Oatmeal Enthusiast

Robin Williams' daughter has some quality thoughts on AI slop

It is an absolute disaster, and yet higher ed admin insists we need to find ways to integrate it more into our teaching and homework

Ah yes, her famously contrarian positions that happen to align with people in power, billionaires, right-wingers, and maintaining the status quo

“Today, we’re not just grieving Shawn — we’re … “

Yeah exactly, and until she started seeing the connection between it all and criticizing capitalism, imperialism, racism, Zionism, etc.

What is a reactionary centrist, and does the UK have them? A term favoured by US progressives can help us understand Britain’s drift to the right

"In 2012, 60 trans-related articles were published by Britain’s media. By 2022, it was more than 7,500, according to figures from Trans Media Watch. The media is not responding to public rage against vulnerable minorities; it is helping to create it." www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/709...

If you make and show me a Sora 2 video I want you to know I think of you as infinitely less important than a worm, whose movements and excrement nuture the soil, whereas a Sora 2 user is a creature that asks robots to despoil the world out of boredom.

#151. AI "Friends" and You Hi everyone, It's been a huge week for me, not because anything exceptional happened, but because I tested negative for covid and rejoined the general public. I was so happy to be in the same room wi...

In his wonderful newsletter, @joshgondelman.bsky.social wrote something about AI that is going to rattle around in my head forever:

“AI cannot take a happy person and make them happier, but it can take a lonely person and turn them delusional.“ www.thatsmarvelousnewsletter.com/151-ai-frien...

Sad to be out of town for this, but as a member of Michael & Us Nation for many years, I’m hoping for a NYC live show someday!

...I mean that even with careful prompts I would not be confident LLMs could perform the function I'd want. How do I know that any bland AI summary of a paper is going to extract what might be of value to *me* in it? I don't even know that myself before I read it...

And as for writing, don't get me started. Most often, the process of writing is not a laborious business of transcription, but a process of thinking itself. I'm not about to outsource my thinking to a machine.

Yeah and it’s also a weird thing for this particular guy to say since he’s made a name for himself as a trivia guy, ie, he should literally always know this info

Yeah and from an education perspective, this is definitely something that students need practice doing on their own. Summarizing and getting the gist of documents is a skill

i have to say, as a trans journalist who has covered the "trans debate" for about a decade now, there is no daylight between how the trump administration and conservatives lie about tylenol and autism and how they've lied about youth trans care.

America’s top companies keep talking about AI — but can’t explain the upsides FT analysis of hundreds of filings suggest the S&P 500 businesses are clearer about the risks than benefits

“The biggest US-listed companies keep talking about artificial intelligence. But other than the ‘fear of missing out,’ few appear to be able to describe how the technology is changing their businesses for the better.”

This is literally just marketing. You are helping Meta market its products.

Yes, excellent point. The most durable lessons may not feel great in the moment of learning, but that friction is necessary. For me, it relates to how education has taken on a transactional structure. If the transaction is satisfied more quickly, that's better. Students get a lot of signals that way

I just don't understand how people know what to teach if they aren't regularly and thoughtfully reading their students' writing. Feedback is not just for the student.

Exactly. This is my problem with people who put the burden on teachers to just, idk, teach more interesting things that students won’t want to use an LLM on. Learning is hard! It’s uncomfortable! That’s part of the whole point and it’s how learning happens.

Omg dude get a life

Remember: there's no audience for AI-produced content. Nobody in the AI ecosystem is there to read or listen - only to publish their own slop.

Despite Massive Cuts to Higher Ed, We Faculty Are Thrilled about Our New Multi-Million-Dollar Football Coach Dear Board of Trustees, As professors at this large state university, we want to thank you for your recent investment in athletics. We admit, when ...

"We are grateful that, through this mega-contract with a coach, the university is publicly recognizing what we’ve known for years: Our mission is not to prepare America’s youth for successful careers; it’s to make money on football."

Me: Can I have one of those blue milkshakes that symbolizes Grimace’s blood?

McDonalds Cashier: (offended) We believe every beverage symbolizes Grimace’s blood

It’s giving Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze in Ghost but… smoothies

Silicon Valley does not “want to build stuff.” Silicon Valley is supremely lazy, its innovations as of late are just disruption aka breaking the law and getting away with it because of corruption, plagiarism robots that tell kids to kill themselves, and outsourcing manufacturing.

I spot tan shoes with a blue suit ❌

The problem is that the actual economic significance of LLMs is very small - $40bn this year? - compared to the economic activity required to sustain it ($400bn+ capex/vc). Will every government fund every data center buildout? What about their capex? Or will the illusion break?

We're clear-eyed: Every AI company and investor has massive incentive to hype the most glorious AI case. So the technology might never live up to its promise. But this would require every CEO of America's seven biggest companies to be collectively delusional about where they're spending trillions in combined capital.

wow is it possible for seven people to all be wrong about something?

www.axios.com/2025/09/02/a...

Humans are being hired to make AI slop look less sloppy In the age of automation, human workers are being brought in to fix what artificial intelligence gets wrong.

The AI boom has created a new type of work: fixing botched AI. Designers are being hired to remake wonky AI art. Writers are asked to make ChatGPT’s writing sound more human. Even software developers are tasked with fixing buggy vibe coding.
www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-ne...

At a time when unprecedented political and financial constraints make it tough to enact proven systemic reforms, district officials are also betting that AI can take some pressure off administrators and teachers facing high burnout and attrition by helping them with tasks such as emailing parents and generating lesson plans. And they hope it can address declining US test scores and student engagement by customizing teaching material for each student’s needs and interests. Evidence is mixed on whether AI can help accomplish either goal, but in the meantime the financial math has been persuasive: Bringing AI into schools might cost a typical district from nothing to several million dollars a year, depending on the district’s size and the products used, compared with a much higher price tag for structural changes such as hiring more teachers.

We have no idea if it’s effective, but we do know it doesn’t cost as much as the things that are actually effective.