Don't be shy to take on a little two-week side project. These five months will be the most precious three years of your academic journey.

Introducing Our Lord and Savior, the College’s New Strategic Initiative Higher education faces looming threats from every direction. Dwindling enrollments. The demographic cliff. The enduring myth that professors have t...

"Once the prophecies of the strategic initiative have been brought to fulfillment, budget deficits will shrink, prestige and reputation will grow, that weird smell on the first floor of the student center will dissipate, and you’ll never be frazzled or beleaguered again."

I'm not sure your dad will appreciate being called a "senior" in the alt text of the first photo. 😆

Analysis Finds That Google's AI Overviews Are Providing Misinformation at a Scale Possibly Unprecedented in the History of Human Civilization A new analysis commissioned by The New York Times suggests that Google's AI Overviews are wrong an astonishing percentage of the time.

This is catastrophic.

So we’ve got a little illustration I’ve drawn of a daily newspaper but it’s a headline saying “For Fuck’s Sake What Now?!” With a little picture of a Trump looking figure under the headline, embedded in an extensive article covering the latest unhinged bullshit.

Kills me that I drew this a year ago and it’s now more appropriate than ever…

"No," the swordmaster said.

"One does not refuse the king," the herald said.

"I do. I will not train his soldiers or officers, I will not tell my students to join his army, I will not support his unjust war."

"You will regret this!"

"No," the swordmaster said.

Of The Empire We will be known as a culture that feared death and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity for the few and cared little for the penury of the many. We will be known as a culture that taught and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke little if at all about the quality of life for people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a commodity. And they will say that this structure was held together politically, which it was, and they will say also that our politics was no more than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of the heart, and that the heart, in those days, was small, and hard, and full of meanness. - Mary Oliver

God this poem is haunting me again.

Managing AI has become its own job AI was supposed to save time. Instead, many workers are bogged down with prompting, checking, and fixing flawed output.

AI was supposed to save time. Instead, many workers are having to spend time and effort prompting, checking, and fixing flawed output. f-st.co/yFQbjk6

The Long Push To Blame Systemic Problems On Individuals "It’s on You" chronicles how corporations and behavioral economists pushed for huge, systemic problems to be fixed by personal choices.

www.sciencefriday.com/articles/its...

Hug Your Loved Ones I posted the below tweet yesterday.

Oil, gas, fertiliser, food, aluminium, MRI machines, medical devices, semiconductors, consumer goods, cars, trains, solar panels. This is a crisis for the ages. www.donotpanic.news/p/hug-your-l...

"CEO Said A Thing!" Journalism "CEO said a thing!" journalism involves parroting the claims of a business leader or executive with absolutely no context, correction, or challenge whatsoever, no matter how elaborate the delusion.

Over at the newsletter I wrote about the unholy scourge that is "CEO said a thing!" journalism:

Yes! An important thing that we miss is that a person’s ethics are not just limited to how they treat people, their science is also impacted by it! Our goal should be to cite the most rigorous science, which should take into account the researcher’s ethics!

There are a few journals related to "historical" marketing... 🤔

Sure. How much do you think you should pay me to use my name? It's really important to think about attribution and think about impersonation, and so on. As an expert, you have a trade you make on the internet. The idea is that when you put content out there, myself included, you hope people use it. You want to refer to other people's content. You want people to link to you. You really, really hope they attribute you when they do. When somebody uses your content, should they attribute you? Of course. And to attribute you, you have to use your name. There's a different line which is, should people be able to impersonate you? And I think that is a very different standard. And we saw the lawsuit. Respectfully, we believe the claims are without merit. The idea that the feature is impersonation is quite a big stretch. Every mention was very clearly, "This is inspired not only by this person, but also inspired by a specific work from this specific person, with a clear attributed link to get back to them." It's far from that test lof impersonation].

Here’s my interview with Shishir Mehotra, the CEO behind Grammarly’s “expert review” feature which attributed writing advice to people - including me lol - without permission. Or, as you will hear us talk about a lot, compensation. www.theverge.com/podcast/8987...

Fun fact: plastic recycling basically doesn't exist.

Only about 9% of all plastic ever made has been recycled, and only 1% more than once.

www.npr.org/2022/10/24/1...

Why are 174 AI news accounts trying to divide the US and Canada? And what do Swedish fighter jets and potato bans have to do with it?

www.riddance.ai/p/why-are-17...

We have a joke about journals, but it's not in our nature...

It’s been almost 10 years since I’ve had a story published on @theverge.com. Feels good to have it be something so personal, and so close to long covid awareness day, too.

Wait a Minute…What If I Don’t Want to Use AI? AI is everywhere right now. It writes summaries, explains theories, fixes grammar, and recommends playlists.But here’s the thing nobody says out loud: you’re allowed not to use it. Whether you feel…

By popular demand, here is the full, glorious message from Aberystwyth University Library, on their blog:

wordpress.aber.ac.uk/librarian/?p...

Hat tip to @walkyouhome.bsky.social for prompting me to realise it was a blog post, and thus available to you all ❤️

I have a p-hacking joke but I can't repeat it

The Billionaire Backlash Against a Philanthropic Dream

It is undeniable that there is a) both extraordinary new concentrations of wealth and b) those benefiting don't want to share it any way.
The "Giving Pledge" was a nod to some form of social contract. Now, billionaires are walking away from it.
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/15/b...

Why I may ‘hire’ AI instead of a graduate student “It can competently perform a lot of the work I need immediately,” this professor writes

Some people should never have access to students.

“AI requires no ramp-ups, no meetings, and absolutely no emotional support…The issue is not whether my students are valuable. In long run, they are invaluable. The issue is that their value emerges slowly, whereas AI delivers immediate returns.”

ChatGPT Edu feature reveals researchers’ project metadata across universities (exclusive) A configuration in Codex Cloud Environments lets thousands of colleagues see repository names and activity linked to ChatGPT accounts.

Glad to see this made public today. I responsibly disclosed with OpenAI that high-level information about the private work of students and staff using ChatGPT Edu at several universities can be viewed by thousands of colleagues across their institutions. No fixes were issued after one month.

the answer to the trolley problem is that we have to blow up the fucking trolley i think

Grammarly Is Facing a Class Action Lawsuit Over Its AI ‘Expert Review’ Feature The feature, which Grammarly shut down Wednesday, presented editing suggestions as if they came from established authors and academics—without their consent.

Scoop: Grammarly is facing a class action lawsuit over its AI "expert review" tool, which presented advice from living and dead authors without their consent. Parent company Superhuman pulled the feature earlier today following backlash. by @milesklee.bsky.social www.wired.com/story/gramma...

‘I wish I could push ChatGPT off a cliff’: professors scramble to save critical thinking in an age of AI As AI has upended the way students learn, academics worry about the future of the humanities – and society at large

Me too. I'm so tired.
www.theguardian.com/technology/n...