wendy norris

if the AI 'bubble' pops today - ie major players see a major drop in share price - it won't make a jot of difference to the specific climate and environment impacts that are going on, or locked in for the next half-decade at least.

Oh, I don't believe GenAI is at all an answer to outdated/outmoded teaching. But it is a reason why students may be susceptible to using chatbots for assignments when the work is not tethered to concerns/skills/needs of this century (seriously) and the learning objectives are a mystery to students.

A contrarian take on a well-reported story:

• Don't blame students; this is on faculty

• Any shortcut (GenAI, CliffsNotes, etc.) disrupts learning & critical thinking

• GenAI is not the answer to outdated teaching

• Are we okay with our classrooms becoming part of a political surveillance state?

Data Center Watch has published a report claiming that $64 billion worth of American data center projects were ‘threatened’ because of grassroots opposition. Data Center Watch picture A map produced by Data Center Watch tracking opposition to data centers in America – Data Center Watch The organization is backed by 10a Labs, an intelligence company specializing in AI security. Led by Robert McKenzie, a former adjunct professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University, it provides “intelligence collection, investigative research, and analysis for AI unicorns, Fortune 10 companies, and US tech leaders.” The report claimed that $18bn worth of projects were ‘blocked’ and a further $46bn more were ‘delayed’ in the two years prior to March 2025. It primarily attributed this opposition to local concern, identifying several “common themes” of opposition, such as “higher utility bills, water consumption, noise, impact on property value, and green space preservation.” However, the report’s claims should be read with close attention to its definitions. For instance, ‘blocked’ projects include cases where a “company submits a new proposal with similar characteristics in a different but nearby location after withdrawing a previous project.” Two examples, which amount to $14.5bn out of the total $18bn, fit this criterion. The first is attributable to Tract, a company specializing in ‘master-planned’ data center parks, which withdrew a $14bn, 1,000-acre project located in Maricopa County, Arizona, in May 2024. Tract then announced in August of the same year that they had acquired a land parcel - double the size of the original project - within the same county for a data center park. Whether Tract had already intended to develop a second facility prior to the withdrawal of the first is unclear. Grant von Rooyen, Tract’s CEO, previously told DCD that the company “very rarely [goes] into a market with only one solution… [Tract] will ultimately have multiple s…

"10a labs", a 'security research' firm employed by the big AI companies has begun collecting information and attacking organised opposition to data centres, framing them as "NIMBYS" and wildly exaggerating claims.

www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/grou...

Still on the hunt for reading recs!

ISO books, scholarly articles, and research papers on ethics/moral philosophy that can be applied to AI and machine learning.

Bonus points for works embedded in normative, applied or metaethic traditions to get me into the topic a little faster.

Experience this piece for yourselves. Separately from the writing, I want to highlight two ways the creators make their processes transparent, something far too rare in news stories.

1) Explanation of data analysis, including how they used AI for topic analysis and for image analysis.

Today, I discovered a citation of my research that is not even in the same universe the authors' claim describes my work. I wholeheartedly endorse Shannon's thread of fire on the lazy asses using generative AI on their papers.

If I see you [redacted authors] around, I'm gonna kick your asses.

Moziila didn’t have the ressource to keep a "subscribe to RSS" button in Firefox but has the manpower to build a full IA inside your browser.

And that’s all you need to know about the end of the web and the IA bubble.

The Great AI Bubble Yes, it's a bubble. And yes, it's going to burst.

NEW: Welcome to the Great AI Bubble. Yes, it’s here. And yes, it’s going to burst.

It’s also got way more in common with the Epstein scandal than you really want to know.

open.substack.com/pub/broligar...

Microsoft touting the results at "Brisbane Catholic Education, participating educators saved over 9 hours per week in administrative and planning tasks ..."

Teachers saved ** 25% of their entire work week ** with AI slop? What!? Were they chiseling lesson plans in granite?

Can I quietly ask we stop talking about what "AI" *could* do in education and identify instead what's actually happening with AI in education? I'll start...

this goes right along with my theory that the AI obsession in *users* is often bc…

1. they were never educated (esp "ipad generation") & don't know how computers work

2. our tools and services are all SO AWFUL NOW, degraded at best, actively user-hostile at worst

Tucker needs to keep Studs Terkel's name out of his mouth.

Out of whack sociotechnical systems make temporal sensemaking harder because people use wonderfully rich understandings of time (natural, social, technical) to make decisions and coordinate their activities.

For the blissfully uninitiated ...

sociotechnical representations of time: how computers reflect time (as date/timestamps) that is at odds with the surprisingly diverse ways that people think/talk about and assign meaning to time (diurnal cycles, cultural periods, daily routines, work, etc).

