Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 30m

He hasn't been subtle about it.
blacksky.community/profile/did:...

Christopher Mathias @letsgomathias.bsky.social · 6h

Jack collaborated with neo-Nazi twins to make a documentary. He was a fan of white supremacist Richard Spencer. He has tweeted 1488, the alphanumeric code for Heil Hitler. He wrote an unreadable anti-antifa book. Last year he wrote a book abt the left called “Unhumans.” That he’s now speaking here…

Prem Thakker ツ @premthakker.bsky.social · 7h

From Donald Trump's Roundtable on Antifa just now —
"Antifa has been around in various iterations for almost 100 years in some instances, going back to the Weimar Republic in Germany."
— special guest Jack Posobiec

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Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 1h

Just like the segregationists who filled community swimming pools with concrete.

Asked what percentage of children she imagines should be in public schools going forward, Justice, who is now with The Heritage Foundation’s political advocacy arm, told ProPublica: “I hope zero. I hope to get to zero.”

Reposted by Jed Brown

Molly White @molly.wiki · 6d

New research from AWU/CWU/Techquity on AI data workers in North America. “[L]ow paid people who are not even treated as humans [are] making the 1 billion dollar, trillion dollar AI systems that are supposed to lead our entire society and civilization into the future.”
cwa-union.org/ghost-worker...

We identify four broad themes that should concern policymakers: Workers struggle to make ends meet. 86% of surveyed workers worry about meeting their financial responsibilities, and 25% of respondents rely on public assistance, primarily food assistance and Medicaid. Nearly two-thirds of respondents (66%) report spending at least three hours weekly sitting at their computers waiting for tasks to be available, and 26% report spending more than eight hours waiting for tasks. Only 30% of respondents reported that they are paid for the time when no tasks are available. Workers reported a median hourly wage of $15 and a median workweek of 29 hours of paid time, which equates to annual earnings of $22,620. Workers perform critical, skilled work but are increasingly hamstrung by lack of control over the work process, which results in lower work output and, in turn, higher-risk AI systems. More than half of the workers who are assigned an average estimated time (AET) to complete a task felt that AETs are often not long enough to complete the task accurately. 87% of respondents report they are regularly assigned tasks for which they are not adequately trained. With limited or no access to mental health benefits, workers are unable to safeguard themselves even as they act as a first line of defense, protecting millions of people from harmful content and imperfect AI systems. Only 23% of surveyed workers are covered by health insurance from their employer. Deeply involved in every aspect of building AI systems, workers recognize the wide range of risks that these systems pose to themselves and to society at large. Fifty-two percent of surveyed workers believe they are training AI to replace other workers’ jobs, and 36% believe they are training AI to replace their own jobs. 74% were concerned about AI’s contribution to the spread of disinformation, 54% concerned about surveillance, and 47% concerned about the use of AI to suppress free speech, among other issues.

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Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 9h

Indeed, and the fediverse has lots of experience with similar moderation and federation issues. It limits what a PDS can provide, but choice of PDS is still your choice of trust. In the past few months, the Blacksky team has consistently shown courage and principle while Bluesky has disappointed.

Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 22h

@hyraemous.and.camera You can keep a custom domain (choose *.myatproto.social or whatever during migration, then Settings -> Profile -> Handle; no DNS changes are needed).

Choice of handle has nothing to do with moderation.

Choice of PDS is about trust in moderation and infrastructure/data.

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Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 1d

The pro-AI people evidently haven't been reading the Journal of Marketing. blacksky.community/profile/did:...

Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · Jul 12

This appears in Journal of Marketing and so some of the writing is 🙃 dystopian, suggesting that effective strategy is to intentionally promote misconceptions and keep the low-AI-literacy audience ignorant. I prefer to read that as a warning rather than an instruction manual.

doi.org/10.1177/0022...

