Sabine LeBel

The professor has been fired and senior administrators removed from their post. No mention of this in the New York Times, The Free Press, The Atlantic or other outlets who drove the campus speech moral panic.

Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece, we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to relevant work to further inform our colleagues.

Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI (black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf. Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al. 2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA).

Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe.

Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n

Getting off US tech: a guide I’m in the process of dropping US tech services. Here’s how I did it, and options you should consider.

Silicon Valley’s alliance with Donald Trump was a mask off moment and showed the world we can’t depend on US tech companies.

For the past few months, I’ve been trying to get off US tech and I put together a guide so you find alternatives too. I hope you find it helpful!

Authors celebrate “historic” settlement coming soon in Anthropic class action Advocates fear such settlements will “financially ruin” the AI industry.

AI advocates have warned that if every author in the class action filed a claim, it would "financially ruin" the entire industry.

The Davis Cup has scheduled Team Canada to play Team Israel on September 12-13, 2025 in Halifax. Join the call for No Sports Washing of Genocide, War Crimes & Apartheid: No Team Israel at the Davis Cup - they are not welcome in Kjipuktuk! !! Send a letter buff.ly/QgtJ7qY

"Graphic with 'Anthropic' logo on left, circuit-like design. Right text reads: 'Authors: You May Be Part of This Class Action Lawsuit. Anthropic AI Lawsuit Explained.' Modern, tech-themed design."

A federal court ruled that ANTHROPIC illegally copied MILLIONS of books to train its AI.

All authors and publishers whose books were downloaded by Anthropic from pirate websites are subject to receiving compensation. This could involve your work.

For more info: authorsguild.org/news/anthrop...

"Capsize the Rich": Orca Memes and Anti-Capitalist Interspecies Solidarity Orca memes humorously depict anti-capitalist, interspecies solidarity, framing yacht attacks as environmental resistance, blending cultural narratives, activism, and ecological critique.

Today we have "'Capsize the Rich': Orca Memes and Anti-Capitalist Interspecies Solidarity" by @sabinelebel.bsky.social

This is the 3rd post of the Finding Humour in the Environmental History of the Climate Crisis series edited by @nulybranch.bsky.social

niche-canada.org/2025/08/13/c...

#envhum

www.tandfonline.com/toc/wjls20/2...

The earth is a Badass Butch Dyke in Menopause. Check out the piece Beth and I wrote, it really fun and sexy.

Kim Dubé, a criminology professor at l’Université de Moncton, said the City of Moncton made the right call by cancelling the performance, noting that hate crimes have risen over the past five years. Full interview:

Call Parks Canada today. They're keeping track of how many calls they're getting about the hate rally in HRM they gave a permit to during Pride week

Canadian universities too should be in Francesca Albanese’s report Canadian university administrators should remember that they too can be held accountable for genocide complicity.

Francesca Albanese's most recent report has profound implications for higher ed.

None is more serious than this: administrators are *personally accountable* under international law for complicity in genocide for institutional entanglements w/ Israel and military-industrial companies.

We explain:

Two Palestinian journalists were killed in Israeli airstrikes today, bringing the number of media workers killed since the war on Gaza began to over 230.

🔴 LIVE updates: aje.io/nr2igp

NO. AI. FOR. WAR. CRIMES!!!

Tell Minister Diab to Issue Study Permits for Students at Risk Please sign this letter urging Minister Diab to take action on delayed student study permits! Students in Gaza do not have the luxury of time. Two incoming PhD students at the University of Waterloo w...

If you are a faculty member, researcher, postdoc, or staff at a university in Canada, please sign this letter demanding Canada issue study permit to Gaza students to be delivered to the Minister of Immigration by tomorrow afternoon.

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Canadian Manuel Tapial, who is leading a delegation of the March to Gaza, is still missing after being dragged away by Egyptian police.

Latest update from @yipengge.bsky.social:

“Manuel Tapial’s whereabouts are currently unknown. It’s been almost 24 hours since he’s been detained.”

Carney’s border bill is a gift to Trump—and a roadmap to ‘mass deportation’ ⋆ The Breach Mark Carney promised to stand up to Trump. His new bill continues the two countries’ long-standing pact on restrictive immigration policies

Mark Carney: The relationship of security cooperation with the U.S. is over

also Carney: I can't stay mad at you bb let's work this out

my latest for @breachmedia.ca on Canada-U.S. cooperation to stifle refugee claims

breachmedia.ca/carneys-bord...

Canadian activist Manuel & his wife were detained in #Egypt while joining a peaceful convoy to Gaza. Demand Canada act NOW! @markcarneyforpm.bsky.social
#FreeManuel #GazaSolidarity
Please repost and mention your MP and the PM
@ijvnbvji.bsky.social @ijvcanada.bsky.social

CJPME is urging Prime Minister Mark Carney to forcefully condemn Israel’s unprovoked attack on Iran. Canada’s unwillingness to confront Israeli aggression gravely undermines the safety of everyone in the region. www.cjpme.org/pr_2025_06_1...

Israel has launched a massive attack on Iran. Please take a minute to email Prime Minister Mark Carney to demand he immediately condemn the rogue supremacist state’s monstrous attack.
buff.ly/JAh3xt2

What Tear Gas and Rubber Bullets Do to the Human Body So-called “less-lethal” weapons like those that have been used against demonstrators in Los Angeles can cause severe, lasting harm like nerve or brain damage or blindness. They can also kill.

So-called “less-lethal” weapons like those that have been used against demonstrators in Los Angeles can cause severe, lasting harm like nerve or brain damage or blindness. They can also kill. www.wired.com/story/what-t...

ICYMI: A UNB professor plans to travel to Egypt next month, where he will join an international march to the border of the besieged and bombarded Gaza Strip.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPwT...

New Brunswick prof travelling to Egypt–Gaza border to call for end of blockade [video] A University of New Brunswick professor plans to travel to Egypt next month, where he will join an international march

New Brunswick prof travelling to Egypt–Gaza border to call for end of blockade

@nbmediacoop.bsky.social

nbmediacoop.org/2025/05/28/n...

Fredericton Palestine Solidarity and Soul of Falasteen present the 2025 Academy Award winning documentary -

No Other Land
by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham & Rachel Szor

Wednesday, May 7 at 5:30 PM
Gallery on Queen, 406 Queen St., Fredericton

Sweet 🌱💚

PROTECT OUR DEMOCRACY FROM ELON MUSK Canada’s Election Is at Risk - Here’s How You Can Help

Are you worried about Elon Musk using the X platform to interfere in our election?
I need you to contact Elections Canada to keep the pressure on.
All the information you need is in my latest piece for Substack. Contact info at the bottom:
substack.com/home/post/p-...

Picture of Fredericton, NB City Hall with text announcing a rally at city Hall on Feb 8 from 1 to 2:30pm "calling for an end to Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine." Additional slogan reads "Public declaration of being sick of this shit"

This is hilarious to me. Not much of a ball connoisseur but isn’t wrinkly just how they are 🤣