Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they) @katjathieme.bsky.social · 9m

Exactly.

Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)

Luke LeBrun @lukelebrun.ca · 22m

As I was posting this, Discord was dealing with hackers getting access to users’ personal info uploaded as part of the UK’s age verification law

MPs and Senators are getting ready to put Canadian users of porn websites in the same position – what could possibly go wrong!

bsky.app/profile/404m...

Luke LeBrun @lukelebrun.ca · 2h

I wrote about this a few years ago

Bizarrely, this legislation is supported by the @ndp.ca despite warnings from Canada's privacy commissioner, legal experts and sex work advocates

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Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they) @katjathieme.bsky.social · 18m

I see you are refraining from public commenting . . . 😉

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Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)

Stanislav Vysotsky @professorstas.bsky.social · 15h

Excellent statement in support of Mark Bray, academic freedom, and implicitly antifascism.

RutgersAAUP-AFT @ruaaup-aft.bsky.social · 20h

This week, our colleague Dr. Mark Bray came under attack by Turning Point USA’s Rutgers chapter for his public scholarship. Rutgers AAUP-AFT and the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union condemn this campaign and stand in solidarity with our colleagues. Read our full statement here: https://loom.ly/BDXasRY

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Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)

aaron from queens from twitter @aaronnarraph.bsky.social · 2h

the background on zohran's colbert appearance is jaw-droppingly disgusting

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Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 1h

"My children, I beseech you, do not pivot to video"

Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 1h

Everyone's a media critic now www.rappler.com/world/global...

Pope Leo urges news outlets not to 'sell out' for click-bait

On the use of artificial intelligence tools, Pope Leo asks reporters to fight against 'junk' information and to help people recognize fact from fiction

www.rappler.com

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Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)

Emissary Of Night | ليلى @diplomatofnight.com · 1h

“The alleged underground Hamas command center at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, used to justify an unprecedented assault on the biggest medical center in Gaza, was actually an animation the IDF had used the previous year, saying at the time it was a tunnel beneath a UN school.”

Jack Sapoch @jacksapoch.bsky.social · 1d

NEW: Since October 2023, the IDF Spokesperson's Unit has released dozens of 3D animations illustrating alleged Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iranian sites

The style is now unmistakable: satellite zoom-ins, black & white wireframes, and red-textured houses - a new visual language of war

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Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they) @katjathieme.bsky.social · 1h

Or, whenever so very soon will LLMs solve basic contradictions for us? Bring about this bright future. It is almost here.

RikiGPT @rikigpt.bsky.social
"Education will be able to adapt to Al far more effectively than other industries, and in ways that will improve learning... change is coming to the classroom"
Ethan Mollick, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania (Forbes, Feb 14, 2024)

10bmnews@10bmnews.bsky.social
Truth about Al, jobs and the future? 'No one knows anything,' says Wharton expert Ethan Mollick
Ethan Mollick is considered one of the leading experts on the emerging world of generative Al, jobs and the economy, but you might not think so if you take his word for it.

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Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they) @katjathieme.bsky.social · 1h

Techno fix optimism will never die, I suppose.

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Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they) @katjathieme.bsky.social · 1h

Sounds wild to suggest: (1) because scientific publishing is inflationary due to existing incentive structures and technological affordances & (2) given this inflation slows real advancement of scientific understanding which is (3) an unsolved problem that => (4) genAI is going to be the solution.

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Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)

Torrance Coste @torrancecoste.bsky.social · 2h

not if it continues to advance and improve for another 1000 years could AI generate an idea I hate more than "kevin o'leary building the world's biggest data centre in a drought-prone region without consent from local Nations"

thenarwhal.ca/ai-data-cent...

What will the AI data centre boom mean for Canada? | The Narwhal

Sprawling AI data centres, like Kevin O’Leary’s plans for Wonder Valley in Alberta, are hungry for land, water and power

thenarwhal.ca

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Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they) @katjathieme.bsky.social · 1h

Indeed. That’s aside from the fact that dear Chloe is woefully behind the times with her commitment to the „innate from birth“ talking point.

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Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)

Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 2h

New from 404 Media: the Discord hack is every users' worst nightmare. Yesterday the hackers started posting Discord users' selfies, identity documents, email addresses, phone numbers, more. I watched in real time. This is risk of tech storing ID for age verification
www.404media.co/the-discord-...

