Zoe Griffith
@zoegriffith.bsky.social
Friendly crone. Asst professor of History at CUNY. Aspiring horticulturalist.
I wrote a book on Ottoman Egypt and the Mediterranean archive. You can preorder it! https://www.ucpress.edu/books/egypts-mediterranean/paper
I wrote a book on Ottoman Egypt and the Mediterranean archive. You can preorder it! https://www.ucpress.edu/books/egypts-mediterranean/paper
Really, really agree with this piece from Huffpo. We don't have to accept the aura of AI inevitability. We can, and should, refuse to engage with it in our classrooms (and elsewhere, but especially in the classroom!)
There is something intensely bleak about students using gAI in an assignment asking them to respond to a text about enslaved people--so sad.
Students are being misled into stripping themselves of the ability to read, write, think by our own universities and Big Tech
www.huffpost.com/entry/histor...
Students are being misled into stripping themselves of the ability to read, write, think by our own universities and Big Tech
www.huffpost.com/entry/histor...
November 20, 2025 at 9:21 PM
Really, really agree with this piece from Huffpo. We don't have to accept the aura of AI inevitability. We can, and should, refuse to engage with it in our classrooms (and elsewhere, but especially in the classroom!)
Reposted by Zoe Griffith
Fact-Checking Claims About Zohran Mamdani https://theonion.com/fact-checking-claims-about-zohran-mamdani/
November 7, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Fact-Checking Claims About Zohran Mamdani https://theonion.com/fact-checking-claims-about-zohran-mamdani/
Reposted by Zoe Griffith
yearly reminder to people insisting that we view Christopher Columbus as "a man of his time" that *the people responsible for the Spanish Inquisition* thought Columbus was out of pocket
Christopher Columbus was dragged back to Spain in chains by a crusading knight, convicted of tyranny and immeasurable cruelty, pardoned by Isabella but banned from returning to Hispaniola.
Fuck Columbus.
Fuck Columbus.
October 13, 2025 at 4:38 PM
yearly reminder to people insisting that we view Christopher Columbus as "a man of his time" that *the people responsible for the Spanish Inquisition* thought Columbus was out of pocket
Happy #caturday from a boy who really really loves his @ranchogordo.bsky.social bean club box 🫘
October 5, 2025 at 12:42 AM
Happy #caturday from a boy who really really loves his @ranchogordo.bsky.social bean club box 🫘
Reposted by Zoe Griffith
September 20, 2025 at 12:01 AM
Reposted by Zoe Griffith
Im glad Dr Tao is speaking up, but this attitude among people; that you can work in STEM and "avoid politics" is...alarming. And has always been wrong.
Terence Tao, one of the world’s greatest mathematicians, is speaking out after federal research funding to UCLA was suspended.
“People who support all the positive aspects of America have to speak out and fight for them now,” he said.
“People who support all the positive aspects of America have to speak out and fight for them now,” he said.
The world’s greatest mathematician avoided politics. Then Trump cut science funding.
Terence Tao, a renowned mathematician at UCLA, faced funding challenges after the Trump administration froze federal research funds.
wapo.st
September 8, 2025 at 10:04 AM
Im glad Dr Tao is speaking up, but this attitude among people; that you can work in STEM and "avoid politics" is...alarming. And has always been wrong.
Reposted by Zoe Griffith
A Labor Day reminder: today there isn't a single city, metro area, or state in the U.S. where a full-time minimum-wage worker can afford a modest 2-bedroom apartment.
Millions of people with jobs—even multiple jobs—aren't safe from homelessness in this country.
Millions of people with jobs—even multiple jobs—aren't safe from homelessness in this country.
Opinion | America Is Pushing Its Workers Into Homelessness
www.nytimes.com
September 1, 2025 at 11:54 AM
A Labor Day reminder: today there isn't a single city, metro area, or state in the U.S. where a full-time minimum-wage worker can afford a modest 2-bedroom apartment.
Millions of people with jobs—even multiple jobs—aren't safe from homelessness in this country.
Millions of people with jobs—even multiple jobs—aren't safe from homelessness in this country.
Reposted by Zoe Griffith
NEW: A major AI copyright legal showdown just took a huge twist today. Facing a class action on behalf of book authors that could've seen it pay over a TRILLION in damages for alleged piracy, Anthropic has agreed to settle instead: www.wired.com/story/anthro...
Anthropic Settles High-Profile AI Copyright Lawsuit Brought By Book Authors
Anthropic faced the prospect of more than $1 trillion in damages, a sum that could have threatened the company’s survival if the case went to trial.
www.wired.com
August 26, 2025 at 7:35 PM
NEW: A major AI copyright legal showdown just took a huge twist today. Facing a class action on behalf of book authors that could've seen it pay over a TRILLION in damages for alleged piracy, Anthropic has agreed to settle instead: www.wired.com/story/anthro...
