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Reposted by Dr N. Brodie

Dr Kat Day (she/her) @chronicleflask.katday.com · 1d

Daughter of Robin Williams, Zelda Williams 💔

zeldawilliams
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Please, just stop sending me AI videos of Dad. Stop believing I wanna see it or that I'll understand, I don't and I won't. If you're just trying to troll me, I've seen way worse, i'll restrict and move on. But please, if you've got any decency, just stop doing this to him and to me, to everyone even, full stop. It's dumb, it's a waste of time and energy, and believe me, it's NOT what he'd want.
To watch the legacies of real people be condensed down to 'this vaguely looks and sounds like them so that's enough,
, just so
other people can churn out horrible TikTok slop puppeteering them is maddening. You're not making art, you're making disgusting, over-processed hotdogs out of the lives of human beings, out of the history of art and music, and then shoving them down someone else's throat hoping they'll give you a little thumbs up and like it.
Gross.

And for the love of EVERYTHING, stop calling it 'the future. Al is just badly recycling and regurgitating the past to be reconsumed. You are taking in the Human Centipede of content, and from the very very end of the line, all while the folks at the front laugh and laugh, consume and consume.

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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 2d

This was published the day after the Heaton Park terrorist attack. I find its grim combination of antisemitism, conspiracy fictions and agrarian populism deeply worrying, as this is how it all kicked off a century ago. 🧵
farmsnotfactories.org/articles/zio...

Zionist Money Rules • Farms Not Factories

The purpose of our newsletter is to give you important information that is censored in the mainstream media. “The way... Read More

farmsnotfactories.org

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Dr N. Brodie @brodiegal.bsky.social · 13d

Just an occasional note that … the less you use social media, the less you need to use social media. 🕯️

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Dr N. Brodie @brodiegal.bsky.social · 21d

it’s funny* when i consider that the wars and mass deaths nobody really gives a shit about are also in the regions that will be most adversely affected by climate change and how much that plays into our doing fuck all to reduce emissions.

*not actually funny

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · Oct 29

In recognition of us doing fuck all to reduce emissions, let me remind y'all that carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is useless unless we decarbonize drastically.

rdcu.be/dbFbB

Carbon dioxide removal is not a current climate solution — we need to change the narrative

Drastically reduce emissions first, or carbon dioxide removal will be next to useless.

www.nature.com

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Dr N. Brodie @brodiegal.bsky.social · 21d

my teacher brain is exploding. so now in addition to marking i must generate an anonymised summary of work to prepare it for the AI so the AI can synthesise constructive feedback … based on the summary??? and then I still have to customise the AI feedback.

and yes on the turnaround window thing.

Ernesto Priego @ernestopriego.com · 21d

Simply astonishing. Maybe Lecturer A should not have to mark over 100 essays in a two-week window in the first place? Invest in qualified staff and reduce impossible workloads FFS www.kcl.ac.uk/about/strate...

Screenshot. King's College London page. Examples of effective practice

The following scenarios follow the above guidelines and offer insights into ways that academic staff can use AI transparently and in an assistive capacity, always ensuring human oversight and judgment remain central.
Scenario A – Scaling feedback while maintaining quality

Lecturer A is responsible for marking over 100 essays within a two-week window.

Conscious of the limitations this workload places on the depth of individual feedback, they adopt a hybrid approach using their university’s approved or supported LLM tool, Copilot.

Without ever uploading student work directly, Lecturer A composes an anonymised summary for each student, noting which marking criteria were met and the approximate percentage achieved for each. They input this summary alongside the official rubric into Copilot, prompting it to generate supportive, criterion-referenced feedback. This feedback is then carefully reviewed, adapted, and personalised before being uploaded to the marking platform.

Students are made aware of this process in advance and shown a demonstration, reinforcing transparency and trust.

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Dr N. Brodie @brodiegal.bsky.social · 22d

I see so much of this in academic funding calls ‘we are looking for projects that explore how AI can help to solve … hunger, violence against women and children, poverty, etc.’ But there’s no space in there to say: ‘um, what if AI is not the right tool for this’

Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social · 22d

AI is the wrong tool to tackle complex societal & systemic problems. AI4SG is more about PR victories, boosting AI adoption (regardless of merit/usefulness) & laundering accountability for harmful tech, extractive practices, abetting atrocities. yours truly
www.project-syndicate.org/magazine/ai-...

The False Promise of “AI for Social Good”

Abeba Birhane refutes industry claims about the technology's potential to solve complex social problems.

www.project-syndicate.org

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Dr N. Brodie @brodiegal.bsky.social · Sep 6

There is so much real news, in so many countries, that there really is never any need to repost AI generated fakery (even if it hooks in to your personal rhetoric).

Repost journalism not algorithm.

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Dr N. Brodie @brodiegal.bsky.social · Sep 5

also really ‘funny’ because these European capitals generally have pretty amazing public transport thus reducing private vehicles, etc.

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Dr N. Brodie @brodiegal.bsky.social · Sep 5

some foreign western person in a faraway land (with, at best, a social media-based activism and education) telling other people in their own countries that what they are doing is ‘not good enough’ is … well, a far too common feature of this landscape.

