Matthew M.C. Roberts

Academia.edu offered to turn one of my conference papers into a comic. I was skeptical—but apparently not skeptical enough. #WhatValueCouldThisConceivablyProvide #WhatsWrongWithTheSecondPanel

Just FYI, I might sell my soul for a truly VisionOS version of Nova @panic.com

More evidence that the conversation about generative AI and education involves fundamental misunderstandings about basic concepts—even if you're a CIO. Yellow bubbles are my annotations.

er.educause.edu/articles/202...

Advice | Sometimes We Resist AI for Good Reasons Why higher ed needs to listen to the contrarians in setting policies on using tools like ChatGPT in faculty work.

Wading through a huge backlog in my email. Just read this and greatly appreciated it. Thanks @thetattooedprof.bsky.social

www.chronicle.com/article/some...

I give a decent number of conference presentations that seem to go well. But the number one question that I almost always get asked afterwards is "how did you control your slides from your phone?"

The Agents of Unproductivity "Could AI slow science?" Sayash Kapoor and Arvind Narayanan ask, and proceed to poke a sizable hole in one of the major claims about "AI" – about its application in healthcare, in education, and beyon...

2ndbreakfast.audreywatters.com/the-agents-o...

In her "Second Breakfast" newsletter today, @audreywatters.bsky.social echoes what I've been saying about generative AI.

Grok searches for Elon Musk’s opinion before answering tough questions A mouthpiece for its master.

I don't even know what to say.

www.theverge.com/news/705015/...

For a year and a half I’ve been saying that it’s only a matter of time before students either sue or demand refunds when they learn their instructors have used AI. #TwoEdgedSword

In retrospect, it's amazing how naive I was about the nature of academia before going into it professionally

So far my only complaint about @liznorell.bsky.social ‘s “the Present Professor” is that no time machine exists so that I could have read the chapter on “academic culture” before I started grad school 26 years ago.

Weasel’s suicide delays but does not stop our biggest particle collider Plans call for six times the data as last year.

This explains a lot about why we seem to be on the Darkest Timeline.
arstechnica.com/science/2016...

It's really hard to make videos about all of the cool science coming out all of the time.

I really appreciate Trump trying to help me out with this problem by making it so no new science comes out ever.

A thought based on reading this afternoon's selection of AI-related news: how do we, as a society of overlapping and interlocking communities, adjudicate someone's claim that [insert thing here] is revolutionizing [insert aspect of life here]?

A little late to the game reading what Punya Mishra has been writing about genAI. This is definitely worth sharing:

punyamishra.com/2024/02/03/t...

AI coding assistant refuses to write code, tells user to learn programming instead Cursor AI tells user, “I cannot generate code for you, as that would be completing your work.”…

This amuses me.

arstechnica.com/ai/2025/03/a...

A very interesting discussion about a Microsoft Research paper on the relationship between genAI use and domain expertise.

punyamishra.com/2025/02/13/t...

One danger of embracing generative AI as a learning device and in language assistance is that you're letting the keepers of that AI have power over what you learn and how you write. It will be programmed with biases, unintentional but often *quite* intentional, that you will unknowingly adopt.

I love listening to this because it feels like sitting with friends and it is so good to hear reasoned, careful and incredibly intelligent ideas in a world full of …quite the opposite.

Frankly this podcast makes me feel less alone against the hype and I am grateful for smarter minds than mine too.

Recent events in the US would suggest that some people don’t actually need the ring of Gyges.

👏🏻

Now seeking: a term for the unique cognitive whiplash of trying to worry about and mitigate problems at multiple levels of personal, sociological, and historical scale.

This is fine. This is all fine.

Waffle House is placing a surcharge on every egg it sells | CNN Business The soaring price of eggs has forced Waffle House to add a temporary surcharge on customers’ orders.

So… How do we go about starting a public campaign wherein everyone mails their Waffle House receipts to the White House, asking to be reimbursed for the egg surcharge?
www.cnn.com/2025/02/04/f...

How do we change this conversation? The "where do you start" point should NOT be about which size 🔧 is right for the job. We should be talking about blind acceptance of 🔧 industry hype and if—given what it takes to make 🔧—there is any ethical/moral way to make them part of daily practice.

Irony alert: Anthropic says applicants shouldn’t use LLMs We agree with Anthropic: People shouldn’t use its AI to hide bad communication skills.

The phrase "irony alert" in the title doesn't quite go far enough.
arstechnica.com/ai/2025/02/i...

Writing: I love it, but it's so hard.

The only difference between “nowhere” and “now here” is a little bit of space. Think about it.

Human predictions for AI in higher education in 2025 Practical insights into how AI agents, generative search and personalization will shape the sector.

This article on the revolutionary impact of AI in education in 2025 would be ever so slightly more believable if the author's LinkedIn didn't list one of her past job titles as "VP of Marketing and Demand Generation"
www.insidehighered.com/opinion/blog...