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Sarah Quinn

@sarahquinn.bsky.social

3.8K followers 1.3K following 730 posts

Sociologist who studies American politics, finance, and political economy. Broadly interested in cultural categories and power.

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Reposted by Sarah Quinn

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 20h

We don't know anything yet.

Sarah Quinn @sarahquinn.bsky.social · 22h

That performance is one of my favorites of all time.

Reposted by Sarah Quinn

Mark Igra @markigra.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy · 1d

The New York Times minimizing the unconstitutional assault on US cities so much that it didn't appear on the "front page" even on my big screen monitor. Had to export a pdf to capture the tiny headline. Truly atrocious. Does any major US news org care at all?

Screen shot of NYTimes online front page with tiny headline about Emergency powers circled in red. Red text on yellow saying "Unconstitutional invasion of us cities way down here!!! WTF NY Times." Another text saying "But at least I know where to find a tree house with rustic vibe" referring to NYT headline near top saying "6 Tree Houses You can Rent for Glamour With a Rustic Vibe"

Sarah Quinn @sarahquinn.bsky.social · 23h

Add to that the repercussions for the environment and dangers of environmental racism, and most concluded that the costs far outweighed the benefits.

Sarah Quinn @sarahquinn.bsky.social · 23h

By the end of the class, some students still wanted limited use of AI, but most advocated for it to be banned completely. They didn't want to use my work without my consent, and if they couldn't upload my slides to ChatGPT, the platform was rendered mostly useless for them anyway.

Sarah Quinn @sarahquinn.bsky.social · 23h

I talked about how much work goes into making good slides. I said that feeding those slides to the model was a way of helping LLMs steal that work from me.

So I asked that students not use it to make study sheets, or generate comments for discussion.

Sarah Quinn @sarahquinn.bsky.social · 23h

I stated this clearly: I was under no illusion that students could use LLMs however they wanted, but I did not give consent to feed any of my own materials from this class to any LLMs.

Sarah Quinn @sarahquinn.bsky.social · 23h

Also, I used the Anthropic case as an example, and disclosed that my own work had been stolen and used to train models.

Sarah Quinn @sarahquinn.bsky.social · 23h

What's new this year is that we had the convo in lecture 4 -- after they had learned a bit about racial capitalism (the topic of the class). This meant students readily connected the dots between LLMs and environmental racism, and labor exploitation.

Sarah Quinn @sarahquinn.bsky.social · 23h

We first discussed how students use AI, and its costs & benefits. Here I'm non-judgmental and empathetic. Saving time really matters for stressed people under capitalism! Higher ed sorts by cultural capital and that's unfair!

So far, this is exactly what I have done in all of my other classes.

Sarah Quinn @sarahquinn.bsky.social · 23h

Every quarter, in every undergrad class, I talk with students about what should be included in our LLM AI policy.

For the first time, most of the class decided that we should not allow AI at all.

Here's how we got there . . .

Reposted by Sarah Quinn

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 4d

🫡

How to Turn Off AI Tools Like Gemini, Apple Intelligence, Copilot, and More - Consumer Reports

AI features are crowding into Google search, Gmail, iPhones, Windows laptops, and other products. If you're suffering from AI overload, these settings can help.

www.consumerreports.org

Sarah Quinn @sarahquinn.bsky.social · 3d

Book cover for They Thought They Were Free" The Germans, 1933-45
by Milton Mayer

"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.

"This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter."

""You will understand me when I say that my Middle High German was my life. It was all I cared about. I was a scholar, a specialist. Then, suddenly, I was plunged into all the new activity, as the university was drawn into the new situation; meetings, conferences, interviews, ceremonies, and, above all, papers to be filled out, reports, bibliographies, lists, questionnaires. And on top of that were the demands in the community, the things in which one had to, was ‘expected to’ participate that had not been there or had not been important before. It was all rigmarole, of course, but it consumed all one’s energies, coming on top of the work one really wanted to do. You can see how easy it was, then, not to think about fundamental things. One had no time."

"Those," I said, "are the words of my friend the baker. ‘One had no time to think. There was so much going on.’"

"You see," my colleague went on, "one doesn’t see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don’t want to act, or even talk, alone; you don’t want to ‘go out of your way to make trouble.’ Why not?—Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.

