Critical AI https://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-ai/issue

None of us has yet fully read this; but it looks to be an important preprint from @olivia.science + @irisvanrooij.bsky.social

Critical AI literacies means standing back from "AI first" stances that outsource critical activities to opaque systems, flattening and anthropomorphizing H-C relations.

OpenAI Is Just Another Boring, Desperate AI Startup What is OpenAI? I realize you might say "a foundation model lab" or "the company that runs ChatGPT," but that doesn't really give the full picture of everything it’s promised, or claimed, or leaked t...

10K Word Premium: OpenAI is another unprofitable, desperate AI startup building products on its own models, spending $2.60 to make $1. Sora 2 is a reckless attempt to grow ChatGPT that costs them at least $5 per generated video. They need to raise $20bn+ before EoY.
www.wheresyoured.at/sora2-openai/

»Reports of awe and wonder over mind-boggling feats of computation compound and a generation is beckoned to prostrate before the altars of “frictionless knowledge.”«

CAI SPECIAL SERIES CFP: FEEL THE AGI! GEN AI AND/AS RELIGION Special Topic Series in Critical AIFeel the AGI! On (Generative) AI and/as ReligionSeries Editor John Modern (Franklin & Marshall College) The language of religion courses through the AI hype m…

NEW CRITICAL AI SERIES CLUSTER, "Gen AI and/as Religion" - edited by @johnmodern.bsky.social
criticalai.org/2025/10/01/c...
Please share widely!

I cannot express how wild this quote is. This is a top tech analyst at a well-regarded firm saying that there is not enough capital to actually pay for all the stuff that NVIDIA and OpenAI has promised. It is so important that everybody realizes that *there is not enough money to do this*

Scandal-Plagued Oklahoma Schools Chief Ryan Walters Steps Down to Lead Anti-Teachers Union Group This story first appeared at The 74, a nonprofit news site covering...

Oklahoma Schools Chief Ryan Walters made news almost daily for controversial actions threatening to take over the Tulsa schools and mandating Trump-endorsed classroom Bibles. He's leaving his post to run an anti-teachers union think tank.
talkingpointsmemo.com/news/scandal...

Compare to driving: you don't learn it immediately and, for many, you get better w/ time and experience. You might add a new skill late in life (parallel parking a a dense city).

But if you're handed the keys and switch on the autopilot button you likely won't ever learn any of these things.

The question is not wholly to do with quality but with the process. The mantra in teaching of writing (with which I agree) is process not product.

Not every student who takes an intro course will achieve these things overnight, ofc. But they won't even try if they outsource to automation. /a

I think "cognitive debt" is an aspect of the decline in self-realization.
Lack of attention span is huge, amplifying weak reading skills, lack of ability to evaluate evidence or use it effectively (w/ attribution) to support one's own claims, declining interest in or ability to research robustly

If thinking for yourself and cultivating the ability to express your own ideas in writing is an "obsolete skill" then heaven help us.

Although you didn't mean it this way, comparisons to calculators are flawed b/c we STILL teach students the basics of arithmetic.

For evidence that this is the actual end game--go no further than the @nytimes.com where Natasha Singer, @tressiemcphd.bsky.social and Jessica Grose are publishing strong work from teacher and parent perspectives. /end

Finally the essay ignores evidence that industry WANTS students addicted to bots; wants to monetize the ELIZA effect. They don't care about cognitive debt!

Maybe reach out to other tech reporters outside the narrow channel of bothsidesing edtech

@bcmerchant.bsky.social or @karenhao.bsky.social /8

As for the below, the logic of the last sentence seems a lot like the bromides against gun control.

Yes, people COULD use chatbots in ideal ways, just like they COULD use social media w/o becoming addicted or harmed.

/7

Suggestions:

Can we drop the guise of "panic" which is a way of talking down to readers.

Can we drop tendentious language like "brain rot."

/6

What exactly does that mean: Que sera sera?

Look: active learning really is a thing; and not just in the lab.

Moreover, the implication that the "cognitive debt" documented by Kosmyna and colleagues will lessen as "people adapt" is McMurtrie's own theory (no evidence).

/5

McMurtrie provides good quotations from experts, but her own conclusions are weak.

Kosmyna et al's evidence that bot-users remembered less about their writing months later, is followed this gem:
"But life is not a laboratory. Learning is a multifaceted process. People adapt to technology." /4

Um, no, there is no evidence of "panic" over "brain rot" obscuring complexity.

What there is in this article is a false opposition between "panic" and "complexity" which tries to tie up complexity in a bow. /3

Yes: learning IS complex; also the Python study wasn't proffered in DIRECT contrast to the Kosmyna's on writing.

That said, as so often in ed tech reporting, McMurtrie's article leans toward, "It's complicated" (which it is) under cover of a non-existent strawman ("panic" over "brain rot"). /2

Chronicle author @bethmcmurtrie.bsky.social discussed @nataliyakosmyna.bsky.social's study of "cognitive debt" re essay-writing with ChatGPT. McMurtrie then writes:

Some highlights:

read.dukeupress.edu/critical-ai/... In her intro column to CAI 3.1, editor Lauren Goodlad talks about teaching critical AI literacies including new DESIGN JUSTICE LABS web resources, and using of COMPARATIVISM as a creative counter to "AI first" approaches to education.

YouTube video by More Perfect Union The Lie So Dangerous Tesla Engineers Are Quitting

ELON SCAM

Elon's self-drive claim is untrue and he knows it. Even his promo vid was rigged.

#USDemocracy

youtu.be/6ltU9q1pKKM?...

Ricky D’Andrea Crano on Inside Higher Ed Ep. 171: “When Students’ Use of AI Goes from Hush-Hush to All In”​ UCI critical media theorist Dr. Ricky Crano catches Inside Higher Ed in the act of ethics washing and genuflection to ed tech.

Ricky D. Crano's mordant wit is at its most biting in our latest Wall of Shame entry: an outing of @insidehighered.com's use of its podcast for what sounds like an infomercial. criticalai.org/2025/09/15/r...

We're especially excited to share, from our #ReadingList, some critical formulations for computer-assisted writing. From @criticalai-journal.bsky.social and Dispersed Holdings @salrandolph.bsky.social, Kyle Booten's concept of Word Gyms is of definite interest to us here at re•mediate!

The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city.

This is not a joke. This is not normal.

Donald Trump isn't a strongman, he's a scared man. Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.

Anthropic Agrees to Pay $1.5 Billion to Settle Lawsuit With Book Authors

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/t...

Awesome! One of Critical AI's reviews editors is at Auburn btw.

We appreciate the plug!
Fwiw, we tend to prefer "AI technologies in the public interest" to "human-centered" AI.
Both are abstractions: but sometimes a "human-centered" approach overlooks (e.g.) the importance of the environment, the needs other living creatures.
All that said TYVM!