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Marc Watkins @marcwatkins.bsky.social · 11h

Bluesky is blocked in my home state. I can only access it via VPN or when I’m traveling as I am now.

Marc Watkins @marcwatkins.bsky.social · 21h

I was on NPR Morning Edition to talk about the deeply troubling ethical issue of faculty using AI to grade student assignments. I'm glad this issue is getting more attention, but it is also one I don't see clear a path forward. www.npr.org/2025/10/07/n...

More college students are using AI for class. Their professors aren't far behind

More college students are using AI chatbots to help them with their studies. But data recently released by an AI company shows they're aren't the only ones using the technology.

www.npr.org

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Marc Watkins @marcwatkins.bsky.social · 12d

Our relationship with new technologies has always been fraught and AI isn’t new in that regard. After 3 years of ChatGPT, over a decade with social media, and screens in our pockets, are we able to chart a path forward or helplessly lost in hype and doom?

marcwatkins.substack.com/p/the-halluc...

The Hallucinating Machines We Can't Live Without

An Algorithm Brought You To This Anti-Algorithm Essay

marcwatkins.substack.com

Marc Watkins @marcwatkins.bsky.social · Sep 7

Popping in via VPN to share how age verification is actively limiting access to services like Bluesky. I think AV will eventually impact access to AI. I don't think AV effectivly protects children and don't believe this is the future any of us wants. marcwatkins.substack.com/p/age-verifi...

Age Verification is Coming for Chatbots

I’m now more convinced than at any previous point that governments will start regulating generative AI via limiting access to tools like ChatGPT based on a user’s age, and I’m not sure that’s a good t...

marcwatkins.substack.com

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Marc Watkins @marcwatkins.bsky.social · Aug 22

It’s been real, but this is likely the end for me on this platform. I have to use a VPN to post or read contact because of the state I live in. This is chilling and should be a wake up call for what’s coming.

Bluesky @bsky.app · Aug 22

Unfortunately, Bluesky is unavailable in Mississippi right now, due to a new state law that requires age verification for all users.

While intended for child safety, we think this law poses broader challenges & creates significant barriers that limit free speech & harm smaller platforms like ours.

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Marc Watkins @marcwatkins.bsky.social · Aug 22

I guess I won’t be posting here much longer. Being in a state that’s instituted age verification laws causing social media companies like Bluesky to restrict access isn’t an isolated event—it’s where the internet is headed. I’ll use a VPN for now, but that’s not going to be sustainable.

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Marc Watkins @marcwatkins.bsky.social · Aug 22

I think it's valuable, but the real skill set that matters remains separating the bullshit from what actually works. Social media has created bizarre frameworks for how people gain knowledge.

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Marc Watkins @marcwatkins.bsky.social · Aug 22

marcwatkins.substack.com/p/higher-edu...

Higher Education Needs Frameworks for How Faculty Use AI

The anticipation surrounding GPT-5 created a dizzying buzz among tech enthusiasts who were obsessed with the idea that true artificial intelligence, known as AGI, was imminent.

marcwatkins.substack.com

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Marc Watkins @marcwatkins.bsky.social · Aug 22

Faculty guidelines and frameworks for using generative AI with their students are often unclear and vague. The institutional silence around faculty AI usage risks sending a message of indifference instead of charting a clear path forward. I created a VALUES framework for faculty to consider.

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Marc Watkins @marcwatkins.bsky.social · Aug 21

Locking this up and potentially taking down my post because 1) I am an AI skeptic 2) people aren’t interacting with the post in good faith. It’s always right to call out AI hype. The point was AI isn’t going away if the hype dies and being overly dismissive isn’t helping us navigate it.

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Marc Watkins @marcwatkins.bsky.social · Aug 21

Locking this up and potentially taking down my post because 1) I am an AI skeptic 2) people aren’t interacting with the content in good faith. It’s always right to call out AI hype. The point was AI isn’t going away and being overly dismissive isn’t helping us navigate it.