"Uncertainty is a very important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows. Outside, in the streets, in the general community, ‘everyone’ is happy. One hears no protest, and certainly sees none. You know, in France or Italy there would be slogans against the government painted on walls and fences; in Germany, outside the great cities, perhaps, there is not even this. In the university community, in your own community, you speak privately to your colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, ‘It’s not so bad’ or ‘You’re seeing things’ or ‘You’re an alarmist.’

Sarah Quinn @sarahquinn.bsky.social · 4d

It's a real mire, which makes me think that this would be an ideal time to do a study of the social construction of public opinion.

Reposted by Sarah Quinn

Christopher Mims @mims.bsky.social · 11d

*The AI boom = one of the costliest building sprees in world history

* Past 3 years' commitments are greater than the cost of building the U.S. interstate highway system

* Consumers must spend $800 billion on AI within a few years, to justify investment from 2023-24

www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-b...

This week, consultants at Bain & Co. estimated the wave of AI infrastructure spending will require $2 trillion in annual AI revenue by 2030. By comparison, that is more than the combined 2024 revenue of Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta and Nvidia, and more than five times the size of the entire global subscription software market.

Morgan Stanley estimates that last year there was around $45 billion of revenue for AI products. The sector makes money from a combination of subscription fees for chatbots such as ChatGPT and money paid to use these companies’ data centers.

How the tech sector will cover the gap is “the trillion dollar question,” said Mark Moerdler, an analyst at Bernstein.

Sarah Quinn @sarahquinn.bsky.social · 14d

Vader was a *delight* at cocktail parties, I'm told. And he always brought the most thoughtful house warming gifts.

Sarah Quinn @sarahquinn.bsky.social · 14d

Thanks to the discourse I have had Blondie in my head all day.

Reposted by Sarah Quinn

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 14d

How humiliating this all is. The retching convulsions of a diseased administration, hacking up its bile and blood-streaked phlegm in front of the whole world.

Reposted by Sarah Quinn

Per Engzell @pengzell.bsky.social · 16d

1/ So you’re thinking about applying for an academic job in the UK but don’t know how? This thread will walk you through the essentials.

Sarah Quinn @sarahquinn.bsky.social · 16d

What movie do you consider “perfect?”

Denzel Washington talks to a masked and hooded man in front of a bank vault

Sarah Quinn @sarahquinn.bsky.social · 17d

🦎💚

Sarah Quinn @sarahquinn.bsky.social · 17d

And what's resurrected is the singer's sense of wonder after falling for a manic pixie dream girl biologist

Sarah Quinn @sarahquinn.bsky.social · 17d

"ice-age ghost ponds" sounds like the name of a band on the soundtrack for the movie Garden State

The Guardian @theguardian.com · 17d

‘It’s resurrection’: 1,000-year-old seeds could grow ancient plants in England’s ice-age ghost ponds

‘It’s resurrection’: 1,000-year-old seeds could grow ancient plants in England’s ice-age ghost ponds

An expert team are resurrecting ice age ponds and finding rare species returning from a ‘perfect time capsule’

www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Sarah Quinn

Daniel Laurison @daniellaurison.bsky.social · 18d

This is really the main thing everyone should be thinking about. At this point just being out as trans or "looking like" an immigrant in public or affirming that gender is complicated or that racism & misogyny are bad or that Trump et al are fascists - are all variously risky. So do *something.*

Daniel Laurison @daniellaurison.bsky.social · 18d

Find something you care about, a community/organization/network/couple of friends you can do it with, and do something.

Think about what you *believe* you would have done in 1938 Nazi Germany or 1955 US Jim Crow, and do *something.*

Reposted by Sarah Quinn

Ryan Marino, MD @ryanmarino.bsky.social · 20d

A program in Flint, MI, gave $1,500 to any/all pregnant people and $500/month for the first year of their infant’s life.

Among the benefits, those babies experienced lower rates of prematurity and low birth weight, which resulted in fewer NICU admissions, saving the city of Flint $6.2 million/year.

The US town that pays every pregnant woman $1,500: ‘We’re not OK with our babies being born into poverty’

Infants in Rx Kids in Flint, Michigan, saw lower rates of prematurity and other issues, saving millions in NICU visits

www.theguardian.com