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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · 10d

the conversation between Ta-Nehisi Coates and Ezra Klein, two friends who fundamentally disagree, is a remarkable read. Ta-Nehisi's clarity has been carrying me after weeks of feeling defeated by the techno-political moment.
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/28/o...

Screen shot: "I am descended from people who, in their lifetime, fought with all their might for the destruction of chattel slavery in this country. And they never saw it. They never saw it. In my personal belief system, they died in defeat, in darkness.

So I guess the privilege that I draw out of this, the honor that I draw out of this, is not that things will necessarily be better in my lifetime, but that I will make the contribution that I am supposed to make."

Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · Aug 25

first day of the semester and in the words of Kerri Colby: I'm here to wake it up!

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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · Aug 25

thank you so much, Arturo! It's wonderful that it resonated with someone with such a keen eye for change in the creative industries.

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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · Aug 20

*presses play on Phil Collins - In the Air Tonight*

Alex Morash @alexmorash.bsky.social · Aug 20

Media outlets seem to have soured on the AI hype machine.

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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · Aug 8

"How to live? Be soft, get by, go slow, open up, find others, try to be kind, funny if you have it in you. Get things done, think justly, create, learn your corner as best you can."

Lisa Henderson, Every Queer Thing We Know

Reposted by Sam Shorey

Roosevelt Forward @rooseveltforward.org · Aug 7

Headlines say AI is replacing workers, but beneath the headlines is a more sinister truth—they're being reorganized, outsourced, and devalued to make automation possible.

@samshorey.bsky.social lays it all out in the latest #FiresideStacks 🔥 www.firesidestacks.com/p/patchwork-...

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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · Aug 4

Journalists are doing such important work to inform and educate the public about innovation. My co-author (a journalism undergrad at UT!) created "Don't Be A Drone," a 1-sheet that turns our findings into actionable tips for reporting: www.bit.ly/ReportingOnAI

Screen shot of PDF "Don't Be a Drone: Tips for Better Reporting on AI in Essential Work Sectors." Tip 1 is "Don't let executives be the only voice in your story"

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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · Aug 4

why does this matter? because execs are predictably pro-tech while on-the-ground workers are the people with the most direct experience with AI technology and its limitations! Without the voice of workers, news stories become another source of technology hype.

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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · Aug 4

Out now in the AI Hype special issue in Digital Journalism, "Automating Essential Work:"
📰 10 years of news stories
📈 tech company execs become sources when the industry shifts from traditional automation to robots
👷🏻‍♀️ 0 quotes from on-the-ground workers

doi.org/10.1080/2167...

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Reposted by Sam Shorey

Meredith Whittaker @meredithmeredith.bsky.social · Feb 19

Stand by this: www.politico.com/newsletters/...

What’s a technology that you think is overhyped?

I’m going to give a sideways answer to this, which is that the venture capital business model needs to be understood as requiring hype. You can go back to the Netscape IPO, and that was the proof point that made venture capital the financial lifeblood of the tech industry.

Venture capital looks at valuations and growth, not necessarily at profit or revenue. So you don’t actually have to invest in technology that works, or that even makes a profit, you simply have to have a narrative that is compelling enough to float those valuations. So you see this repetitive and exhausting hype cycle as a feature in this industry. A couple of years ago, you would have been asking me about the metaverse, then last year, you would have asked me about Web3 and crypto, and for each of these inflection points there’s an Andreessen Horowitz manifesto.

It’s not simply that one piece of technology is overhyped, it’s that hype is a necessary ingredient of the current business ecosystem of the tech industry. We should examine how often the financial incentive for hype is rewarded without any real social returns, without any meaningful progress in technology, without these tools and services and worlds ever actually manifesting. That’s key to understanding the growing chasm between the narrative of techno-optimists and the reality of our tech-encumbered world.

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Reposted by Sam Shorey

Roosevelt Institute @rooseveltinstitute.org · Jul 15

NEW 📰: AI automation is making government jobs more stressful & error-prone, hurting workers & constituents.

@samshorey.bsky.social offers a scan of the existing landscape of AI implementation from across the country & the true impact on workers & efficiency. rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...

[T]he public sector should not be a testing ground for tools that haven’t been evaluated, tested, and established as truly beneficial.

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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · Jul 17

I was reminded this week that (alongside the agonies of the OBBB) the almost unanimous decision to remove the preemptive ban on AI regulation was the result of real mobilization — and is a clear sign to lawmakers that the American public doesn't want to give a blank check to big tech.

Reposted by Sam Shorey

Chuck A @candersonjax.bsky.social · Jun 28

This hands unchecked power to tech firms aligned with Trump, silencing local oversight and boosting political manipulation. This will impact our elections and explode the amount of misinformation reaching Americans.

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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · Jun 28

This could include common-sense protections like:
❌ the recently-passed Texas law that forbids the use of AI as the sole decision-maker in healthcare determinations.
❌ the proposed California law that requires the state to clearly identify when AI is being used to interact with constituents.

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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · Jun 28

The state-level has been the most important place for prototyping laws that aim to ensure that AI is actually used to make the lives of Americans better—not just make tech companies richer.

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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · Jun 28

Why does this matter? Because, even though there have been multiple executive orders on AI from the last three presidential administrations, there is no comprehensive federal law governing how AI can be used on Americans.

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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · Jun 28

The current version of the One Big Beautiful Bill still includes a provision that prohibits any state from regulating AI for the next ten years if they want access to the $500 million allocated for AI infrastructure.

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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · Jun 11

every one of us is all we need 💛

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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · May 12

this interview with Ocean Vuong pulled and pulled at my heart-strings. And the comments section too (a rarity) sharing in the loneliness and grief of class mobility. whew. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/03/m...

don’t fetishize an identity of “writer.” To me, what you and I are doing is the same work. My teaching is the same work. When I give a talk at a university, it’s the same thing.

How do you characterize that work? A kind of sincerity, of figuring this out. I think that’s it. A Buddhist sutra says to engage the phenomena of the world with earnestness. I’ve always valued that.

Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · May 12

same! "In some ways, I have over shot my mark in life in spades."

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Reposted by Sam Shorey

Will Oremus @willoremus.com · May 8

Sen. Schatz (D-Hawaii) is the first senator to go hard on AI training data and intellectual property, saying what we're really talking about is training AIs on all of human achievement up to now — spitting out "what appears to be knowledge" without compensation for the humans who generated it.

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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · May 8

My students taking the final exam after enduring a semester of in-class critical engagement activities:

Students Thankful Standardized Curriculum Sparing Them From Free-Spirited Teacher’s Antics

HAVERHILL, MA—Conveying their eagerness to dodge the possibility of any classroom role-playing exercises or featured guest speakers, 10th-grade students at East High School told reporters Thursday the...

theonion.com

Reposted by Sam Shorey

Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · May 6

Imagine if projector salespeople told you projectors were great in the classroom not because they let everybody see an image better but rather because now every course could be about projectors, because projectors are the future and the time to opt out of talking about projectors all day has passed.

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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · May 6

me too! I was surprised by the way this question revealed (and spoke directly to) the students' most pressing concerns.

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Sam Shorey @samshorey.bsky.social · May 6

I do this every year and their answers are great (and really different than what they write on teaching evals). Here is an example PDF: bit.ly/AdviceFromStudentsWhoTookThisClass

My fav this semester said "Prepare to have some of your assumptions challenged by new viewpoints backed up with studies."