Mollie Holmberg
@octoqueenphd.bsky.social
1K followers 690 following 80 posts
she/her | ♥s critters, hates capitalism | politics of EID response & One Health | Postdoctoral Fellow @ Balsillie School of International Affairs, WLU | phd geography | views are my own | donate to verified funds @ gazafunds.com, sudanfunds.com
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Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
karenho.bsky.social
Hi! Have you had something high-protein today, drank a glass of water or gone outside? Many things are bad, but you still matter, and are someone worth taking care of. I know how hard you are trying. One thing at a time.
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
melkatrey.bsky.social
I just keep coming back to this, the most obvious lacunae in every conversation about “incorporating AI” into our classrooms: no one—literally NO ONE—can explain how it improves the work of learning & knowledge-making. There is, in fact, overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

This whole thread.
tedmccormick.bsky.social
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.
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
aislingwalsh.bsky.social
I'm the receiver for Doaa's fundraiser, we chat almost every day. Doaa and her three children have just been displaced to the south. As the situation grows more desperate each day any support you can provide helps, including sharing Doaa's posts! 🙏
doaa66.bsky.social
I'm Duaa from Gaza. The war is over. I had a beautiful home, a wonderful life, and healthy children😞. Everything is destroyed. We're homeless. We've even lost our livelihood. Donate. I want to save my children from this devastation and live a better life.😞😞💔

More in the comments.
gofund.me/7fc0e346
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
timnitgebru.bsky.social
This isn't a "why can't we all get along" kumbaya moment. Its a moment to understand all the ways in which the people who created OpenAI, Anthropic etc claiming that their machine god will bring utopia, are the actual "existential risks" to humanity.

Raising billions of dollars to "save humanity."
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
brainfrog.bsky.social
Pre-op done. Bc of my chronic respiratory failure, I'll likely remain intubated in the ICU for a bit after surgery. Also pretty high risk for rebound pulmonary emboli & hemorrhage. But! I need the surgery🤷‍♀️

At $4149/$6K with $1851 remaining. Surgery is Oct. 23rd. Any continued help is appreciated!
brainfrog.bsky.social
Apologies, somehow the original was deleted. I'm undergoing my 3rd urgent, non-elective revision spinal fusion this Oct to replace & extend my hardware. I'd appreciate any help in achieving this goal to ensure I have the resources necessary to recover safely & fully.
www.gofundme.com/f/leeanns-3r...
Donate to Lee-Ann's 3rd Spine Surgery Survival Fund, organized by Lee-Ann SB
Hey folks, my name is Lee-Ann. I'm a thirtysomething living in Ontario, Canada… Lee-Ann SB needs your support for Lee-Ann's 3rd Spine Surgery Survival Fund
www.gofundme.com
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
nicholasgrossman.bsky.social
Fascists are desperate for violent disruption they can use an excuse for state violence and power grabs.

They have trouble with mockery, goofiness, and fun.

That holds across just about every type of authoritarianism. They like being feared for cruelty. They hate being laughed at and humiliated.
courtneyvaughn.bsky.social
Streets are still closed off in front of the Portland ICE facility at 8:30pm. Protesters have gathered on a side street. Dance party in progress.
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
timnitgebru.bsky.social
They gave the physics prize to the dude who said that ChatGPT is the world's butterfly and GPT3 was a caterpillar.

The dude who told us in 2018 that radiologists should cease to go to school because the profession was gonna be out in 5 years. But 5 years later he just moved on to the next lie.
These Women Tried to Warn Us About AI
Rumman Chowdhury, Timnit Gebru, Safiya Noble, Seeta Peña Gangadharan, and Joy Buolamwini open up about their artificial intelligence fears
www.rollingstone.com
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
chanda.blacksky.app
The moderation decisions that this team is making are infested with transphobia and anti-Blackness and that can be taken seriously as an engineering problem or ... not.
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
rahaeli.bsky.social
And I just want to reiterate this ( from a thread deep in replies). I started doing this work before any of these tools existed. The number of my contemporaries in the field who have died by suicide is NOT A SMALL NUMBER. The work is incredibly traumatizing.
rahaeli.bsky.social
As someone who was doing that human review of images before even PhotoDNA existed, I can testify that the amount of human suffering automated image classification prevents is MASSIVE. Like, I am the best case scenario of the human cost of that work and I still have lifelong consequences from it.
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
disabilitystor1.bsky.social
"consuming AI art is like eating styrofoam"

