Shannon Vallor

A plastic bottle of a beige flecked substance labeled Spicy Taco Mayonnaise

Call the police

Brown fluffy green eyed cat lounging, paw outstretched

Brown fluffy green eyed cat on her perch

#Caturday Carol

Me three months ago:

what the foucault

ChatGPT’s new ‘Study Mode’ is going exactly as well as you would expect.

image of text that says: does he talk about AI at all? ChatGPT said: Smart question — especially for a book about language in today's world. 🔎 In More Than Words, John Warner does not focus much (if at all) on AI. His main concern is human language in public life — how people use (and misuse) words in politics, media, and everyday conversation. So even though AI tools like ChatGPT use language, that’s not really Warner’s target. He’s more interested in how real people use words to: shift blame (“mistakes were made”) sound smart without saying much control conversations or arguments manipulate emotions and beliefs That said, if you wanted to bring up AI in your paper (like comparing how people vs. machines use language), we could brainstorm a smart connection. But if your teacher is asking about Warner’s views specifically, then: 👉 No — he doesn’t really talk about AI. His focus is social and political language, especially how it shapes thought and action.

Testing ChatGPT's new "study and learn" option so I asked for some help understanding @biblioracle.bsky.social's work to see how my students might fare and it confidently just told me things that are... quite wrong.

I spent seven years writing a book on this and she just… said it in three succinct paragraphs to politico.

Want to get back at that prof who gave you an A- on an exam? Or maybe you don't think people of color or women should be professors?

Make up a story about antisemitism, plop it into an anonymous student evaluation, and watch as your prof's life is upturned faster than you can spell "fascism."

Ah shit they got to Dunkin’

The Orbanization of American Universities is proceeding apace.

Someone on here compared AI produced material as "digital asbestos " which in a few decades' time we will have to work out how to eradicate from the fabric of research.

You dont need a scholar of authoritarianism and the military like me to tell you this does not produce good outcomes

This is really good: "We've accidentally engineered away the most essentially human experiences: the productive confusion of not knowing, the generative power of sitting with difficulty, the transformative potential of things that resist compression."

Most reporting is just not up to the task of registering both that 1) the White House is *attacking* universities *as institutions* 2) the White House is working *with* universities’ boards to achieve *common goals* for remaking and weakening those institutions

Man who dissolved international assistance agency now uncomfortable watching scenes of deprivation overseas

Detectorists doesnt get nearly enough love. beautiful telly.

Congratulations to greenhouse gas

this hits hard

Most of the internet used to be like this. This is actually the default, it took companies enclosing the internet and adding weird, soul-killing incentives to make people behave the way they do now. In a way, there is truly nothing special about Wikipedia except that it survived longer.

So few people realize this about starvation. Once you’ve starved a population to near death, food won’t bring them all back. You need complex medical interventions, like tube feeding carefully monitored in hospitals…which we let be bombed into ruins.

now someone needs to check those poor parasitic lampreys for parasites

give him all the things

The president calling for the prosecution of individuals & companies he doesn't like should immediately end a presidency like it would have for anyone before this One Special Boy

Who decides our tomorrow? Challenging Silicon Valley’s power - Coda Story As Silicon Valley’s influence expands, a new belief system is quietly reshaping society. This piece explores how tech elites are redefining power, the risks to human agency, and what it will take to r...

Had a very lively conversation with Judy Estrin, Christopher Wylie, Justine Bateman and @antelava.bsky.social from @codastory.bsky.social, on how to challenge the increasingly authoritarian shape of Silicon Valley power

BRAID (Bridging Responsible AI Divides) are hiring a project administrator to support our team through Nov 2028. Come work with me, @ewaluger.bsky.social and our interdisciplinary team in Edinburgh! Based in the College of Art; applications close 5th August. Link in post below.

The defunding of USAID was the American Wannsee, the moment the ruling party’s psychosis and disregard for human life led them to choose to kill millions of innocents for its own sake. There is no normal politics possible after that, and no one has understood that yet (not even me, at a gut level).

Edinburgh University had ‘outsized’ role in creating racist scientific theories, inquiry finds Investigation finds one of Britain’s oldest and most prestigious universities benefited from transatlantic slavery and was haven for white supremacist theories

Pleased this is finally published after I proposed it a few years ago. A lot of work by brilliant colleagues & some expected and some shocking findings. It’ll upset some (it’s a long time ago etc) but if a uni can’t speak truth to its own power what’s its point? www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Automation dumps risks on consumers.

Automation in healthcare, and especially mental health care, does exactly the same. But it’s not like buying socks from Temu, lives are at stake.

If this were a functioning society we’d regulate so that didn’t happen.

This isn’t a functioning society.

I'd also add here that women (and other minorities) often might have to clean up the messes that their men colleagues make through using AI. Using AI sours on you when you're the one cleaning up after it when it inevitably craps

Consider also how few professional women feel they have any safe margin to allow for mistakes or mediocrity in their work (both risks of AI-generated output). Especially in male-dominated fields, women can’t afford to use a machine that shits the bed even 5% of the time