Our results suggest that as people become more AI literate
over time, general AI receptivity may decrease. Thus, our find-
ings suggest that until capability considerations outweigh AI
receptivity fueled by perceptions of AI as magical, there may
be unintended consequences of policy makers’ efforts to
educate the public about AI. Of course, other factors—such as
shifting norms and expectations about AI adoption or improve-
ments in AI capabilities—may affect and change the nature of
the relationship between literacy and receptivity over time.
Future research could examine the lower literacy–higher recep-
tivity link longitudinally.

Further, the results of Study 7 suggest that there are opportu-
nities to target not only those with lower AI literacy but also
those with higher AI literacy, as long as these two groups of
consumers are targeted differently. Specifically, our findings
suggest that marketing efforts aiming to make AI more accessi-
ble to a broader audience by demystifying how AI works may
inadvertently reduce consumers’ receptivity toward AI by
making it seem less magical. Thus, marketing efforts targeting
low-AI-literacy consumers may benefit from promoting an
aura of magic around AI by emphasizing how the AI powering
the respective product or service emulates human characteris-
tics. Conversely, marketing efforts targeting high-AI-literacy
consumers may benefit from highlighting how their AI-based
products and services execute tasks that are based on character-
istics shared between humans and AI.

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Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 1d

And that's before getting into the centralization of power, incentive structure, and technosolutionist trap that afflicts even the more benignly-worded "AI for social good".
blacksky.community/profile/did:...

Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 22d

The "AI for Social Good" narrative is a tactic to consolidate power in the hands of those with no commitment to social good. The tech does not do what it is claimed to do and what it is claimed to do exacerbates root problems. Uncritical technosolutionism is a denial of service attack on humanity.

Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social · 23d

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-...

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Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 1d

Autocracy thrives on the erosion of truth; it does not need to convince everyone of a single preferred narrative. That's why "flood the zone" is effective. There cannot be pluralistic democracy without shared reality. The asymmetry is intrinsic, and "anti-fascist disinformation" isn't effective.

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Reposted by Jed Brown

Rudy wants revolution. @rude1.blacksky.team · 1d

TL; DR
In the next 5 business days you should be able to go to Link's page on blacksky.community and see his posts and he'll be able to post but people using the bsky mobile apps won't see it.
After that we'll get Blacksky-only posts up.
After that we can talk about purging bsky mod tools
fin/11

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Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 2d

Yes, there is no reason to presume integrity of statements found between the detected fraud. The entire report should be considered fraud and Deloitte should repay the entire contract plus interest and damages.

Also, the non-existent refs will soon be replaced with fraudulent citation of real refs.

"This is no longer a ‘strong hypothesis’,” Rudge said. “Deloitte has now issued a confession, albeit buried in the methodology section. Deloitte has admitted to using generative AI for a core analytical task; but it failed to disclose this in the first place.”
The academic said the recommendations of the report could no longer be trusted because “the core analysis was done by an AI”.

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Reposted by Jed Brown

Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 4d

I thought I'd put the administration's proposed "compact" with universities in context, so I wrote the blog post below.

It's especially for journalists covering this story!

Many details about how the compact itself works and why the administration has retreated to this strategy.

Balkinization: The Art of Replacing the Law with the Deal

A group blog on constitutional law, theory, and politics

balkin.blogspot.com

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Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 3d

I think DDG misread the moment by adding "AI" summaries by default. I respect startpage.com for not doing that. (Defaults matter extra for new users and in private browsing windows.)

Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 3d

A politician making a statement is perceived as campaigning. It's how they vote that informs journalists of what is normal.

Voting for a bad bill because they figure it's bound to pass somehow or in hopes for reciprocity on future amendments is affirming normality and giving the abuser leverage.

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Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 4d

Yes! The practice is epistemically equivalent to forging historical artifacts and responding with indignance when called out, claiming the forgery is "in-distributuon". It is intrinsically deceptive and scholarly misconduct.

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Reposted by Jed Brown

Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 6d

Just as judges need to to avoid inappropriately applying the presumption of regularity to the highly irregular actions of this government, universities need to openly, publicly explain that authoritarian attacks on free speech and academic freedom are not—except as a pretext—related to antisemitism.