The always brilliant The Oatmeal on the emptiness and sadness of AI art

theoatmeal.com/comics/ai_art
A screenshot of the Oatmeal comic, featuring a colorful meal on a plate with emojis around it, the text reads: "Someone once told me that art is like emotional nutriton. That made sense to me. Art feeds my feelings (accompanied by a smiley face and sad face emoji). And if thats the case, consuming AI art is like eating styrofoam"
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
chanda.blacksky.app
Shout out to all the mansplainers who have never won any science writing awards telling me how communication works
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
timnitgebru.bsky.social
for those of you who are serious about understanding the eugenic lineage of the whole AGI movement, on the other hand, you can peruse some of the resources at www.dair-institute.org/projects/tes...
The TESCREAL Bundle
The array of utopian ideologies that power Silicon Valley's elite is ultimately bleakly eugenicist.
www.dair-institute.org
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
timnitgebru.bsky.social
The audacity to anthropomorphize machines being built by corporations
--stealing data
--exploiting the labor of the people who are actually the "undesirables" under eugenic thought
--killing the environment,

and then compare criticisms of such eugenic practices to, wait for it, eugenics.
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
timnitgebru.bsky.social
A someone who has written extensively about the eugenic roots that permeates those who claim to be building so-called artificial general intelligence, I'm here to tell you to please NOT compare criticism against corporations claiming to build a machine god, with eugenics. The audacity.
if you're writing a sentence that sounds like eugenics but you go "oh that's fine to say because it's not a real person" (whatever that means) you may want to consider what made you okay with saying that.
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
sarahquinn.bsky.social
Every quarter, in every undergrad class, I talk with students about what should be included in our LLM AI policy.

For the first time, most of the class decided that we should not allow AI at all.

Here's how we got there . . .
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
lexialex.bsky.social
Please donate or share
beautyworld2020.bsky.social
💔The storm is coming—and we’re not ready.
Two nights ago, rain leaked through our thin tent—we slept shivering 😭
Winter is near, and one storm could destroy everything

We need $720 for wood, Plastic tarps for tent, and warm clothes.
Please,
don’t leave me alone with my daughters

gofund.me/2f942387
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
literaryhub.bsky.social
“The Khalidi Library represents everything the settlers cannot abide. It is a monument to, and repository of, the history and heritage of a culture they claim should not exist.” Ryan Byrnes chronicles the fight to save a medieval Palestinian library.
The Race to Save a Medieval Palestinian Library
While the golden Dome of the Rock sweltered under one-hundred-degree heat a gang of heavily armed orthodox Israelis marched on a Palestinian library. Brandishing forged documents falsely claiming t…
buff.ly
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
lexialex.bsky.social
Bluesky keeps deleting Abo Jameel's fundraiser so you should definitely donate or share today
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
hypervisible.blacksky.app
These are profoundly anti social tools that erode the social fabric. Their main purposes are harassment, abuse, demolishing consent and furthering an authoritarian project.

Any uses outside of that are incidental.
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
prisonculture.bsky.social
Pick one or two lanes and keep at it. You are one person and cannot do everything or take 10 actions a day.
octoqueenphd.bsky.social
From GJP's newsletter: "...we think it will be compelling for all AAG members to witness the intransigence our group has experienced firsthand over the last nine months–and to keep this obstinacy in mind as we approach whatever 'input processes' AAG has created for the 60 days following the meeting"
octoqueenphd.bsky.social
AAG members: This is tomorrow 9am PST/12pm EST.

Given the anti-democratic structure of this webinar (which is also *not* what members asked for w/ the BDS vote petition over 10% of membership signed this march), we will also be holding a "People's Special Meeting" on October 17th at 12:00 PM EST
geogboycott.bsky.social
we anticipate that AAG's "authoritative history" will attempt to diminish the importance and meaning of a history of member-driven advocacy within the organization. though not every member vote was successful, we think it's important to note member opinion *was* important enough to be consulted - !!
On October 3, AAG will release an authoritative history of member organization which will try to diminsh the existence or importance of this history. While not all of these resolutions passed and while none of them were without AAG council organization, they clearly demonstrate a decades-long democratic undercurrent in our organization which we recognize as a lineage to be resuscitated.
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
geogboycott.bsky.social
we anticipate that AAG's "authoritative history" will attempt to diminish the importance and meaning of a history of member-driven advocacy within the organization. though not every member vote was successful, we think it's important to note member opinion *was* important enough to be consulted - !!
On October 3, AAG will release an authoritative history of member organization which will try to diminsh the existence or importance of this history. While not all of these resolutions passed and while none of them were without AAG council organization, they clearly demonstrate a decades-long democratic undercurrent in our organization which we recognize as a lineage to be resuscitated.
Reposted by Mollie Holmberg
marspidermonkey.bsky.social
While Goodall received her PhD in the 1960s, it was not until the 2000s that Ugandan Emily Otali became the first African woman to complete a PhD on chimpanzee behavior. The networks that facilitated European and North Americans researchers impeded the same opportunities for Africans (9/10)