Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Jay Varner @jayvarner.bsky.social · 10h

“When I went to bed, we had a little girl. By morning, we had a 24-year-old man.” This is their only platform position. I just wanna watch baseball and see this trash!

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Memento (Spooky) Morty 🌙 @mementomorty.bsky.social · 12h

Losing the war on woke

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 12h

Trump is fighting sleep during this antifa roundtable and sleep is gaining the upper hand

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Alex Brown 🇵🇸 (they/them) @bookjockeyalex.bsky.social · 2d

Really want to encourage libraries - especially school libraries - to put no-AI content into your collection development policy. At the very least, if you have a clause in there about requiring accurate information, you can use that to weed out or prevent genAI purchases.

Jack Tripper @chadstanton.blacksky.app · 2d

“When you get a suspicious book, “you look it up to see what else the [author] has written. And you see there's 30 things, and none of them have any reviews, and they were all written in the last two years,” DeMeester-Lane says.”

How Local Librarians Keep AI Slop Off the Shelves

AI is being used to create nonsensical, sometimes dangerously inaccurate books. Local librarians are tasked with keeping these volumes out of their collections.

www.governing.com

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Daniel Bachman @danielbachman.bsky.social · 3d

Well we are close to 1.5C past per-industrial norms. I have memories in my lifetime of early October feeling very different.

Capital Weather Gang @capitalweather.bsky.social · 3d

On this 80° day in D.C., it’s wild to think snow fell on this date in 1892 — the earliest on record! 🌨️

And in 1836, Loudoun County roofs were dusted white. 🏠❄️

Winter is coming! ☃️

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The Atlantic @theatlantic.com · 4d

Jane Austen. Spike Lee. MrBeast. “Modern Family.” The Atlantic’s new AI Watchdog search tool lets you see which creative works tech companies may have used to train their generative-AI models: https://theatln.tc/vQSlfiyC

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John Wiswell @wiswell.bsky.social · 4d

Doctor Manhattan airing his subway system out on Mars.

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Matt Ghoulberg @mattgoldberg.bsky.social · 5d

Obviously, this is loser shit, but I think AI has really cemented itself as the visual language of fascism. It's anti-human, flattened, uninteresting, and cheap. It's like looking at a Potemkin Village and thinking that's the same as architecture.

Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 5d

Posted by the President of the United States.

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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 5d

“.. His conclusion is very stark: not just that an economy already at stall speed will fall into recession as both the data-center and wealth effects plateau, but that they’ll reverse, just as in the dot-com bubble did ..”

@marketwatch.com
www.marketwatch.com/story/the-ai...

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Chuck Wendig @chuckwendig.bsky.social · 5d

Yeats’ SECOND COMING feels too easy to quote these days but the one bit of it that stands out it again and again is:

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.”

Such capitulation and acquiescence at every turn. All this bowing and scraping.

404 Media @404media.co · 6d

New: Apple just removed ICEBlock, the app for reporting sightings of ICE, from its App Store after DOJ pressure. ICEBlock's developer tells 404 Media "we are determined to fight this."

"Capitulating to an authoritarian regime is never the right move."

www.404media.co/iceblock-own...

ICEBlock Owner After Apple Removes App: ‘We Are Determined to Fight This’

Apple removed ICEBlock reportedly after direct pressure from Department of Justice officials. “I am incredibly disappointed by Apple's actions today. Capitulating to an authoritarian regime is never t...

www.404media.co

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Makkon @makkon.bsky.social · 6d

a flow-chart with 2 islands. "Do I need AI?" that flows into a final island saying "No"

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John Gramlich @johngramlich.bsky.social · 6d

% of US men under 30 who say legal sports betting is a *bad thing* for society

22% in 2022
47% in 2025

No other demographic group has seen a bigger increase.

Americans increasingly see legal sports betting as a bad thing for society and sports

Today, 43% of U.S. adults say the fact that sports betting is now legal in much of the country is a bad thing for society, up from 34% in 2022.

www.pewresearch.org

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Alison Stine @alisonstine.bsky.social · 6d

Fellow writers with books stolen by AI, here's the site to submit a claim for the Anthropic settlement. Unsure if your books are included? Search the "Works List Lookup" at the top right. Thanks to @jamestatehill.bsky.social for alerting me secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/standard/cla...

Submit a Claim

secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com

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Jay Varner @jayvarner.bsky.social · 6d

Pathetic.

