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Matthew Kirschenbaum

@mkirschenbaum.bsky.social

Critical tech and literary/cultural AI. Also cats, letterpress printing, and tabletop gaming. Professor of English at UVA (Commonwealth chair upon approval). Speaking for myself as a private citizen here. Being rude will get you blocked.

12,424 Followers  |  871 Following  |  6,045 Posts  |  Joined: 13.06.2023
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Posts by Matthew Kirschenbaum (@mkirschenbaum.bsky.social)

I’m afraid that won’t be sufficient. I have a remedial syllabus you’ll need to work through.

03.03.2026 22:38 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Usage note: This is humor. Neither myself nor the author of the original post are in need of an explanation as to how LLM’s aren’t actually sentient and cannot feel emotions. We’re good. Thank you for reading.

03.03.2026 21:53 β€” πŸ‘ 18    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Hello, do you need me to explain to you how these are really just glorified autocomplete machines?

03.03.2026 21:50 β€” πŸ‘ 6    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

I fear it’s just going to take one high profile casualty event

03.03.2026 21:14 β€” πŸ‘ 12    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Trump tweet with phrase, highlighted: β€œIf necessary, the United States Navy will begin escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz”

Trump tweet with phrase, highlighted: β€œIf necessary, the United States Navy will begin escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz”

One of the most likely and obvious scenarios for US combat losses.

03.03.2026 19:49 β€” πŸ‘ 6    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 3    πŸ“Œ 0

No cheat mode in RL, sorry

03.03.2026 17:38 β€” πŸ‘ 5    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

new Mary Oliver poem just dropped

03.03.2026 07:08 β€” πŸ‘ 56    πŸ” 23    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

​Greetings from the Northwestern University Transportation Library, where Rachel just showed me the original!

02.03.2026 18:17 β€” πŸ‘ 476    πŸ” 49    πŸ’¬ 12    πŸ“Œ 10

We've renamed the DOD the Department of War. Our troops are Warfighters. No of course we're not "at war" you dumb lib

03.03.2026 03:29 β€” πŸ‘ 4327    πŸ” 836    πŸ’¬ 106    πŸ“Œ 17

Make the Crusades history again.

03.03.2026 03:09 β€” πŸ‘ 30    πŸ” 10    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Screenshot of a 3hr old post from the GW Hatchet: β€œBREAKING: GW sold its Virginia campus to Amazon Data Services, an Amazon subsidiary that manages the company's data centers, for $427 million on Friday. The deed, obtained by The Hatchet, authorizes ADS to develop the campus into a data or information technology center.
STORY TK”

Screenshot of a 3hr old post from the GW Hatchet: β€œBREAKING: GW sold its Virginia campus to Amazon Data Services, an Amazon subsidiary that manages the company's data centers, for $427 million on Friday. The deed, obtained by The Hatchet, authorizes ADS to develop the campus into a data or information technology center. STORY TK”

GWβ€˜s student newspaper appears to have broken the story that the institution has sold a satellite campus to Amazon to be turned into a data center, which is just about chef’s kiss for the state of American higher education rn

03.03.2026 01:03 β€” πŸ‘ 1654    πŸ” 572    πŸ’¬ 19    πŸ“Œ 36

X is awash in disinformation, clickbait, AI slop, and stuff that doesn’t even rise to the level of AI slop, but as best I can tell it’s also impossible to follow the actual military conduct of the war here. 🀷

02.03.2026 23:59 β€” πŸ‘ 11    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

The role-play aspect is helpful, but to my mind the really important bit is the analogy to quantum/possible worlds in next-word decision making.

02.03.2026 23:08 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

You need Tabasco too, obvs

02.03.2026 22:52 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
Role play with large language models - Nature By casting large-language-model-based dialogue-agent behaviour in terms of role play, it is possible to describe dialogue-agent behaviour such as (apparent) deception and (apparent) sel...

I’m still fond of (and teach) this article: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

02.03.2026 22:51 β€” πŸ‘ 14    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

In non-WWIII news, the Supreme Court has denied cert in Thaler v. Perlmutter, leaving in place the DC Circuit’s decision denying copyright to wholly AI-generated works. This will leave for another day hard labor and industrial policy questions about hybrid works generated in part by AI.

02.03.2026 17:19 β€” πŸ‘ 169    πŸ” 48    πŸ’¬ 3    πŸ“Œ 5

god fucking dammit

02.03.2026 16:07 β€” πŸ‘ 4310    πŸ” 580    πŸ’¬ 39    πŸ“Œ 28

News you can use

02.03.2026 16:00 β€” πŸ‘ 7    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

fucking brilliant work, guys. what an accomplishment, you took out the IRGCAF's gate guards. you are winner.

we're throwing away a year's production of precision-guided munitions to vaporize a bunch of broke-dick museum pieces which probably haven't seen so much as a taxi test this millennium.

02.03.2026 03:34 β€” πŸ‘ 190    πŸ” 27    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 0

A lot of the most viral takes also seem to exist simply for purposes of being viral, racking up numbers with truisms calibrated for engagement and adding nothing new or refreshing to the conversation. Rather like a language bot, in fact.

02.03.2026 03:52 β€” πŸ‘ 7    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
ICE Moves Minneapolis Fleet to Williamsport Detention Warehouse As ICE builds out a detention infrastructure across the mid-Atlantic, equipment from its Minneapolis operation is heading to Maryland.

Roughly 100 ICE vehicles are on their way to a warehouse in Western Maryland, as signs mount of an impending operation here.

28.02.2026 17:52 β€” πŸ‘ 721    πŸ” 538    πŸ’¬ 39    πŸ“Œ 89

OG

01.03.2026 22:40 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Source describes the failed Pentagon-Anthropic talks: through the end, the Pentagon wanted to use Anthropic's AI to analyze bulk data collected about Americans (Ross Andersen/The Atlantic)

Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

01.03.2026 16:35 β€” πŸ‘ 625    πŸ” 250    πŸ’¬ 15    πŸ“Œ 49

We’re surrendering?

01.03.2026 17:10 β€” πŸ‘ 7    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

The Department of Education has hung a massive banner honoring a racist college dropout who built a lucrative career out of targeting professors for harassment

01.03.2026 15:25 β€” πŸ‘ 5646    πŸ” 1701    πŸ’¬ 200    πŸ“Œ 73

Benjamin and I have had a solid backchannel exchange in which we’ve acknowledged we probably agree on a lot more than not, including the toxicity of certain strands of critical AI discourse.

01.03.2026 00:33 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 0

Reader, he blocked me.

28.02.2026 23:54 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

You’re not going to follow me anymore?! That goes hard bro.

28.02.2026 23:23 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Post image 28.02.2026 23:08 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 0

You’re still misreading my point willfully or otherwise, so have a nice day and Wahoowa?

28.02.2026 21:23 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0