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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social · Sep 3

AI evangelism is like being in a cult. you abandon any sense of reason and go out of your way to defend it even when it makes no sense

Joe McKirdy @joemckirdy.bsky.social · Sep 3

It has been 14.68 years since the last day in 2010. So, the AI is correct.

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Dr N. Brodie @brodiegal.bsky.social · Aug 25

dark gary larson eh?

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Dr N. Brodie @brodiegal.bsky.social · Aug 25

only someone who hates design could think that. 😢

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Alexander Luckmann @aluckmann.bsky.social · Aug 20

Academia may not give you job security, flexibility, or wealth, but it will let you unexpectedly connect to eduroam in foreign cities

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Dr N. Brodie @brodiegal.bsky.social · Aug 15

In South Africa:

Remembering Marikana, 13 years on - still no justice for the massacre victims.

(An older article exploring the media’s failures at the time:

theconversation.com/marikana-mas...)

Marikana massacre: how South African journalism failed the test

The reporting of the Marikana massacre was characterised by embedded journalism, sensationalism and polarisation of views. The media became a loudspeaker for powerful political and economic interests.

theconversation.com

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · Jul 28

If someone asks a question about "AGI", the only reality-based response is to demand a definition of "AGI" before replying. #acl2025

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Dr N. Brodie @brodiegal.bsky.social · Jul 28

Except … with the latest rounds of funding cuts, the country with the largest HIV+ population in the world won’t be able to procure it for everyone, and will have to take money from other programmes to make it available at all 😓

bhekisisa.org/health-news-...

SA gets R520-million to buy the twice-a-year anti-HIV jab — but there’s a snag - Bhekisisa

SA has accepted an offer of just over R520-million from the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria to buy the twice-a-year anti-HIV jab, lenacapavir. Research shows the shot could help end Aids in ...

bhekisisa.org

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Dr N. Brodie @brodiegal.bsky.social · Jul 27

agree - and Wikipedia has only improved (largely) over time; and also not dumped their values.

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Dr N. Brodie @brodiegal.bsky.social · Jul 23

GIVE THE MONEY TO TEACHERS NOT SAM ALTMAN

Laprofmme @laprofmme.bsky.social · Jul 23

The sheer quantity of bullshit here. The solution to instructor exhaustion and overwork is not outsourcing grading (if that’s not direct mentoring of students, I don’t know what is) but hiring more faculty and reducing class sizes. Give the money to teachers, not Sam Altman

But by assisting the grading process, Al could allow instructors to reinvest their time in directly mentoring students, Watson said.
In a conversation with a group of students in December, Watson said a student recounted an example of a professor telling the class that they graded papers from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. She hoped that she was graded in the earlier hours, before the professor was exhausted or ready to just be done.
"How might we re-envision what it means to be a professor," Watson asked, "in an era where Al might take over some of the more tedious administrative parts of the course?"

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Dr N. Brodie @brodiegal.bsky.social · Jul 23

I’m working on research & publications looking at messaging + agree systemic frame of climate change has not worked & even works against us. But it seems smaller (less terrifying) mitigations might be an incremental better step - like: ‘don’t die in a flood’ is nicer than All the Insects Will Die.

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Dr N. Brodie @brodiegal.bsky.social · Jul 23

Really this is one of the reasons it’s so hard to write contemporary dystopian fiction.

Steve Herman @newsguy.bsky.social · Jul 23

The president of France, Emmanuel Macron, files a lawsuit in Delaware against Candace Owens for defamation over the American podcaster's “relentless and unjustified smear campaign” alleging his wife, Brigitte, is a secret trans woman and blood relative. clarelocke.com/wp-content/u...

clarelocke.com

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Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · Jul 22

Bari’s key insight as an entrepreneur is that there is a bottomless demand for rich people to have their existing opinions sold back to them as forbidden knowledge

Financial Times @financialtimes.com · Jul 22

FT Exclusive: Weiss has met with David Ellison, the incoming owner of CBS News, over a potential deal to sell her three-year-old media company, according to several people familiar with the matter. https://on.ft.com/4eZ6WbM

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Index on Censorship @indexoncensorship.org · Jul 7

Worrying news coming out of the #WestBank where the #IDF have arrested Dr. Nasser Laham, editor-in-chief of the Palestinian Ma'an news agency. This continues a troubling pattern of suppressing press freedom in the region:
www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

IDF arrests Palestinian newspaper's editor-in-chief in West Bank, outlet reports

www.haaretz.com

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Dr N. Brodie @brodiegal.bsky.social · Jul 19

Support independent media, support local media - you can also do this in countries where you don’t live but follow the news.

Particularly countries where you complain about ‘the media’ not covering stories. The stories often are being covered - just not in the media you know about.

🌍

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Nitish Pahwa @nitishpahwa.com · Jul 15

you've heard about the college kids who can't do anything without ChatGPT's help—but what about the students who oppose generative A.I. for myriad reasons and refuse to rely on it as a shortcut? well, I found and spoke with a few of them here: slate.com/life/2025/07...

What It’s Like to Be a Student Who Hates ChatGPT

“Everyone is using it”—almost everyone.

slate.com

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Dr N. Brodie @brodiegal.bsky.social · Jul 15

Looking for (new, academic or pracademic) class reading suggestions for Ai, ethics and journalism - postgrad class.

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