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 7d

“The pilot will explore how AI can enhance teaching, research and university operations, while also gathering feedback to guide the responsible and effective use of AI across campus.”

William & Mary launches ChatGPT Edu pilot

By integrating artificial intelligence tools, the university is positioning itself at the forefront of higher education innovation.

news.wm.edu

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Sarah Milov @allofmilov.bsky.social · 6d

A "minor in AI." I used to consider W&M the premier public liberal arts college.

Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 6d

what is this word vomit

Douglas Schmidt, dean of CDSP, sees AI as a catalyst for cross-disciplinary collaboration and a tool to accelerate problem-solving by discovering correlations that may otherwise have gone unnoticed, enabling researchers to innovate faster than ever before.

“By breaking down silos between departments and schools, we are creating opportunities to apply the technological power of AI to diverse domains, sparking new ideas, challenging assumptions, and integrating a wide range of perspectives,” stated Schmidt. The ChatGPT Edu pilot is one of several AI initiatives currently ongoing at William & Mary. W&M also launched a new minor in AI this fall for students to learn how to apply AI in their respective fields, with additional bachelor and graduate-level opportunities under development.

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ACLU @aclu.org · 7d

A reminder that anything recorded on a device like this AI "friend" could be used against you — by hackers, private companies, or the government.

This technology isn't a friend, it's surveillance.

AI startup Friend spent more than $1M on all those subway ads | TechCrunch

If you’ve been on the New York subway recently, you’ve probably seen stark white ads promoting a wearable AI device called Friend.

techcrunch.com

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Jay Varner @jayvarner.bsky.social · 8d

I do not know how to stop listening to this new Geese album.

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Pittsburgh Pirates @pirates.com · 8d

On this day in 1972, Roberto Clemente recorded his 3,000th and final hit. A moment forever etched in Pirates history.

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Mark Gongloff @markgongloff.bsky.social · 8d

Yet another good reason for locals to resist data centers: "electricity now costs as much as 267% more for a single month than it did five years ago in areas located near significant data center activity"

Gift link from @bloomberg.com

www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

AI Data Centers Are Sending Power Bills Soaring

Wholesale electricity costs as much as 267% more than it did five years ago in areas near data centers. That’s being passed on to customers.

www.bloomberg.com

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Jay Varner @jayvarner.bsky.social · 9d

It’s only F’ing Monday.

Jay Varner @jayvarner.bsky.social · 9d

If you can avoid driving in Charlottesville, please do. cvillerightnow.com/news/208802-...

ALERT: Route 29 shut down both directions at Ivy Road - Cville Right Now

he Route 29 bypass is blocked in both directions north of Ivy Road after a semi apparently hit the Old Ivy Road Bridge under construction.

cvillerightnow.com

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Paul Cohen @paulecohen.bsky.social · 10d

I will start teaching my students how to use AI when my colleagues in computer science start to teach Homer, Dante, Langston Hughes, Borges, Foucault, Audre Lord, Spivak, and Donna Haraway in their classes

Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 10d

I realize many people don’t quite get that not every single professor in every single university teaches computer science and might actually be trained in and invested in teaching other things, like let’s say, history? Or poetry.
Or sociology.
It is not our job to teach students how to use AI.

matt94250.bsky.social @matt94250.bsky.social · 10d

If you don’t teach your students how to use AI, you’re doing them a huge disservice because they won’t have jobs in the future.

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Sonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · 11d

“AI” isn’t a tool or technology or even a cluster of technologies with a misleading name. It’s the infrastructure at the foundation of a form of capitalism dependent on data brokering. We should be teaching our students about this and not teaching them about “responsible” use.

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Laprofmme @laprofmme.bsky.social · 11d

ENRAGING

Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 12d

The third step OpenAI took to habituate educators to its tech was through enterprise licenses for institutions. Suddenly it was just *there* in your institution, often with an institutional wrapper, and you could just try it out - helped by early adopters chatgpt.com/business/edu...

ChatGPT Education

chatgpt.com

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Stereogum @stereogum.bsky.social · 11d

from the latest print edition of ‘The Onion’

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Jay Varner @jayvarner.bsky.social · 12d

So I think I’m gonna see this again in theater. Happy to give inspiring, human-made art money—especially one that says 🖕 to white supremacy.

Jay Varner @jayvarner.bsky.social · 13d

One Battle After Another is top-notch. Absolutely loved every minute.

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