Dylan Paré, PhD (they/them)

RFK Jr cancels $500m in mRNA vaccine development in the US Since taking office, the vaccine sceptic has made a number of changes to how vaccines are regulated.

Nobel Prize winning science being cancelled by a vaccine denier.

It was funny in an, oh god, it's too real, kind of way. It was like the actors were playing out exaggerated caricatures of tech bros. Except then you read about real tech bros and it's truly not an exaggeration 😭

Strengthening collective labor rights can help reduce economic inequality A research team’s findings suggest that when workers are free to advocate for better wages and benefits for themselves, it also benefits society as a whole.

The richest 1% of Americans now have 5x more wealth than the bottom 50%.

Meanwhile, 59% of Americans can't cover a $1000 emergency expense.

Strengthening collective labor rights may reduce economic inequality, according to political scientists.

"What is most outstanding about frugal innovation is not just that its technologies are impressive, but that it might actually prompt systemic change by showing people that tech can be developed locally, and not just imported from Silicon Valley."

We got a visit from @seattletimes.com on Monday at KidsTeam. You can try Aayushi Dangol's AI Puzzlers for yourself!

@hcde.uw.edu @ischool.uw.edu @juliekientz.bsky.social @jasoncyip.bsky.social

Opinion | I Watched It Happen in Hungary. Now It’s Happening Here.

@ambpressman.bsky.social, former U.S. ambassador to Hungary, compares Viktor Orban's authoritarian tactics to those of Donald Trump. Powerful institutions and individuals in the U.S., like in Hungary, are yielding to authoritarian advances instead of defending democratic norms.

Harvard has officially closed its office for LGBTQ life. They folded it into the office of culture and community.

There are affinity support offices for veterans and religious students but not for LGBTQ students, students of color, or women.

Absolute cowards.

www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

I would love if you all would give me suggestions for papers about AI well suited for TikTok style explainers! Stuff that’s important or interesting or just good for more people to know about. (It’s ok if it’s your own paper!)

One of the best parts of this job is reading, teaching, and learning alongside of fabulous doctoral student colleagues. This open-access article, led by my fantastic advisee Kyle P. Smith, looks across two years of data generated in a class we co-taught at our previous institution.🧵 (1/3)

Screenshot of a news article from The Globe and Mail with the headline: "Judge halts deportation of non-binary American in landmark ruling after Trump’s gender edicts." The article is written by Marie Woolf and was published in Ottawa 4 hours ago, with an update 3 hours ago. The website navigation bar includes links to Home, For You, Canada, World, Business, Investing, and Personal Finance.

In a major precedent setting move, a Canadian federal judge blocked the deportation of a nonbinary US citizen because the Canadian immigration office failed to adequately assess the conditions for LGBTQ people since Trump took office.

archive.ph/Q722T

Teaching-Focused Postdoctoral Scholar in Education APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS: CURRENT PENN STATE EMPLOYEE (faculty, staff, technical service, or student), please login to Workday to complete the internal application process. Please do not apply here, a...

We are hiring Teaching-Focused Postdoctoral Scholars for our academic programs at Penn State: a) Lifelong Learning and Adult Education, b) Workforce Education and Development / Organizational Development and Change, and c) Learning, Design, and Technology. Apply by July 11. tinyurl.com/22cv7z9u

Thank you! I am very happy to coach potato as much as possible to get over this. I'm pretty sure it's nimbus. An ISLS clean air club sounds like a great plan.

The hidden labor that makes AI work Alex Hanna and Emily M. Bender examine the hype behind artificial intelligence in their new book, The AI Con. Below is an excerpt on the invisible labor behind some AI tools.

Call it clickwork, crowdwork, data labor, or ghost work - they are all poorly-paid, precarious and traumatic jobs that make AI possible. Read an excerpt from The AI Con by @alexhanna.bsky.social and @emilymbender.bsky.social on @restofworld.org .
restofworld.org/2025/the-ai-con-book-invisible-labor

I managed to avoid Covid all these years but it finally caught me. I've been sick for two weeks and still feel like crap. Thankfully got some prescription meds yesterday from the ER to manage breathing problems from the coughing/asthma. Glad I also had a booster vaccine a couple weeks before this. 🤧

I watched all the 2023 leg debates over trans healthcare 🤮

This short essay for @ejpgjournal.bsky.social shows how pseudoscience drives laws targeting trans kids for healthcare bans 1/6

s/o @payoub.bsky.social & @jennpiscopo.bsky.social

Read: bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journal...