Reposted by Zoe Griffith
The mental health benefits of not knowing any history right now must be massive. Moving through your day with total equanimity. What happens next? Who knows? Maybe something good
August 26, 2025 at 7:51 PM
The mental health benefits of not knowing any history right now must be massive. Moving through your day with total equanimity. What happens next? Who knows? Maybe something good
Reposted by Zoe Griffith
A key difference here is that while either can be incorrect, the structure of Wikipedia *creates context* and the structure of LLMs *destroys context*
Wikipedia has linked sources and an edit history showing where information came from and who added it when
An LLM just generates text
Wikipedia has linked sources and an edit history showing where information came from and who added it when
An LLM just generates text
Some of the anti-AI stuff feels a bit like when people would say "don't use Wikipedia as a source." It's just like anything else, a piece of information that you weigh against multiple sources and your own understanding of its likely failure modes
April 26, 2025 at 6:39 PM
A key difference here is that while either can be incorrect, the structure of Wikipedia *creates context* and the structure of LLMs *destroys context*
Wikipedia has linked sources and an edit history showing where information came from and who added it when
An LLM just generates text
Wikipedia has linked sources and an edit history showing where information came from and who added it when
An LLM just generates text
hey what if?!
What If A.I. Doesn’t Get Much Better Than This?
GPT-5, a new release from OpenAI, is the latest product to suggest that progress on large language models has stalled.
www.newyorker.com
August 14, 2025 at 12:50 AM
hey what if?!
Reposted by Zoe Griffith
No one wants to hear this, but it’s true. Either we can value education — not for a select few but for anyone willing to put in the effort — and provide the requisite resources, or we can watch it become a pursuit available only to an elite minority, with everyone else getting a cheap facsimile
There simply is no substitute for the time-, personnel-, & $$$-intensive way of providing quality education. That we don't want to pay for it, as a society, does not make this any less true, & AI cannot fix that. At best, it can poorly substitute for the real solution.
bsky.app/profile/mcop...
bsky.app/profile/mcop...
Sure we could reduce the student to teacher ratio, and create an education system that we know works for students. But that would cost money, so bring in the slop.
August 11, 2025 at 1:42 AM
No one wants to hear this, but it’s true. Either we can value education — not for a select few but for anyone willing to put in the effort — and provide the requisite resources, or we can watch it become a pursuit available only to an elite minority, with everyone else getting a cheap facsimile
Why does Goorge W. Bush looks like a mashup of Mitch McConnell and Bill Gates? Dude doesn't even wear glasses.
Nothing, but nothing, is funnier to me at this moment than these Ph.D.-level charts.
“A legitimate PhD-level expert in anything,” they said.
“Show me a diagram of the US presidents since FDR, with their names and years in office under their photos,” I said.
“Show me a diagram of the US presidents since FDR, with their names and years in office under their photos,” I said.
August 8, 2025 at 10:05 PM
Why does Goorge W. Bush looks like a mashup of Mitch McConnell and Bill Gates? Dude doesn't even wear glasses.
Nothing, but nothing, is funnier to me at this moment than these Ph.D.-level charts.
“A legitimate PhD-level expert in anything,” they said.
“Show me a diagram of the US presidents since FDR, with their names and years in office under their photos,” I said.
“Show me a diagram of the US presidents since FDR, with their names and years in office under their photos,” I said.
August 8, 2025 at 10:03 PM
Nothing, but nothing, is funnier to me at this moment than these Ph.D.-level charts.
"While the new strategy, known as 'Look Back Before You Act,' has raised concerns among people worried they will have to remember lots of events from long ago, the historians have assured Americans they won’t be required to read all the way through thick books or memorize anything."
Historians Politely Remind Nation To Check What's Happened In Past Before Making Any Big Decisions
WASHINGTON—With the United States facing a daunting array of problems at home and abroad, leading historians courteously reminded the nation Thursday that when making tough choices, it never hurts to ...
theonion.com
August 7, 2025 at 5:18 PM
"While the new strategy, known as 'Look Back Before You Act,' has raised concerns among people worried they will have to remember lots of events from long ago, the historians have assured Americans they won’t be required to read all the way through thick books or memorize anything."
Reposted by Zoe Griffith
"I need ChatGPT to brainstorm" dear human person the whole point of brainstorming is to find new ways or angles when approaching a problem, the "let's regurgitate the complete stolen corpus of human achievement"-machine doesn't help you brainstorm - it stops you from brainstorming.
August 1, 2025 at 1:58 AM
"I need ChatGPT to brainstorm" dear human person the whole point of brainstorming is to find new ways or angles when approaching a problem, the "let's regurgitate the complete stolen corpus of human achievement"-machine doesn't help you brainstorm - it stops you from brainstorming.