As someone who melted a significant portion of my brain writing about sociotechnical representations of time and temporal sensemaking in my dissertation, this is amazing.

Beautiful, lush photos of sheep. The real treat is the alt-text.

#AltCaturday

As one Massachusetts school administrator recently said; this moment with AI is remarkably like the moment when we were introduced to asbestos. Yes, it had some remarkably promising characteristics – fireproofing! – and had some real utility in science, research, and industrial applications. But a profit-driven industry bullied us into inserting it everywhere; into our homes and schools and public spaces, before we really understood the risks. This resulted in decades, if not centuries, of illness, injuries, deaths, and the astronomical financial burden of trying to remove the stuff. As you, the leaders and policymakers in our schools, craft an AI policy for our district, we the undersigned call on you to: 1. Ban AI tools into the classroom, protect our students and teachers from de-skilling and allow them the space and time to engage in assignments themselves. 2. Resist any direct financial relationship or contracts with AI providers, as well as the “training” they might offer. 3. Provide a digital literacy curriculum to help students navigate the current digital landscape, and promote critical engagement with technology. 4. Guarantee that anywhere generative AI has already entered our classrooms or curriculum, an opt-out will allow students and teachers to refuse the use of these products at no risk to their grades, progress or employment.

Love to see community action against this AI nonsense! neighborhoodview.org/2025/11/13/d...

The headline is eye-catching like headlines usually are. Read this. The chatbot outputs to kids' questions and interactions is far, far worse than what the headline suggests.

AI peer reviewers are fine with AI-fabricated papers Study finds artificial intelligence reviewers accept AI-generated scientific studies 4 out of 5 times

No surprise: “AI peer reviewers recommend the acceptance of unsound papers created entirely by AI more than 80% of the time, a new study has found.”

Surprise: the article still tries to spin it positive for “human-AI collaboration.”

People, please draw the correct conclusion.

Bonnie Nardi, a giant in Human-Computer Interaction research, also penned this amazing book.

library.oapen.org/handle/20.50...

Fellow nerds! Help me build a reading list for my winter break!

Seeking recs on books, scholarly articles, and research papers on ethics/moral philosophy that can be applied to AI and machine learning.

Bonus points for works embedded in normative, applied or metaethic traditions.

[Scene is a kitchen - a middle aged woman called JANET is boiling peas at the stove. A younger more colourfully dressed woman named LIZ approached her.] JANET: Ugh... LIZ: What's up? JANET: I am so bored of cooking peas! LIZ: Have you tried... AI peas? JANET: AI peas? LIZ: They're peas with AI! [Liz holds up to us a packet of peas labelled: Pea-i AI - Peas with AI]. LIZ: Al-powered peas harness the potential of your peas JANET: What LIZ [Now a voiceover as we cut to a whizzy technology diagram of peas all connected by meaningless dotted lines] Why not take your peas to the next level with Al Peas' new Al tools to power your peas? [Show a techno diagram of a pea with a label reading 'AI' pointing to a random zone in it] LIZ: Each pea has Al in a way we haven't quite worked out yet but it's fine [Show Janet and Liz now in a Matrix-style world of peas] LIZ: With Al peas you can supercharge productivity and make AI work for your peas! JANET: What LIZ: Shut up LIZ: Our game-changing Pea-Al gives you the freedom to unlock the potential of the power of the future of your peas workflow From opening the bag of peas to boiling the peas to eating the peas To spending millions on adding Al to the peas and then having to work out what that even means. JANET: Is it really necessary to- LIZ [Grabbing Janet by the collar]: THE PEAS HAVE GOT AI, JANET [Cut to an advert ending screen, with the bag of peas and the slogan: AI PEAS: Just 'Peas' for god's sake buy the AI peas. [Ends]

Every ad now

Whiskey's for drinkin'. Water's for fightin'.

I swear in my next life I'm going to become a water lawyer.

Who's up for a short thread demonstrating just how wrong this claim is by Mistral's CEO, using research by @rtommccoy.bsky.social (an co-authors) regarding crossword puzzles? Just me? Well whatever, let's dive into a mini-exploration of the Embers of Autoregression and why they singe...

New NY State law on "AI Companions"

👀

www.governor.ny.gov/news/governo...

A question for the sellout Senators:

Employer-based open enrollment ends in mid-November. Do I:

• eat an unplanned 20% increase in my current plan
• buy a high deductible catastrophic plan and hope for the best

I have to make a decision in 10 days. How does your mythical Dec vote help us?

/Joyce Carol Oates leaves the chat

Don't discount the DC Galaxy Brain effect of senior advisors in Senators' offices too. For Durbin and many of those long in the tooth, they sit on powerful committees which is a plum for staffers' resumes. They form a perfect circle of dumbness and self-interest.