“Transphobia is not f**cking feminist”

Kate Nash's powerful speech during her performance at Glastonbury.

Today, senator Ron Wyden will raise a point of order to remove the Medicaid and CHIP ban on gender affirming care. The Republicans need 60 votes to keep it in but they only have 53. Call your Dem senator today and urge them to vote to strip the ban from the bill. Senate switchboard 202-224-3121.

The recording of my event w/ @timnitgebru.bsky.social & @xriskology.bsky.social w/ @datasociety.bsky.social is now posted. Emile & I are planning a Fall event on how the conversation on AI, Big Tech, Eugenics & TESCREALism needs to include others beyond tech researchers. Stay tuned! lnkd.in/g9Q_gffq

Antagonism to transgender rights is tied to the authoritarian desire for social conformity – not just partisan affiliation Authoritarian attitudes – the desire for social conformity and an aversion to difference – play an important role in Americans’ willingness to restrict transgender rights.

The fight over transgender rights is not a sideshow in American politics, according to political scientists who have dived into public opinion. Instead, it is one of the first of many battles over diversity and difference that will determine the nation’s political future.

This Trans Couple Bought a House in the '90s. It Became a Home for Unhoused Youth Sylvia Rivera was living in Brooklyn's Transy House when she died in 2002.

as the government allows and enables discrimination against trans people, it's important to look at how trans people have looked out for each other in recent history.

@tsdav.bsky.social writes about Transy House, where for 13 years one couple sheltered unhoused trans people, including kids.

Fox News aired more than 400 weekday segments mentioning trans athletes over just four months

this report from media matters is fucking wild. fox news has aired 424 segments about trans athletes since feb 5.

the week democrats vetoed the GOP trans sports ban bill, they aired 59 segments.

www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox...

‘No way to invest in a career here’: US academics flee overseas to avoid Trump crackdown Budding scholars pursue overseas jobs amid attacks on education and research, prompting fears of an American brain drain

"‘No way to invest in a career here’: US academics flee overseas to avoid Trump crackdown" www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

Generative AI Has a Visual Plagiarism Problem Experiments with Midjourney and DALL-E 3 show a copyright minefield

I wanted to provide a thread here of some of the things I've been involved with in the fight against unethical generative AI for easy reference, starting with my work with @GaryMarcus.bsky.social. Our article shows irrefutable evidence of blatant plagiarism 🧵

spectrum.ieee.org/midjourney-c...

If you aren't seeing it, you're either not paying attention or you aren't *yet* an immediate target.

Workday Hit With Lawsuit Claiming Its AI Shuts Out Black, Disabled, Older Jobseekers A lawsuit alleges Workday's AI-powered hiring tools discriminate against Black, disabled, and older job seekers, automatically rejecting applications within minutes.

Here come the lawsuits.
Workday AI hiring lawsuit over disability and age discrimination. Uber pays out over its AI uses with racial bias in UK. Estée Lauder ex employee win after being sacked by algorithms. Disney and Universal sue midjourney.

One of many ...
www.ibtimes.co.uk/workday-hit-...

AI Ethics with Professor Casey AI Ethics with Professor Casey bit.ly/ai-ethics-syllabus For nearly five years, I've (Casey Fiesler aka Professor Casey) been creating social media content (largely on TikTok and Instagram) about art...

I've been working on something! It's not nearly done yet, but I thought no need to gatekeep the work in progress. This is an AI ethics "syllabus" based on a post-hoc curation of hundreds of short form videos I've made for social media, to make the content more accessible. bit.ly/ai-ethics-sy...

“What you are feeling is the disconnect between seeing that systems are failing, that things aren’t working … and yet the institutions and the people in power just are, like, ignoring it and pretending everything is going to go on the way that it has,”

As I've been saying over and over on our book tour for The AI Con, the inevitability argument (including in the form of "AI is here to stay") is an attempt to steal our agency. We don't have to accept that and I encourage everyone to refuse it.

I’ll add that Turing is sometimes referred to as a “godfather of AI” and that his deep interest in designing machines that could (seem to) think was deeply tied up with his first crush’s untimely death😢

There’s a reason every podcast I listened to for the past few months was advertising to college students that chatgpt was “free through finals season!” OpenAI knows most profs won’t fail a whole class… & just like that: new norm for students re: buying & using a bespoke automated plagiarism service.