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Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 4d

I just migrated and the experience was very smooth. Restoring a custom domain after migrating doesn't even require a DNS update; the *.myatproto.social username was only momentarily visible. It feels liberating, and I love donating to people building open infrastructure with shared values. Thanks!

Rudy wants revolution. @rude1.blacksky.team · 5d

web app → blacksky.community
feed → blacksky.community/profile/did:...
(optional) migrate to be hosted by us → tektite.cc
migration tutorial → blacksky.community/profile/did:...

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Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 5d

It was when they pushed over a dozen email notifications trying to provoke me about a supposed crisis of "missing men" and "viewpoint diversity" that I realized The Chronicle was not merely centrist, but a deliberately revanchist force, especially given the credulity that many administrators give it

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Reposted by Jed Brown

Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 7d

A moment that calls for collective action… to reject this transparent attack on academic freedom.

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 7d

Trump's higher ed ransom note is here - everyone would have to acquiesce to their unprecedented demands or not be "given priority for grants," plus they can demand "reimbursement" for "violations" www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

A mechanism to enforce fealty. An attack on academic freedom and democracy

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Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 7d

Wouldn't say it's that dire. If one is stuck at 8 and can ramp up to running 5 days/week with two of those being intensity (200m, 400m, and 800m intervals, form drills), most will see results come quickly. The key is to avoid injury through gradual ramp-up, form, strength/balance, and recovery/sleep

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Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 7d

This question can't be answered without a starting point. I first got intentional about training in high school, running 5:06 at age 13 and 4:56 the next year. After that, I was always targeting different/longer events.

How to train and realistic expectations would depend a lot on history and base.

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Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 7d

He just wants a negative peace.

1

Reposted by Jed Brown

AAUP chapter @UT Austin @utaustinaaup.bsky.social · 11d

✴️For the first time since 1945, UT does not have a representative faculty council.

Our press release on the replacement of an elected Faculty Council with faculty advisory bodies composed entirely of appointees of President Davis.

docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Press Release 9.27.2025.docx

PRESS RELEASE American Association of University Professors (AAUP) chapter at The University of Texas at Austin Contact: Pauline Strong, PhD, Chapter President, [email protected] _________________...

docs.google.com

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Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 8d

It's from a great episode of American Vandal with @mattseybold.bsky.social
theamericanvandal.substack.com/p/the-educat...

The whole conversation is full of bangers. I took some notes here: hachyderm.io/@jedbrown/11...

The Education Gospel, Enshittify.edu, & The Expansion of Lower Ed

with Tressie McMillan Cottom, Andrew Douglas, Kelly Grotke, & Jared Loggins

theamericanvandal.substack.com

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Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 8d

"We've got a captured population. There are only two of those, BTW, students and prisoners. And frankly, the student data is richer, more diverse, [..] in ways that make it more valuable." -- @tressiemcphd.bsky.social

In fact, they are only one market. In addition to their use in product
development, the data digital platforms collect are sold off in a dense and well-developed
marketplace of advertisers, data brokers and investors. The same platform that delivers
curricular materials to students also harvests, for example, those students’ usage patterns,
performance data, and engagement metrics. All of these are valuable assets that platform
owners can leverage to enhance their own products, reinforce their market advantages, or
monetize through third-party data sharing, often without the knowledge or consent of stu -
dents, families, or educators. Such dynamics distinguish today’s platforms from traditional
ed tech tools like graphing calculators or overhead projectors, which served a single purpose
once purchased and which were unambiguously under the control of the schools that pur -
chased them.

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Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 8d

Sorry to say most of the "glorious, magnificent abilities" are on the spectrum between wildly oversold and outright scams. Beyond that, Herzog's instincts are 🎯

Herzog has complicated feelings about technology, noting that he doesn’t mind students using new tools as long as they understand the concepts. He did not “want to put [AI] down completely because it has glorious, magnificent abilities in science, pharmaceuticals, transportation.” However, it is, nevertheless, “already en route to take over warfare. It will be the overwhelming face of warfare of the future.” AI is like “a nemesis” because of the “cheating, pretending, propagandizing.”

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