Collin Bjork

Had a great time consulting with the “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” team over the past couple months, and they kindly gave my book a shoutout during the episode.

Event Flyer—Land, Labor, Water & Writing: The Costs of Generative AI in the Writing Classroom, CCCC Fall 2025 Reading Circle, Session 2: Book Discussion of Enduring Digital Damage by Dustin Edwards, Wednesday, December 10, 2025, 4–5 PM Eastern, with brief remarks from the author, facilitated by Hannah Hopkins and Donnie Johnson Sackey.

The second CCCC Reading Circle on Land, Labor, Water & Writing: The Costs of Generative AI in the Writing Classroom is on Wed, Dec 10 @ 4–5 PM ET.

Looking forward to discussing @dustinedwards.bsky.social's Enduring Digital Damage w/@hannahhopkins.bsky.social & @donniejsackey.bsky.social!

"The more people loudly challenge and refuse the extraction and violence of AI Empire, the safer it becomes for others to do so. We can do this work together."

Flyer for November 17, 2025 Glenn Advancing the Agenda Webinar on AI refusal with presenter profile photos.

Please join the Coalition at 1 PM (EST) on November 17th for “Generative AI as Feminist Methodology,” a Cheryl Glenn Advancing the Agenda webinar.

Register here: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

This is a fantastic, super accessible piece. Not only does it diagnose the extractive nature of most AI systems, but it also offers other (less extractive) visions for AI.

Enduring Digital Damage Networks the intricate relationship between rapidly advancing digital technologies and environmental degradation and reveals the costs of our globally connec...

Just heard word that my book, ENDURING DIGITAL DAMAGE, is shipping on Oct 15 if ordered from the UAP website. You can preorder it now and the discount code “DAMAGE” will take 30 percent off the total price.

www.uapress.ua.edu/978081736219...

On Being a GenAI Killjoy Maggie Fernandes, University of Arkansas Photo by Maksim Romashkin on Pexels.com At a recent teaching talk about GenAI refusal, an audience member asked Megan, Jen, and me this question: how d…

I wrote this blog about how feeling like a killjoy whenever I talk about GenAI.
refusinggenai.wordpress.com/2025/10/09/o...

25 Podcasts Announced as Eligible for Golden Globes The awards will be presented on January 11, 2026

25 Podcasts Announced as Eligible for Golden Globes https://podnews.net/press-release/golden-globes-eligible-podcasts-26

Extractive Artificial Intelligence and Its Challenge to Technical Communication - Collin Bjork, 2025 Mainstream artificial intelligence (AI) is an extractive industry that exploits both humans and nonhumans. The extractive underpinning of mainstream AI systems ...

Are you teaching TechComm this semester and wanting to discuss AI? Consider using my short accessible piece about “Extractive AI” that recently came out in JBTC: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Nonsense

As for curriculum at gymnasiums, I think it can vary widely. Yes, you might encounter classics, philosophy, languages, physics. But today, I think you’re also just as likely to get media studies, computer science, and video production at gymnasium. Would be interesting to read a history of them.

Both are publicly funded.

My understanding is that gymnasiums are still quite common today in continental Europe for high schoolers who want to be ready for uni in a variety of fields (arts, languages, sciences, maths, engineering, medicine, law).

My understanding is that many European countries have two pathways for students to choose in high school: you can either go to vocational high school, who CV prepares you for a trade or, if you make sufficient high grades, you can go to gymnasium, which prepares you for university.

TOP AI IN EDUCATION FAILS ... so far:

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

If you’re looking for a critical perspective on AI that’s accessible to students in a course on media, tech comm, or rhetoric and writing studies, consider this: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... Extractive Artificial Intelligence and Its Challenge to Technical Communication - Collin Bjork, 2025

Uncivil is a FANTASTIC podcast! I teach it to my uni students in New Zealand. And I teach your Transom stuff on voice and vocal delivery. Congrats!

This is very bad. Although entirely predictable. Once more the humanities are being cut back to prop up STEM and, increasingly, AI investment (including at the expense of bench science). In the past, cuts to humanities were promoted on two separate logic streams that do not hold true: /1

Canvas just became one of the most powerful surveillance, IP theft, & data monetization tools in the world.

OpenAI bought a user-base locked in to long-term contracts.

But they can’t make us use their trashware.

Boycott. Luddify. Open source.

Don’t let them have your work or your students.

In addition to owning Canvas, KKR also owns Simon & Schuster (one of the Big 5 publishers), OverDrive (which owns Libby and has a monopoly on e-lending at public libraries as they get rid of physical books), bankrupted Toys 'R' Us, and bought nursing homes that then became sites of abuse and neglect

Silicon Valley AI and Academic Publishing are both extractive industries. Not surprising, but still infuriating.

Good ppl, doing important work. Apply today!

Clones in the classroom: why universities must be wary of embracing AI-driven teaching tools Big EdTech is increasingly filling a gap left by university underfunding. But tertiary stakeholders must question whether such “solutions” really contribute to a university education.

And here’s what’s wrong with Turnitin’s business model and other predatory EdTech companies: theconversation.com/clones-in-th...

Universities must beware of reliance on big AI (opinion) Building reliance on Silicon Valley AI companies carries risks, Collin Bjork writes.

Silicon Valley AI companies need universities far more than universities need their AI systems: www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...

California colleges spend millions on AI detectors. Is the faulty tech worth it? Turnitin’s AI detectors are flawed and the company demands forever access to student papers.

This is good reporting bc it’s often hard to get the specific numbers. But I’ve written about this before: Turnitin is a predatory EdTech tool that uses mora panics to siphon public edu funding into private coffers at the expense of student IP and educators. calmatters.org/education/hi...

What Happens When People Don’t Understand How AI Works Despite what tech CEOs might say, large language models are not smart in any recognizably human sense of the word.

“To call AI a con isn’t to say that the technology is not remarkable, that it has no use, or that it will not transform the world (perhaps for the better) in the right hands. It is to say that AI is not what its developers are selling it as: a new class of thinking—and, soon, feeling—machines.“

We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard. The emissions from individual AI text, image, and video queries seem small—until you add up what the industry isn’t tracking and consider where it’s heading next.

We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard.

www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1...

"I had no idea science could be so bad."

Recognizing AI Hype Masquerading as Research Jennifer Sano-Franchini, West Virginia University I recently posted to LinkedIn a critique of some AI hype masquerading as research, and I thought to do a blog post on this topic, in case it’s help…

New blog post: Recognizing AI Hype Masquerading as Research (a reworking of my previous LinkedIn post) refusinggenai.wordpress.com/2025/05/21/r...