Olivier Driessens

Are AI-generated summaries suitable for studying and research? Despite didactic, ethical, and environmental concerns, the use of GenAI is on the rise in academia. For most applications, the jury is still out on whether and how they will benefit education and rese...

Tired of AI hype posts? You might like my sober assessment of whether AI-generated summaries are suitable for studying and research. Spoiler alert, they are not.

The text is primarily aimed at students and researchers, but has much broader relevance. So share freely!: www.tue.nl/en/our-unive...

My university might be OK with it de-skilling students but I am certainly not going to let it de-skill me

“Rejecting or resisting a commercial technology designed to attempt a mass wealth transfer and to erode public institutions is a valid political position.”

Exclusive: US orders diplomats to fight data sovereignty initiatives President Donald Trump's administration has ordered U.S. diplomats to lobby against attempts to regulate U.S. tech companies' handling of foreigners' data, saying in an internal diplomatic cable seen ...

It's U.S. foreign policy that the whole world must serve up our data to the AI giants that are now an arm of the U.S. government.
www.reuters.com/sustainabili...

The launch of every piece of AI-driven surveillance/security/criminal justice software basically goes like this:

AI COMPANY: this is an error free, bias free, state of the art, highly intelligent software system

Two Weeks Later: …aaaand it’s racist

Tech CEOs Confused by Why Everybody Hates AI So Much With public sentiment on AI resoundly negative, the tech CEOs pushing the new tech only seem to be doubling down.

just spitballing but some of it might have something to do with 15 years of sociopathic behavior culminating in the enthusiastic embrace of violent fascism

Low Carbon Research Methods Current research norms are increasingly unsustainable for the planet and scholars alike. Dominant modes of research and research dissemination place a premiu...

Our book is published!!!

mitpress.mit.edu/978191598348...

There is supposed to be an open access version available, which does not seem to be actually available, and which I am doggedly pursing, but for now: hurrah! Print enjoyers, get your copies!

Anthropic was supposed to be the "good" one, right?

After 10 years and no evidence that it ever worked for crime prevention the Dutch police has decided to stop using their predictive policing system CAS!! amsterdam.raadsinformatie.nl/document/165...

Grammarly Revisited - Carleton College A close look at Grammarly's new AI tools

This (about the 'new' Grammarly AI toolset) is absolutely terrifying, not because the tool is good, but because it is an easy, all-in-one, way to avoid thinking any thoughts or doing any work at all *and 3000 universities say its OK to use*.
www.carleton.edu/ai/blog/gram...

OKAY BIG ONE FOR YA

NEW report out today: I dig deep into how big tech has been muddling tech types and overstating evidence to claim "AI" will make global emissions drop like a stone....

Not only will it not, it seems to be verifiably doing the opposite!!

ketanjoshi.co/2026/02/17/b... + 📼+🧵>

Congratulations on submitting! Sounds very interesting. Is your dissertation available for reading, please?

Palestine Action have WON their judicial review in the High Court!
A massive victory for free speech, freedom of association and the right to protest.
A massive defeat for the draconian attempts by Keir Starmer's government to curtail our fundamental rights.

Exclusive: OpenAI disbanded its mission alignment team Joshua Achiam will become the company's chief futurist

OpenAI has disbanded the team it formed in 2024 to advance the company's stated mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.

They’re speed running the rise and fall of Google’s reputation down to when they got rid of “Don’t be evil” as a company motto.

Post editorial board: EPA is right to reverse obama overreach.

Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post is now saying Trump is right to roll back climate science and pollution protections at the EPA.

The Real Cost of the UK’s ‘Free AI Training for All’ is Democracy Researchers argue the UK's 'AI Skills Hub' should be re-thought with input from civil society groups and public interest organizations.

The Real Cost of the UK’s ‘Free AI Training for All’ is Democracy

via @elinorcarmi.bsky.social and co. Thank you for writing this.

www.techpolicy.press/the-real-cos...

Google are *proactively* supporting ICE by voluntarily providing data without legal requirement to do so.

Look at this list: "Google also turned over Thomas-Johnson’s IP addresses, phone numbers, subscriber numbers and identities, and credit card and bank account numbers linked to his account." 🧵

The role of #GenAI in children’s development is ambivalent, and their opportunities (scaffolding learning) can easily turn into harmful consequences (deskilling and disempowerment). Read more here researchonline.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/13... #SaferInternetDay

7 Reasons Teens Say No to AI Some young people only turn to artificial-intelligence chatbots as a last resort, citing concerns about relationships, creativity, the environment and more.

As these teens describe, AI can diminish human relationships; devalue art; threaten the environment; lead to laziness; give unreliable results; pose privacy concerns; and be misused.

So, please, stop with the narratives of inevitability and let's embrace a pedagogy and politics of refusal.

Not just any journalist, she won the goddamn Triple Crown of broadcast journalism (an Emmy, a Peabody, and a Murrow) in 2024 for her reporting on Gaza.

This is textbook censorship of the highest degree

You mean the same Gemini being pushed into K-12 schools?

YouTube video by Andrew Perfors Part 1: How do LLMs work?

I just created a series of seven deep-dive videos about AI, which I've posted to youtube and now here. 😊

Targeted to laypeople, they explore how LLMs work, what they can do, and what impacts they have on learning, well-being, disinformation, the workplace, the economy, and the environment.

Greg Brockman, OpenAI's COO, donated $25m to a MAGA Superpac, spare me finance.yahoo.com/news/openai-...

Microsoft vows to cover full power costs for energy-hungry AI data centers Company responds to community concerns over electricity bills and water use.

It's a sign of the times that Big Tech has switched from greenwashing to datacentre-washing. In actual fact, the AI industry has revitalised fossil fuel and the imperialist credo that burning as much energy as possible is the route to worldly power. arstechnica.com/ai/2026/01/m...

This new paper by @hartzog.bsky.social and @jessicasilbey.bsky.social makes "one simple point: AI systems are built to function in ways that degrade and are likely to destroy our crucial civic institutions."

Grim but important reading:
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

“There is no more “state of the humanities” as such. There is no condition in which the humanities are under attack in which the whole university is not under attack..And there is no condition in which education is under attack in which civil society can remain unimperiled..We are all humanists now”

Artificiële intelligentie hoort niet thuis aan een universiteit ‘Verantwoord gebruik’ van AI aan een universiteit is ‘geen gebruik’.

“Een universiteit is geen plaats voor tijdswinst en efficiëntie, maar voor een uitdagend en moeizaam proces van intellectuele zelfontwikkeling.” apache.be/2026/01/09/a... @apache.be

Goede opinie! Dit geldt ook voor andere universiteiten. Ik zou hierbij willen toevoegen naast het pedagogische dat je momenteel geheel niet kan spreken van verantwoord gebruik door de negatieve impact van ontwikkeling genAI op milieu en sociale rechtvaardigheid. apache.be/2026/01/09/a...