AI Skeptic

Cartoon depicting the idea that something called ‘AI peas’ is better than normal peas

If you liked that chart you may like this cartoon

‘Opposing the inevitability of AI at universities is possible and necessary’ | Radboud University Since the widespread release of ChatGPT in December of 2022, AI has taken over much of the world by storm – including academia. Most of this happened with very little pushback, despite a myriad of iss...

‘Study after study shows that students want to develop these critical thinking skills, are not lazy, and large numbers of them would be in favor of banning ChatGPT and similar tools in universities’, says @olivia.science www.ru.nl/en/research/...

YouTube video by Casey Fiesler Standup comedy about AI ethics has to be a new level of dystopia right?

If you're interested in learning about why ChatGPT seems to want to date you, the way that AI might actually be our doom (spoiler: it's not the robot wars), and why you shouldn't put glue on your pizza, you might enjoy watching an information science professor do standup comedy. youtu.be/4XdJ2xiPies

I do sometimes have writers block, more commonly known as the time you need to sit or pace or stare out the window and let your thoughts form rather than ask the machine to tell you what you think

I hate it so much when someone who I truly respect and admire falls for “AI” in the sense that they attribute way more to LLMs than what they actually do (like actual thinking, understanding and creativity).

Enjoy your weekends, David!

YouTube video by Turner Classic Movies Harold Hill Sings "Seventy-Six Trombones" in THE MUSIC MAN (1962) | TCM

The AI Man

youtu.be/FGNgN43oUbg?...

The Majority AI View - Anil Dash A blog about making culture. Since 1999.

Okay, for the folks who asked: here's the majority AI view, writing up the reasonable, thoughtful view on AI that the vast majority of people in tech hold, that gets overshadowed by the bluster and hype of the tycoons trying to shill their nonsense. anildash.com/2025/10/17/t... Please share!

There are basically only two types of people in the world.
1. People who haven't invested any time in understanding my clever ideas.
2. People who've invested the time and realize, Holy cow, he's right.

#1 has lower barriers to entry.

What an embarrassing post.

(The responses are entertaining though.)

I love that it’s “glimpses”. ‘Cause then you don’t need any evidence

“Over the last few months, we’ve begun to see glimpses of our AI systems improving themselves”

Sounds suspiciously like AI-induced psychosis…

“If it makes you laugh, who cares if it’s AI?” Well, I care because my laughter and aesthetic pleasure is not how I determine whether a thing is ethical or good for society. I like how the sun bounces off of oil slicks in parking lots, does not mean I want oil spills everywhere.

ChatGPT is bullshit
Hicks et al., Ethics and Information Technology (2024) 26:38
eprints.gla.ac.uk/327588/1/327...

“We're creating a lost generation of developers who can prompt but can't debug, who can generate but can't architect, who can ship but can't maintain.”

The Great Software Quality Collapse: How We Normalized Catastrophe The Apple Calculator leaked 32GB of RAM.

“Without juniors gaining real experience, where will the next generation of senior engineers come from? AI can't learn from its mistakes--it doesn't understand why something failed. It just pattern-matches from training data.”

techtrenches.substack.com/p/the-great-...

Thanks, Microsoft. I really need my Windows lock screen to display your propaganda

theoatmeal.com/comics/ai_art

Large Language Muddle | The Editors The AI upheaval is unique in its ability to metabolize any number of dread-inducing transformations. The university is becoming more corporate, more politically oppressive, and all but hostile to the ...

“Not only is the ratio of AI’s resource rapacity to its productive utility indefensibly and irremediably skewed, AI-made material is itself a waste product: flimsy, shoddy, disposable, a single-use plastic of the mind.” www.nplusonemag.com/issue-51/the...

I believe the claim is that even if AI chews up massive amounts of energy, thanks to blah blah blah blah blah blah blah AI will eventually bring energy prices WAY down.

Bilbo looking down at the Ring, labeled "Add AI to it" and says, why can't this be our entire product strategy?

Chief among the Ring's powers is its ability to deceive.

A comment about this article: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/o...

Honestly, I’m not sure. What would it look like to you?

“most”

“More and more people email me saying that their AI chatbot has been ‘awakened’, offering proof of sentience and an appeal for AI rights.”

For heaven’s sake, this isn’t evidence that AI is sentient! It’s a warning sign that some of these people may be spiralling towards AI-induced psychosis.

YouTube video by UNSW eLearning Modern Day Oracles or Bullshit Machines? Seminar with Prof. Carl Bergstrom, University of Washington

yeah i agree, i really liked @carlbergstrom.com's recent-ish talk saying as much: youtu.be/TZC0-ghtvqE

David Cochrane seems to have swallowed whole a bunch of lazy assumptions about the supposed benefits of competing in an international race for AI.

AI-Generated “Workslop” Is Destroying Productivity Despite a surge in generative AI use across workplaces, most companies are seeing little measurable ROI. One possible reason is because AI tools are being used to produce “workslop”—content that appea...

i usually hate it when business types come up with business neologisms for the noble art of shirking.

but i think i'll let them have "workslop". when your coworker gives you AI work pseudo-product that saves time for him (consistently a him) and takes up yours instead.

hbr.org/2025/09/ai-g...

A dark-themed weather tracking map from Google Weather Lab: Cyclones (Preview) showing hurricane/cyclone models in the Atlantic Ocean as of Friday, September 19, 2025, at 08:00. The map includes ensemble forecast tracks and storm markers extending from the mid-Atlantic toward Western Europe. Multiple colorful lines (green, orange, blue, purple, yellow) represent different storm model ensembles and possible tracks, with clusters of paths pointing toward Ireland, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and Portugal. The cyclone originated east of the Caribbean, with its projected paths fanning northeastward across the Atlantic. Colored circles mark storm intensity along the tracks, numbered (e.g., 1, 2, 6) corresponding to categories. A second storm is visible off the Pacific coast of Mexico with clustered ensemble markers. The left panel lists model options (Observed, Our experimental model, WeatherNext Gen, WeatherNext Graph, ECMWF ENS, ECMWF HRES), a legend for storm markers, tracks, ensemble tracks, cones, and wind speed colors. At the bottom, sliders indicate initialization time (Fri, Sep 19, 2025, 08:00) and lead time (+6 days, Fri, Sep 26, 2025, 02:00). The background map highlights North America, the Atlantic Ocean, Western Europe, and parts of Africa.

Having AI crammed down our throats is bullshit, but machine learning has some real uses in science. This awesome page shows experimental cyclone track forecasts from Google DeepMind and Google Research's AI weather models, along with forecasts from ECMWF. 😍

deepmind.google.com/science/weat...