should learn:
Driving a stick shift
How to fix a copier
Fax machines: friend or foe
The fine art of <reply all>
Adobe certificate signature
Navigating 🤬 SAP Concur
I could go on
Coughs in (many) university presidents, big city mayors, etc.
6. Also this boilerplate: "use AI as more of a partner and resource, not as a replacement for thought and creativity," although this is essentially an impossible task presented as a salve of reasonableness.
5. Then we get to AI and get this boilerplate: "when educators embrace AI with curiosity and patience, it can reduce burnout by handling repetitive tasks, improving overall workflow, and even providing new ways to engage."
No evidence is provided to support this frequent claim.
Rudy Bridges is younger than the Sitting President of the United States and 29 sitting United States Senators
I saw someone on my timeline shaming someone else for posting about college football in a time like this.
Folks, if we're going to survive a time like this, we're going to need to avoid burning out from an attitude of 24/7 vigilance and constant outrage.
Let people find joy where they can, please.
In about three years the entire university pivot to AI curricula and schools and programs is going to be so deeply embarrassing. We will all pretend it never happened and I will be standing there, looking at people with a mirror in my eyes. This is all so embarrassing.
Meme showing a worker labelled "academic staff" digging a hole in the ground while 10 others look labelled with management titles such as "Director of Human Resources" look on. The caption underneath reads "The only way we can cut costs is to reduce the number of academic staff..."
A meme for the modern university...
If you think the LLM told you something, ask yourself: What is your belief about who's talking? What is feeding that belief?
"The care robots themselves required care: they had to be moved around, maintained, cleaned, booted up, operated, repeatedly explained to residents... Indeed, a growing body of evidence from other studies is finding that robots tend to end up creating more work for caregivers.":
Also eliminating disability and “perfecting humanity” are fundamentally incompatible because disability is a core element to the human experience and what makes us humans
black and white beagle/dachsund mix wearing a crab costume and eyeing the camera
It's membership drive time! Sociology grad student ASA members who aren't pol soc members yet, Ziggy's looking at you! We're gifting FREE grad student political soc section memberships in return for cute pet pics. DM or email me for details. #ASA2025 Pls reskeet!
@asapolisoc.bsky.social