The Discord Hack is Every Users’ Worst Nightmare

A hack impacting Discord’s age verification process shows in stark terms the risk of tech companies collecting users’ ID documents. Now the hackers are posting peoples’ IDs and other sensitive informa...

www.404media.co

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Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)

Ted Brassfield @tedbrassfield.bsky.social · 4h

Capitalism in a nutshell:
Studies of UBI - positive effects, cheaper than government benefits, don't directly finance capital, so WE MUST STUDY MORE

Studies of LLMs - lots of harm, very expensive, directly finance major corporations & the wealthy, so we MUST IMPLEMENT BUT BETTER SOMEHOW

Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 6h

A striking thing about articles I’ve read claiming to “study the effects” of generative AI on student writing skills and consumption of information is that (1) they nearly always find the effects are negative and (2) most “conclusions” are still written assuming that we must use AI, for some reason.

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Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)

ghostly gwen howerton @kissphoria.bsky.social · 5h

My dope friend Adrian, who is trans, interviewed 90 transgender Texans. His project is finally out: www.dallasnews.com/news/politic...

We surveyed 90 trans Texans. Most said they’re living in fear and weighing a move

Respondents said anti-trans policies have complicated their sense of home in Texas and pushed them to consider leaving the state.

www.dallasnews.com

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Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)

Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 5h

The basic structure of so much commentary, some in the guise of academic study, reduces to:

(1) generative AI products are detrimental to the goals of education

(2) therefore, the goals of education must change.

Without the tacit axiom that AI has authority behind it, that just doesn’t follow.

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Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)

スコット @y2skot.bsky.social · 1d

Spent five years in Paris, left 15 or so years ago. The photographs Brent posts of Paris are astonishing and hopeful.

Gritty, grey side streets for cars are now green and lively with people. Bicycle lanes on rue de Rivoli?? The only time I saw bicycles on it was the finish of the Tour de France.

Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · 1d

“In a city once choked with cars and infamous for its traffic snarls, Paris has pulled off a remarkable turnaround…the French capital has officially become Europe’s best city for children to walk, cycle, and move around independently.” Via @momentummag.bsky.social

A victory for FAST leadership.

Paris Pedals to the Top: How the City of Light Became Europe’s Best for Young Cyclists

The French capital has officially become Europe’s best city for children to walk, cycle, and move around independently

momentummag.com

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Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)

Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 22h

One of the most perverse ideas on the anti-trans side is that trans people are instantly affirmed and celebrated by everyone when they come out and that acceptance is driving a social contagion.

It's the ultimate form of gaslighting against our community.

www.erininthemorning.com/p/pew-survey...

Pew Survey: Only 31% Of Trans People Report Being Accepted By Their Parents

The survey comes as transgender people experience a legal assault from the far-right in the United States.

www.erininthemorning.com

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Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)

Jess O'Thomson @jessothomson.co.uk · 7h

It cannot be made clearer.

If you continue to support the Harry Potter franchise in any way, you are directly funding the removal of trans people's human rights in the UK.

JK Rowling pledges to keep up fight against SNP trans policies

Author vows to bankroll campaigners after Scottish government fails to pay group's legal fees in Supreme Court equality case

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Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they) @katjathieme.bsky.social · 5h

A good way to practice the construction of written text these days is have a chatbot do it first and then write about how the chatbot results aren’t so great. And by good way we mean it’s the way to demand use of the tool we know isn’t useful. :/

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Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)

Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 6h

A striking thing about articles I’ve read claiming to “study the effects” of generative AI on student writing skills and consumption of information is that (1) they nearly always find the effects are negative and (2) most “conclusions” are still written assuming that we must use AI, for some reason.

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Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they) @katjathieme.bsky.social · 11h

bsky.app/profile/fina...

David @finagle-a-hegel.bsky.social · 15h

Man if this isn't the perfect quote re Weiss: “She plays to an audience of 200 people,” one Hollywood executive with ties to Weiss told Variety. “It just happens to be that audience is made up of people like Jeff Bezos and Bill Ackman. The superrich f------ love her"

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 15h

have said this before but i am very skeptical about weiss’s vaunted charisma

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Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they) @katjathieme.bsky.social · 14h

Oof. This is so bad.

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Reposted by Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they)

Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they) @katjathieme.bsky.social · 1d

This is an excellent thread—litigating written rules is not what makes a community function.

bsky.app/profile/emil...

Emily Gorcenski @emily.gorcen.ski · 1d

Humanity has tried for 1000s of years to find the perfect set of written rules that make civilization and we have never succeeded. Civilization only works because people are generally decent and intolerable of jerks. Rules come later as a way to generate gradients of power and accountability.

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Dr. Katja Thieme (she/they) @katjathieme.bsky.social · 15h

I know! I know! A couple of his Harvard students to not wish to acquire language that could go into a diversity statement?

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