Marc Watkins @marcwatkins.bsky.social · Aug 20

I hope people dunking on OpenAI for how crappy GPT-5 is and how hyped AGI has been take a step back and consider how the LLMs we have today will take society years to fully absorb. This technology is impact our world in ways we can barely comprehend. AI isn't going away even if the hype does.

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Marc Watkins @marcwatkins.bsky.social · Aug 11

A little over a year from now, the first generation of ChatGPT students will graduate college with no guidance about how to use or resist AI in their careers. A college freshmen will arrive on campus having 4 years of access to a chatbot and we think bluebooks are an answer?

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Marc Watkins @marcwatkins.bsky.social · Aug 10

open.substack.com/pub/marcwatk...

The AI Wolf That Education Must Face

GPT-5 is now here and freely available to all.

open.substack.com

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Marc Watkins @marcwatkins.bsky.social · Aug 10

Another semester approaches and faculty face a super charged version of ChatGPT. I want to talk about value and meaning with my students, not necessarily AI. Here are some ideas to do just that. I also have a session submitted to SXSW Edu about AI aware teaching that I’d love for you to vote for. 👇

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Marc Watkins @marcwatkins.bsky.social · Aug 9

Will Microsoft update the education version of Copilot with GPT-5? This was formerly known as Bing Chat Enterprise and hasn't been updated with a new model since GPT-4 launched in 2023. That would give data protection w/ GPT-5 to a lot of schools.

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Marc Watkins @marcwatkins.bsky.social · Aug 7

I stand corrected. They simply moved it to the "+" feature. I missed it under the . . . more section

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Marc Watkins @marcwatkins.bsky.social · Aug 7

RIP ChatGPT's Study Mode. It lasted ten days as a feature before GPT-5's launch removed it. Now students will need to ask the model to not complete tasks for them manually. The point was a ⏹️ button students could use to create a socratic tutor, a space where the model wouldn't offload learning.

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Marc Watkins @marcwatkins.bsky.social · Aug 7

But when you attach a file and ask it very specific questions, it does a fairly decent job of grounding its responses in the data. Here's a summary of the Walton Foundation report on AI saving teachers six hours a week. It took several minutes to run this so I'm not sure how practical that is.

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Marc Watkins @marcwatkins.bsky.social · Aug 7

Without search, the model just makes up material. Wildly so. Asking for a list of publications from me and none of these are real. We're back to the good old days of early GPT-3 and ChatGPT.

3/4

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Marc Watkins @marcwatkins.bsky.social · Aug 7

I cannot overstate how bad hallucinations are without RAG. Asking the model for the current AI outlook on my campus produced no factual information, which isn't surprising given the model's size.

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Marc Watkins @marcwatkins.bsky.social · Aug 7

Giving oos 20b a second look with LM Studio, which is much better at running it. You can toggle the reasoning settings and this does improve the output. Medium setting seems to be the sweet spot, but on high you have to raise the context limit to get the best output to count Rs in strawberry.

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Marc Watkins @marcwatkins.bsky.social · Aug 6

3️⃣ Fail: I asked it to code a game on climate change. The model began searching the web then got stuck in an endless cycle of web search and reasoning. We never got to tools to code or refusal, just a loop in search. After 20+ minutes I ended the chat without a result with a much lower battery.

3/3

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Marc Watkins @marcwatkins.bsky.social · Aug 6

2️⃣ Partial success: I used search and asked about the current situation in Gaza. Multiple errors. The model took 8 minutes to come up with a response and gave me a single sentence response about death toll, not a summary of the overall situation:

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Marc Watkins @marcwatkins.bsky.social · Aug 6

I have a Macbook Pro/ M4 48 gbs and ran GPT-oss 20b via ollama and these were the results on three tests for reasoning and search. My overall impression is the usefulness of the model is very limited on a personal device.

1️⃣ Fail: the strawberry test

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