Reposted by Zoe Griffith
Gustave Caillebotte, Nasturtiums, 1892
August 1, 2025 at 5:18 PM
Gustave Caillebotte, Nasturtiums, 1892
Reposted by Zoe Griffith
Either colleges produce graduates who have been transformed by 4 years of study in ways that are valuable but hard to quantify, or they produce interchangeable widgets with pieces of paper that say they jumped through a series of hoops, probably with the assistance of chatbots because who wouldn't?
July 13, 2025 at 3:02 PM
Either colleges produce graduates who have been transformed by 4 years of study in ways that are valuable but hard to quantify, or they produce interchangeable widgets with pieces of paper that say they jumped through a series of hoops, probably with the assistance of chatbots because who wouldn't?
Reposted by Zoe Griffith
Parents insist their kids go to college to get business degrees. Administrators respond by defunding the humanities and social sciences, while hiring business profs at ~2X what historians get paid. Meanwhile, businesses say over and over that they want to hire humanities and social science majors.
Decades of mechanistic talk about university degrees as if they were bundles of 'skills' and 'prep' are about to be proved completely wrong (obviously). Want to get a real boost? Do History or English.
July 13, 2025 at 2:38 PM
Parents insist their kids go to college to get business degrees. Administrators respond by defunding the humanities and social sciences, while hiring business profs at ~2X what historians get paid. Meanwhile, businesses say over and over that they want to hire humanities and social science majors.
Reposted by Zoe Griffith
Decades of mechanistic talk about university degrees as if they were bundles of 'skills' and 'prep' are about to be proved completely wrong (obviously). Want to get a real boost? Do History or English.
July 13, 2025 at 10:19 AM
Decades of mechanistic talk about university degrees as if they were bundles of 'skills' and 'prep' are about to be proved completely wrong (obviously). Want to get a real boost? Do History or English.
Reposted by Zoe Griffith
This is framed as "lessons for the left," but Lander and Mamdani actually offer lessons for the center: Instead of ruthlessly undermining leftist candidates, emphasize shared values and refuse to amplify right-wing attacks.
www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...
www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...
Zohran Mamdani’s Lesson for the Left
The New York City mayoral primary showcased a better kind of politics than progressives are used to.
www.theatlantic.com
July 9, 2025 at 3:31 PM
This is framed as "lessons for the left," but Lander and Mamdani actually offer lessons for the center: Instead of ruthlessly undermining leftist candidates, emphasize shared values and refuse to amplify right-wing attacks.
www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...
www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...
I don't want to play Homonym! with Microsoft Word 😒
July 7, 2025 at 1:10 PM
I don't want to play Homonym! with Microsoft Word 😒
Microsoft Word: hey, you might have a "word choice error" there, let me underline it for you!
Me: ... pretty sure this normal word in my millionth draft is ok
MW: by "reign" of this early modern ruler do you perchance mean RAIN?!??! 🫠🥲👑🌧️
Me: ... pretty sure this normal word in my millionth draft is ok
MW: by "reign" of this early modern ruler do you perchance mean RAIN?!??! 🫠🥲👑🌧️
July 7, 2025 at 1:41 AM
Microsoft Word: hey, you might have a "word choice error" there, let me underline it for you!
Me: ... pretty sure this normal word in my millionth draft is ok
MW: by "reign" of this early modern ruler do you perchance mean RAIN?!??! 🫠🥲👑🌧️
Me: ... pretty sure this normal word in my millionth draft is ok
MW: by "reign" of this early modern ruler do you perchance mean RAIN?!??! 🫠🥲👑🌧️
Reposted by Zoe Griffith
I found a google chrome extension that seemingly gets rid of the AI overview when you search on google from desktop. LIFE CHANGING. Cause I was SICK of that shit. chromewebstore.google.com/detail/hide-...
Hide Google AI Overviews - Chrome Web Store
Hide annoying Google AI Overviews.
chromewebstore.google.com
June 29, 2025 at 7:41 PM
I found a google chrome extension that seemingly gets rid of the AI overview when you search on google from desktop. LIFE CHANGING. Cause I was SICK of that shit. chromewebstore.google.com/detail/hide-...
On the twelfth anniversary of Sisi's coup in Egypt, a clear-eyed and depressing analysis by @abuaardvark.bsky.social
Since seizing power in a coup Sisi has ruled Egypt longer than Sadat. What does he have to show for it beyond just surviving in power?
With bonus reading list on Egypt since 2013.
abuaardvarkghost.ghost.io/egypts-dozen...
With bonus reading list on Egypt since 2013.
abuaardvarkghost.ghost.io/egypts-dozen...
Egypt's dozen uselessly brutal years
Plus, a new MENA Academy roundup
Twelve years ago today, huge crowds took to the streets in Egypt demanding that President Mohammed el-Morsi step down from office. The Tamarod June 30 protests were n...
abuaardvarkghost.ghost.io
June 30, 2025 at 3:09 PM
On the twelfth anniversary of Sisi's coup in Egypt, a clear-eyed and depressing analysis by @abuaardvark.bsky.social