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Zane Griffin Talley Cooper @zgtcooper.bsky.social · Jun 16

It’s the most criminally underrated horror film of the 80s

Zane Griffin Talley Cooper @zgtcooper.bsky.social · Jun 9

Any tech that doesn’t help directly address ongoing genocides, income inequality, the climate crisis, and the rise of global fascism is nonsense and should not be funded.

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Zane Griffin Talley Cooper @zgtcooper.bsky.social · Jun 9

As an aside, if any editor out there wants to pay me to write a piece on why measuring the immense social and environmental impacts of AI is getting us nowhere, and how we can reframe the discourse, I have a number of things brewing. Plus I’m poor and need some extra cash plzzzz.

Zane Griffin Talley Cooper @zgtcooper.bsky.social · Jun 9

My thinking is that, long term, AI use at universities will become pretty narrow and specific, once an untold amount of damage is done by trying to force AI tools into every level of operation. AGI is not a thing. It’s management propaganda for the most part.

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Zane Griffin Talley Cooper @zgtcooper.bsky.social · Jun 9

In regards to modes of extraction in grad school and western research practices, I’m gonna leave this here. @maxliboiron.bsky.social always has lessons to teach us about methods, research ethics, and how to produce (or at least endeavor to produce) just knowledge: discardstudies.com/2021/01/18/f...

Firsting in Research

Firsting in research, then, is not about being first to a place, first to know something, first to discover something. It is a proclamation of power to make property in someone’s home, to put…

discardstudies.com

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Zane Griffin Talley Cooper @zgtcooper.bsky.social · Jun 9

As an aside, I’ve now noticed EBSCO providing AI summaries of its articles, which undermines the entire business model of academic publishing. This follows the death of close reading and how grad students are taught to read extractively. Why read any article ever again? Now we don’t have to!

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Zane Griffin Talley Cooper @zgtcooper.bsky.social · Jun 9

In terms of art, there are SO many great artists thinking critically about AI and its place in society. @eryk.bsky.social is one I consistently recommend as an artist who sees value in expression through the kinds of ecosystems of noise through which AI models articulate. Fascinating work.

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Zane Griffin Talley Cooper @zgtcooper.bsky.social · Jun 9

So talking about AI as a uniform technology that is doing stuff is asinine and baby discourse. Specific AI models designed for specific purposes. Flooding the FAA with AI doesn’t mean anything. What contracts/models/services/limitations/etc. ATM AI is just smoke connoting false political promises.

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Zane Griffin Talley Cooper @zgtcooper.bsky.social · Jun 9

AI is not an object, a thing, or an intelligence. It is not even singular. It is a complex web of relations between hardware, software, human operators, energy production, resource extraction, political negotiations, Land (with a capital L), and the local ecosystem within which it’s deployed.

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Zane Griffin Talley Cooper @zgtcooper.bsky.social · Jun 9

I could see Vibrant Matter used in an Anthropic whitepaper. Maybe it already has.

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Zane Griffin Talley Cooper @zgtcooper.bsky.social · Jun 9

Might be a hot take, but: I engage with and find useful numerous aspects of New Materialism, but as a broad theoretical intervention, it sometimes feels like an AI model trained on black and indigenous thought that regurgitates it into concepts western academics can use and profit from.

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Zane Griffin Talley Cooper @zgtcooper.bsky.social · Jun 9

Perhaps AI seems like such a natural boon to progress because, in some ways, it mimics the ultimately extractive nature of most of western research. The hoovering up of old ideas and centuries of deep thinking and relating in order to devise a new methodology or coin a new branded neologism.

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Zane Griffin Talley Cooper @zgtcooper.bsky.social · Jun 9

I keep returning to @alexhanna.bsky.social’s provocation that AI is anti-process and I think that’s spot on. We need to be process-oriented luddites.

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Zane Griffin Talley Cooper @zgtcooper.bsky.social · Jun 9

Don’t wanna read The Sound and the Fury? Extract the core ideas with AI. Never mind that the process of reading is most of the point.

