Mary Rice

The greatest risk of AI in higher education isn't cheating—it's the erosion of learning itself Public debate about artificial intelligence in higher education has largely orbited a familiar worry: cheating. Will students use chatbots to write essays? Can instructors tell? Should universities ba...

“Cognitive psychology has shown that students grow intellectually through doing the work of drafting, revising, failing, trying again, grappling with confusion, and revising weak arguments. This is the work of learning how to learn”
phys.org/news/2026-02...

The Data Lords Are Taxing Our Water and Power to Build Their Castles | Common Dreams Data center dukes and barons appropriate land and resources while indirectly taxing the middle and lower class through higher utility bills.

The Data Lords Are Taxing Our Water and Power to Build Their Castles www.commondreams.org/opinion/data...

Beowulf by All - Arc Humanities Press This is a community translation of the earliest English epic poem. Beowulf tells the story of a mythical hero in northern Europe in, perhaps, the sixth centu...

BEOWULF BY ALL: "Readers will encounter the voices of over two hundred individuals, woven together into a reading experience that is at once productively dissonant, yet strangely coherent in its extreme variation." FREE OPEN ACCESS PDF DOWNLOAD:
www.arc-humanities.org/978164189471...

A photograph of the Tennessee State Capitol on a sunny, nearly cloudless day.

After Researching Tenure’s History, Tennessee Lawmaker Drops Bill to End It https://bit.ly/4tI01ed

Government Docs Reveal New Details About Tesla and Waymo Robotaxis’ Human Babysitters Self-driving vehicle companies are revealing new details about their safety-critical “remote assistance” programs—but questions remain.

I am, per usual, obsessed with the people behind the robots, and we got more info on robotaxis' safety-critical remote assistance/operations this week:

www.wired.com/story/govern...

🚀 Registration is now open for the 2026 Quantum Device Workshop, held at UCLA on June 15–18, 2026

Big Tech's 'AI Climate Hoax': Study Shows 74% of Industry's Claims Unproven | Common Dreams Tech industry's claims of AI benefiting the climate are debunked in a new report. Generative AI's energy demands are far larger than traditional AI.

www.commondreams.org/news/generat...

REMINDER: Megan Keller comes from Michigan, a hockey-crazy state that shamefully doesn't have a single Division I women's hockey program.

The People vs. AI Across red states and blue, a grassroots movement is pushing back on the unchecked growth of the artificial intelligence industry.

In WI, @runforsomething.net alum @francescahongwi.bsky.social is leading when it matters most: "Hong has prioritized the issue of affordability for working-­class people. The proliferation of data centers has become central to that conversation." time.com/7377579/ai-d...

Verge headline: Mark Zuckerberg is taking the stand as social media goes on trial by Lauren Feiner Photo illustration depicts Mark Zuckberberg set against a field of Meta logos

The way that Meta and YouTube designed their products — allegedly luring users into a nonstop loop of taps and scrolling — is at the heart of this month’s bellwether social media trial, which sets the stage for thousands of similar lawsuits.

Read more from @laurenfeiner.bsky.social: buff.ly/ndKT7WQ

Maybe the kids have realized that we are in a bit of a hellscape and absent a sense of safety they are doing what they can to survive.

Today’s Ring of Fire solar eclipse in its stunning peak phase seen over Antarctica...

An image of binoculars with each lens showing a picture of a futuristic city covered in green spaces. Behind the binoculars are smokestacks rising from a forest. At the image's top are the words, "The AI Climate Hoax: Behind the Curtain of How Big Tech Greenwashes Impacts".

"Put simply, the evidence for massive climate benefits of AI is weak, whilst the evidence of substantial harm is strong."

My morning reading from @ketanjoshi.co is his new report, "The AI Climate Hoax: Behind the Curtain of How Big Tech Greenwashes Impacts" at beyondfossilfuels.org/wp-content/u...

Two U.S. moms in their 40s rocketed to gold and bronze in Olympic bobsled showdown American sliders Elana Meyers Taylor, 41, and Kaillie Humphreys, 40, secure gold and bronze medals. Meyers-Taylor built on her record as the Black athlete with the most Winter Olympics medals.

American sliders Elana Meyers Taylor, 41, and Kaillie Humphreys, 40, secure gold and bronze medals. Meyers-Taylor built on her record as the Black athlete with the most Winter Olympics medals. n.pr/3MIJUMC

How AI slop is causing a crisis in computer science Preprint repositories and conference organizers are having to counter a tide of ‘AI slop’ submissions.

