@socmerrill.bsky.social
Associate Professor at Umeå University’s Department of Sociology & Centre for Digital Social Research (DIGSUM). Memory, Commemoration and Heritage; AI, Digital Tech, Media, and Data; Social Movements, Activism, Protest and Politics.
I have eight browser tabs about Anthropic and Dario Amodei open right now.
Madness status: incoming.
This is the kind of use of Automated FRT and Ai I had in mind when writing this:
journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
It was great working with Mykola Makhortykh, Silvana Mandolessi, Victoria Grace Richardson-Walden, @riksmit.bsky.social and qi wang.
Thanks also to the collection’s editors (@andrewhoskins.bsky.social, Amanda Lagerkvist and Anthony Downey) and the three anonymous reviewers.
🚨 New publication alert! 🚨
I’m proud of this interdisciplinary, co-authored piece on how memory studies might handle the AI hype.
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
It has just been added, open access, to Memory, Mind and Media’s special collection on AI and Memory.
The sociological imagination is not just about observing society; it’s about understanding how people challenge systems of power and create change.
In the magazine’s June issue, @carinrunciman.bsky.social and fellow scholars reflect on what it means to think sociologically.
buff.ly/R9DWhvA
So we did a thing… 🧵
You’ve heard about the erasing of LGBTQ history on National Park Service websites. Egregious changes made to the Stonewall National Monument site (erasing all instances of trans and queer) & the disappearance of resources like the monumental “LGBTQ America” theme study.
My post was a subtle reference to the Sweden Democrats ;)
What is it with blue flowers
One of the smartest sociologists of this generation. @tressiemcphd.bsky.social delivers knowledge.
“So yes, we've experienced a coup, not the old fashioned kind, no tanks or mobs, but an undemocratic and hostile takeover of government. It is cruel, it is petty. It can be brutal. It is at once chaotic and surgical…The question is, will the rule of law hold?”
Looking forward to participating in this tomorrow!
NIUS and others on the far right are trying to roll back the expansion of German memory culture of Nazi victim groups over the past thirty years as it has expanded beyond the Holocaust of European Jews to include recognition of Roma, disabled, homosexual, trans and Afro-German victims.
Someone has adapted East German singer Ernst Busch's song Ami - go Home! for the present day conflict between the Trump administration and Canada.
Generative #AI is already having an impact on how we perceive #archaeology🏺.
In her @us.theconversation.com essay @clmorgan.bsky.social urges for critical yet constructive engagement with digital technologies in our investigation of the past.
theconversation.com/how-ai-image...
I found no sign of it on the other place.
Whoever could have imagined the AI headline generator would make shit up
amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/01/...
Throwing tomato soup on a painting seems like an under-reaction, to be honest
Since Die Hard is a Christmas film, a brief thread on my own head canon of how the Gruber brothers disparate bios are tied up in postwar German history.
My 2024 in review on LinkedIn:
eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...
Have a great break everyone! See you in 2025
Fun to have contributed to this with a chapter called ‘Splintering’ the Memory-Activism Nexus: State and Market Forces in the Vortex of Civic Memory.
Thanks to the eds Astrid Erll, Susanne Knittel & Jenny Wüstenberg & to Ann Rigney whose work inspired the book.
www.degruyter.com/document/doi...
Basically think of the o3 results as validating Douglas Adams as the science fiction author most right about AI.
When given longer to think, the AI can generate answers to very hard questions, but the cost is very high, it is hard to verify, & you have to make sure you ask the right question first.
I’ll follow this up shortly with the promotion of a couple of new chapters if I can find the energy.
Promote or perish
Other contributors to the issue include: Julien Schuh, Pierre Depaz, Matthias Meitzler, Jessica Heesen, Martin Hennig, Regina Ammicht Quinn, Phivos-Angelos Kollias Victoria Grace Richardson Walden, Mykola Makhortykh, Alina Volynskaya (sorry my thumbs started hurting before I could tag you all)
It contains an article I wrote with @riksmit.bsky.social and @thomassmits.bsky.social called Stochastic Remembering & Distributed Mnemonic Agency (the outcome of our TAIGA – Centre for Transdisciplinary AI 2023 micro-project)
brill.com/view/journal...
The full open access special issue of Memory Studies Review dedicated to #AI and Collective #Memory is now out. It was edited by Sarah Gensberger and Frédéric Clavert and represents the collective efforts of the @artificialmemory.bsky.social network.
It is available here: brill.com/view/journal...
The history books will tell the story of this era of erasure with the derision it deserves, but until then, the only thing I know to do it to show that it is happening & help families & communities be as safe as possible. Document, share, and ensure this can be told. It’s such a shameful moment.
“Writing a single email with ChatGPT can use as much energy as driving a two-ton electric vehicle half a mile,” @laurenleffer.bsky.social reports. www.audubon.org/magazine/how...
