Collin Bjork

Toomaj

For those of you who are looking for some Iranian resistance rap right now. I can highly recommend Toomaj Salehi, who has been in and out of prison for his protest rap. Solidarity.

open.spotify.com/artist/5mBmr...

Just finished an article about AI Humanizers, which I describe as “putting AI-makeup on an AI-generated pig.”

Also, I use the phrase, “the mountebanks of AI-hype,” which I think is an apt characterisation of the AI bros.

Parker's piece nails why this matters. "Tech companies... would rather not answer for their products’ failures. Every headline that says “Grok apologizes” or “Grok admits” or “Grok says” creates a world where the chatbot takes the fall while Musk and his executives face no scrutiny whatsoever."

I love that when I search for Grokipedia, the first Google hit I get is for Wikipedia’s page about grokipedia, which says some sassy but accurate things about Musk’s shitty facsimile.

More critical reading for the new year!

Added to the new years reading list!

👀

CONGRATS, Dustin!!
How did you get it open access? Historically, CCC hasn’t done that much OA publishing, tho I’m glad to see more OA options recently, which is good bc most non-US university libraries don’t subscribe to NCTE publications (I can’t even access my own CCCs article).

Daring, hopefully scholarship.

screenshot from the end of the article. Text reads "Finally, I find it imperative to amplify alternative visions of the world. I suspect many people who are actively standing against the pervasive climates of AI did not envision themselves doing this work. Benjamin, for example, expresses exasperation at being trapped within the imaginations of the artificial intelligentsia (“Who Owns the Future?”). Yet she reminds us that often we need to weed before we sow. Part of weathering the rhetorical climates of AI will entail lots of weeding: the need to talk about heavy things and attend to the here and now with a mētis sensibility, often squeezing the joy out of the room when GenAI is uncritically invoked or when it is impressed upon us as inevitable. This moment of AI oversaturation clouds our atmospheres with shiny distractions that are deadly serious in their consequences. Similar to Benjamin, I believe such distractions are designed to blot out a different kind of AI, an abolitionist imagination that demands the undoing of smothering conditions in order to envision something better. And so, the bigger, more joyful, more community-centered project remains: What can we imagine in the place of heavy clouds? That question, I believe, has long nourished the progress of plotting new dreams, technologies, and conditions of living otherwise. Weathering the rhetorical climates of AI will require weeding, yes, but it will also demand cultivating space for an imagination that lives beyond a climate that is suffocating for far too many."

The article is indebted to brilliant scholars such as @rcmeg.bsky.social, @nobugsnous.bsky.social, @jsanofranchini.bsky.social, & @ruha9.bsky.social who dare to ask us to imagine alternative, more hopeful versions of the world.

Stoked to read this piece. Just the kind of rhetorical criticism of AI that we need right now. And open access too!

I think this post nails the actual problem, for researchers at least—AI hallucinations would simply not be a problem in academic work if we’d not normalized citation-as-signaling rather than actual engagement—you can only cite a fake paper if you’re not in the habit of reading the papers you cite

"This promise of an AI future, is really just a collective anxiety that wealthy people have about how well they're gonna be able to control us in the future."

- @tressiemcphd.bsky.social with an absolute mic drop moment about AI bullshit.

Incredible words.
Listen to all of it!

It's not a glitch if it's doing what it was programmed to do

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 ...

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

This appears to be an equity issue, but it actually opens up speakers of marginalised languages to extractive practices that seek to siphon their culture and then sell it back to those users to benefit AI shareholders.

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 ...

Agreed. I have critiqued precisely this extractive practice for masquerading as “equity.” journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Remember, kids, if you’re a fan using Disney IP without authorization that’s a crime. But if you’re a predatory tech company, they will give you a billion dollars.

Just downloaded the first few episodes!

It’s that time of year: what was the piece of writing about AI that stuck with you the most this year, pop press or academic? A few of mine in the thread. ⬇️

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....