Beware the risk of drowning in #AISlop: all generated at great environmental cost

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Swarms of AI bots are threatening democracy The level of coordination among inauthentic online agents is unprecedented.

Swarms of AI bots are threatening democracy

The level of coordination among inauthentic online agents is unprecedented

www.salon.com/2026/02/15/s...

Stop Using Face ID Right Now. Here's Why Biometric locks like face recognition are convenient to set up—but because of a legal loophole, law enforcement can bypass them more easily than a traditional passcode.

‘People with a high risk of surveillance by governments or criminal organizations—such as activists, immigrants, journalists, and politicians—should consider using a passcode or passphrase to protect their devices…’

www.pcmag.com/explainers/s...

Why the NAACP is working to protect Black neighborhoods from AI data centers The NAACP is making sure Black and minority neighborhoods are not victimized by data centers.

"The reason we’re so interested and concerned about this is that for decades, the NAACP has understood that environmental and climate justice issues are racial justice issues.”

Today my students asked about AI advertising to student populations/campuses and I recommended that they read tech bro rhetoric about AI while swapping out "AI" for the terms "slavery," "pollution," "billionaire profits," or "deep state surveillance," and we had a great time. Highly recommend.

Black Children Were Jailed for a Crime That Doesn’t Exist. Almost Nothing Happened to the Adults in Charge. Judge Donna Scott Davenport oversees a juvenile justice system in Rutherford County, Tennessee, with a staggering history of jailing children. She said kids must face consequences, which rarely seem t...

Before her retirement, this judge oversaw a juvenile justice system in Rutherford County, TN, with a staggering history of throwing children in jail.

In one case, 11 Black children, as young as 8, were arrested for a crime that doesn't exist.

Revisit our 2021 story with @wpln.bsky.social:

My daughter was stopped from using a dictionary at school and told to look it up with AI.

She reads about two books a day and for Christmas I got her socks that say "bookmarks are for quitters" and then had to stop her wearing them every day.

I'm deciding how angry I want to get about this.

A bunch of gray speech bubbles with a single one in orange.

How to Deliver an Effective Public Comment

With a series of critical higher ed regulations soon to be opened for public comment, Inside Higher Ed spoke with three experts on how to submit feedback that makes an impact. Here’s what they had to say. https://bit.ly/3OdiezO

#EDUSky #HigherEd

Arguments to begin in landmark social media addiction trial set in Los Angeles The world’s biggest social media companies face several landmark trials this year that seek to hold them responsible for harms to children who use their platforms.

“Borrowing heavily from the behavioral and neurobiological techniques used by slot machines and exploited by the cigarette industry, Defendants deliberately embedded in their products an array of design features aimed at maximizing youth engagement to drive advertising revenue,” the lawsuit says.

"They provide guidance." More outsourcing of American jobs.

futurism.com/advanced-tra...

‘Hermès orange’ iPhone sparks Apple comeback in China Vivid redesign and social media buzz lure Chinese buyers back after a prolonged slump

Apple reverses three years of sales declines in China by growing sales +38% year over year with a refreshed hardware design and a new color fans are calling “Hermès orange”.

I sometimes forget that iPhones are as much a luxury status symbol as they are technology device.

The Education Department's efforts to fire staff cost over $28 million, watchdog says A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office calculates the cost of efforts to fire civil rights staff and questions the department's ability to enforce federal civil rights laws.

A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office calculates the cost of efforts to fire civil rights staff and questions the department's ability to enforce federal civil rights laws.

Where people get their news

SFUSD Approves OpenAI Contract, Bypassing School Board The San Francisco Unified School District signed a contract with OpenAI three weeks before seeking approval from its school board.

The boring work of procurement and the need for public scrutiny of proposed contracts with tech companies are essential safeguards against the uncritical adoption of GenAI in K-12 schools.

As a parent and educator, if my district leaders did something like this, I would be furious.

The Agentic AI Infrastructure Gap: Everyone's Building Agents. Nobody's Building the Substrate. Salesforce dropped its 2026 Connectivity Report this morning, and there's a stat in there that perfectly captures what's going wrong with enterprise AI: 50% of deployed AI agents operate in complete i...

I talk about Agentssssssss - and what tons of people are NOT building.

www.distributedthoughts.org/agentic-ai-i...