Hollis Robbins

Who is Ladling the Chum? My response to the "feminization" debate

This is my response to the "feminization" nonsense. hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/who-is-lad...

Who is Ladling the Chum? My response to the "feminization" debate

This is my response to the "feminization" nonsense. hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/who-is-lad...

How to Tell if Something is AI-Written It is easy for me, with aphantasia

Just in time for back to school! hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/how-to-tel...

Dan Wang's "Breakneck" (review) This review of Dan Wang’s extraordinary Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future (W.W.

I began to notice that when the trauma of the one child policy came up in interviews it was Dan who made sure to talk about forced abortions, not the (usually male) interviewer. open.substack.com/pub/hollisro...

The Two-Minute Mile Problem Is higher ed ready for acceleration?

As AI and new pedagogy is increasing the velocity of student learning, what will this mean for higher ed? Will these racing-through students want a degree in two years? hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/the-two-mi...

The Faculty are Riding Horses What the Nobel Prize Winners Might Say About That

I spoke at a leadership conference about AI adoption in higher ed and said, sternly, if your faculty are behind and recalcitrant, perhaps it is your fault! Leadership needs to make it easy for faculty to adopt AI.
hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/the-facult...

How to Get to Mars A Short Story

How to Get to Mars (a short story) sciencefictiontalk.substack.com/p/how-to-get...

So interesting!!

Some basic AI lessons here for slow adopters. An AI model can’t process a sentence as a continuous flow of meaning. It breaks language down into discrete, countable units (called tokens), which it can analyze mathematically.

Token-Relief Notes on depth

It is tokens all the way down. open.substack.com/pub/hollisro...

The Faculty are Riding Horses What the Nobel Prize Winners Might Say About That

I spoke at a leadership conference about AI adoption in higher ed and said, sternly, if your faculty are behind and recalcitrant, perhaps it is your fault! Leadership needs to make it easy for faculty to adopt AI.
hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/the-facult...

Reading Without Pictures Aphantasia and literacy in the AI era

How childhood literacy education that insists on "visualization" doesn't work. hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/decoding-w...

The Two-Minute Mile Problem Is higher ed ready for acceleration?

As AI and new pedagogy is increasing the velocity of student learning, what will this mean for higher ed? Will these racing-through students want a degree in two years? hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/the-two-mi...

Notes on Spite (With apologies to Susan Sontag)

Spite is one of those things AI will never understand.
hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/notes-on-s...

Rawls & Rationality in the 1970s Pynchon ripping the veil

If you were to design society from scratch, behind the veil of ignorance, would you choose to have social media? If you didn’t know whether you’d be an influencer with 10 million followers, or someone whose mental health is destroyed? hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/rawls-and-...

Rawls & Rationality in the 1970s Pynchon ripping the veil

If you were to design society from scratch, behind the veil of ignorance, would you choose to have social media? If you didn’t know whether you’d be an influencer with 10 million followers, or someone whose mental health is destroyed? hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/rawls-and-...

The Academy Now On Lorde and the wolf

I am making a case for building and defending universities in a world that is requiring a defensive and forward-thinking posture. There are many wolves at the doors of academia, Academics need to be building brick houses, not dismantling them. hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/the-academ...

The Academy Now On Lorde and the wolf

AI is a logic machine that recognizes the logic of power. AI is not itself the master, but a tool for mastering reality, if one uses it for that rather than for aphoristic pleasure. hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/the-academ...

A close-up of a college student using an AI app on her smartphone in a semi-darkened room.

Opinion | About That FIRE Study

The methodology for measuring campus free speech ignores the changing ways students are engaging with controversial ideas—privately, and with the aid of AI, Hollis Robbins writes. https://bit.ly/4nuPRcH

“Students’ reluctance to perform controversial viewpoints in public settings may reflect a paradigm shift that meaningful engagement with controversial ideas requires privacy and reflection. AI may deliver all this far more fruitfully than the performative classroom discussions that FIRE champions”

About FIRE’s Free Speech Rankings (opinion) The methodology for measuring campus free speech ignores the changing ways students are engaging with controversial ideas—privately, and with the aid of AI, Hollis Robbins writes.

Why on earth should most students go hear "speakers" these days when controversial ideas can be discussed safely from the privacy of the dorm room, with their AI chatbot. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...

The Canary in the Classroom A new Stanford AI study exposes the growing gap between education and employment

If your experience and learning is largely online, you are going to have a harder time being hired as a person by a person. hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/the-canary...

When I hear “viewpoint diversity,” I think Diogenes the Cynic Why he should be invited to the table but won't be

For those skeptical of the "viewpoint diversity" conversation... hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/when-i-hea...

Autonomy v. Strangers on a Train Notes on public transportation, social fabric, and culture

What does our new Abundance future bode for public transportation? Isolation or togetherness? hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/autonomy-v...

When I hear “viewpoint diversity,” I think Diogenes the Cynic Why he should be invited to the table but won't be

For those skeptical of the "viewpoint diversity" conversation... hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/when-i-hea...

The Canary in the Classroom A new Stanford AI study exposes the growing gap between education and employment

If your experience and learning is largely online, you are going to have a harder time being hired as a person by a person. hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/the-canary...

Is embracing AI intellectual or anti-intellectual ? Where does belonging belong?

When you have walk-in advising, you don’t notice the loss of faculty mentors. When you have affinity groups, you don’t notice that all of your courses and assignments are beginning to look the same. hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/is-embraci...

The Claude Test AI seeks a degree (or, the ghost in the machine)

Claude can ace any online asynchronous course where there is minimum human interaction. This is the Claude test: if Claude can pass it easily, so can students, using Claude. hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/the-claude...

Vision Without Seeing (Part II) and, did Ronald Reagan have aphantasia?

In which I continue my review of Adam Zeman’s book and ask: did Ronald Reagan have aphantasia? open.substack.com/pub/hollisro...

Vision Without Seeing (Part II) and, did Ronald Reagan have aphantasia?

In which I continue my review of Adam Zeman’s book and ask: did Ronald Reagan have aphantasia? open.substack.com/pub/hollisro...