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Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield

@mikecaulfield.bsky.social

33K followers 2.3K following 1.3K posts

Author: Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions about What to Believe Online (University of Chicago Press). Researcher, infolit/misinfo/rhetoric/civic reasoning. Currently researching AI as tool for critical thinking.

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Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield @mikecaulfield.bsky.social · May 9

In this article I argue treating LLMs like experts or authors or friends instead of as a conduit to access the insights of nameable others is a mistake, both in terms of dangers and lost opportunities www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

AI Is Not Your Friend

How the “opinionated” chatbots destroyed AI’s potential, and how we can fix it

www.theatlantic.com

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Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield @mikecaulfield.bsky.social · 7m

As I said at the time a "consumer" used to be called a reader, a viewer,a listener. We created and reinforced a value hierarchy, and now a bunch of people who could be watching their favorite films are pushing us video of the Teletubbies meeting the Beatles or whatever.

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Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield @mikecaulfield.bsky.social · 14m

This Oatmeal piece is a good read, and it makes me think how the whole "be a creator not a consumer" focus in the makerspace years (2000s) of education lead inexorably to this moment where mid-level accounting execs are flooding Facebook with AI slop. theoatmeal.com/comics/ai_art

A cartoonist's review of AI art - The Oatmeal

This is a comic about AI art.

theoatmeal.com

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Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield @mikecaulfield.bsky.social · 7h

LLMs are involved, yeah, but only one smaller piece of them. The environmental differences are extraordinary and the social downside also not good.

Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield @mikecaulfield.bsky.social · 8h

He blocked himself so I can't search him btw. He came and lectured me about his "experiment" to get Bluesky posters "out of their bubble" then I think got embarrassed enough about his mistake he blocked me. Which is kind of funny I guess?

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Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield @mikecaulfield.bsky.social · 8h

Oh good, I feel less alone in my confusion, and also less worried I got in a tiff with someone who might be friends with the people I know and like at the NYT.

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Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield @mikecaulfield.bsky.social · 8h

One of the things I try to tell people is any minute someone is reading an LLM explanation vs doomscrolling TikTok is probably a win for society, so of course openAI does this because they really are that company.

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Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield @mikecaulfield.bsky.social · 8h

Is that what that dude was about? I was really confused. He literally did not seem to understand you have to read a post and a quote post together. It took me many interactions to figure out he hadn't read the QT'd post. So freaking weird!

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Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield @mikecaulfield.bsky.social · 8h

I am of the relatively rare belief that LLMs are very useful and not environmentally damaging in comparison to most anything else we do but that generative video is horrifically bad on both counts and mixing that with the attention dynamics of social media is a disaster.

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 17h

Who is going to pay for all this slop?

Sora 2 Has a Huge Financial Problem

How will OpenAI stop Sora 2 from burning through cash as users generate countless resource-intensive AI videos?

futurism.com

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Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield @mikecaulfield.bsky.social · 8h

You must know this, which means the only real experiment you are probably engaged in is trying to get blocked for your own sense of clout, and maybe that's fun for you, but I am so bored by this adventure in creative misreading.

Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield @mikecaulfield.bsky.social · 8h

You look at the post being "quoted" to understand the outer post, the "quote post"

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Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield @mikecaulfield.bsky.social · 8h

A quote post is a post about a post. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

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Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield @mikecaulfield.bsky.social · 8h

Well, this started with you somehow reading "subheading" as "article" and doubling down and it's just got less productive each go round, so I guess this is the end of the line.

Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield @mikecaulfield.bsky.social · 8h

You know we have common acquaintances, right, that are going to wonder why you are being an asshole to me here?

Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield @mikecaulfield.bsky.social · 8h

If you agree that someone just reading the subheading would get the wrong idea, congratulations

Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield @mikecaulfield.bsky.social · 8h

I'm not going to QT you because life is just too short for that but this is embarrassing

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Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield @mikecaulfield.bsky.social · 8h

Jesus Christ dude, just read the tweet. Each word is there for a reason. What are you even doing here?

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Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield @mikecaulfield.bsky.social · 8h

I write too. I know the "sometimes" hedge. We all do.

It's a good article. If you hate flattening things, maybe don't defend subheads that misrepresent the articles contents?

Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield @mikecaulfield.bsky.social · 9h

I have read an article with extensive student voice where to my memory not a single quote from a student identified this as a driver outside of a dubious survey with no methodology to it and summarized accordingly.

Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield @mikecaulfield.bsky.social · 9h

Do you have other questions?

Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield @mikecaulfield.bsky.social · 9h

Yes. It confirms what I said.

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Reposted by Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield

Philip Bump @pbump.com · 10h

You can’t talk seriously about gun violence in Chicago without talking about where the guns come from. www.pbump.net/o/the-red-st...

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Reposted by Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield

Tiricohairline @trejames.bsky.social · 10h

This is actually a gotdamn shame.

PBS News @pbsnews.org · 13h

Thirty paintings created by the bushy-haired, soft-spoken Bob Ross will soon be up for auction to defray the costs of programming for small and rural public television stations suffering under cuts in federal funding. https://to.pbs.org/4nEQMrw

Bob Ross paintings to be auctioned to support public TV stations after federal funding cuts

All profits will help public TV stations with licensing fees for popular programs that include "The Best of Joy of Painting" and "America's Test Kitchen."

www.pbs.org

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Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield @mikecaulfield.bsky.social · 10h

Students who can get good grades not going to class don't go to class

NYT: is this cancel culture

Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield @mikecaulfield.bsky.social · 10h

What a weird end to that subheading. Harvard students skip classes because they are recorded, they can pass without going, they don't do the reading, and intro to psychology is no harder at Harvard than at SUNY Oswego (honestly might be easier) so why not.

Harvard Students Skip Class and Still Get High Grades, Faculty Say
Many students don’t do the reading and don’t speak up in class, according to a report. Now, professors are trying to change a campus culture they say hurts achievement and stifles speech.

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Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield @mikecaulfield.bsky.social · 10h

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Reposted by Mike "looking for research fellowship" Caulfield

Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 13h

Good reporting on the South Shore raid from South Side weekly here.

Confirms one thing I was told but didn't put in my own piece because I didn't have a second source and it seemed too insane: border agents segregated arrested residents by race

southsideweekly.com/federal-agen...

Federal Agents Storm South Shore Building, Detaining Families and Children

Families were woken by flashbangs and helicopters as hundreds of federal agents raided their homes. Days later, neighbors are still searching for the missing.

southsideweekly.com

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