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Zane Griffin Talley Cooper @zgtcooper.bsky.social · Jun 9

Students already use AI to not read and write. Including these tools in canvas/blackboard institutionalizes the position that reading and writing don’t matter and, subsequently, neither does thinking. The AI model of education is fundamentally extractive. Take what you can, trash the rest.

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Zane Griffin Talley Cooper @zgtcooper.bsky.social · Jun 9

The former explores the possibilities, limitations, and ethical dimensions of using AI in media production, while the latter is a management decision that, under the guise of efficiency and progress, will make education worse.

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Zane Griffin Talley Cooper @zgtcooper.bsky.social · Jun 9

Analyzing and utilizing AI tools for video production, editing and graphic design are far different applications than providing AI summaries of readings in Canvas, or substituting hiring TAs for AI chatbots….

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Zane Griffin Talley Cooper @zgtcooper.bsky.social · Jun 9

My thinking is that, long term, AI use at universities will become pretty narrow and specific, once an untold amount of damage is done by trying to force AI tools into every level of operation. AGI is not a thing. It’s management propaganda for the most part.

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Zane Griffin Talley Cooper @zgtcooper.bsky.social · May 25

Maxine Berg shows how the “nimble fingers” stereotype first arose in the early Industrial Revolution as a way for managers to de-skill the labor of women workers. It was also used to exoticize labor of Navajo semiconductor manufacturers at Shiprock in the 60s. The term has a long sordid history.

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Zane Griffin Talley Cooper @zgtcooper.bsky.social · May 8

It’s The Rizzler.

The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · May 8

Next in procedure, the cardinal elected pope must formally accept the role, and then is asked to choose a name.

The pope then enters the Room of Tears, changes garments, and shows himself to the world by walking out onto the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Conclave live updates: New pope elected, white smoke over the Vatican proclaims

Cheers erupted and suspense built in the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Square as cardinals announced with clamor and smoke that a successor to Pope Francis has been named.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Zane Griffin Talley Cooper @zgtcooper.bsky.social · May 7

In addition to the plagiarism, energy use, and general deterioration of critical thinking, AI (as currently deployed) is a less an existential risk to humanity, and more a management ideology that begets extreme wealth consolidation and labor exploitation.

Kylie Robison @kylierobison.com · May 7

can i ask my followers here perhaps too earnestly - if you hate AI or find it utterly worthless, why?

Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social · May 7

it's jolting how little AI skepticism has reached the general public. i've had many acquaintances ask whether i use AI for research and seem shocked when i tell them it's completely useless for that purpose. my wife recently told her colleagues about hallucinations and it was news to all of them.

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Reposted by Zane Griffin Talley Cooper

Mél Hogan / The Data Fix @melhogan.bsky.social · May 7

AI is a plagiarism engine built on stolen data, exploited labour, and enviro harm. Marketed as “intelligent,” it erodes critical thinking, empathy, and causes psychological harm. Run by authoritarian billionaires, it’s used for surveillance, profiling, and genocide—whether it works or makes up shit.

Kylie Robison @kylierobison.com · May 7

can i ask my followers here perhaps too earnestly - if you hate AI or find it utterly worthless, why?

Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social · May 7

it's jolting how little AI skepticism has reached the general public. i've had many acquaintances ask whether i use AI for research and seem shocked when i tell them it's completely useless for that purpose. my wife recently told her colleagues about hallucinations and it was news to all of them.

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Zane Griffin Talley Cooper @zgtcooper.bsky.social · May 4

Notice they went with the RED lightsaber

Frank Amari @frankamari.bsky.social · May 4

Posted by the White House this morning:

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Zane Griffin Talley Cooper @zgtcooper.bsky.social · Apr 28

Omg can’t wait for this!

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Zane Griffin Talley Cooper @zgtcooper.bsky.social · Apr 28

So many people I could list here.
- Steve Jobs
- Thomas Edison
- Galton
- nearly every polar explorer
- Teddy Roosevelt
- Robert Noyce
- Obama

On and on

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Zane Griffin Talley Cooper @zgtcooper.bsky.social · Apr 28

One student this semester kept insisting that this is the best things could ever be and that any change would be a “downgrade” in our standard of living. 😭

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