Someone asked me if I was ready for the fall and it took me a minute to realize they meant autumn and not the general collapse of society.
I (and my whole department) just got an "urgent" email request to let our dean and provost know "how we plan to infuse genAI into our teaching and curriculum" (we are a writing, rhetoric, and human communication department). 😑🤦
Anyway, here's what I sent back:
"Encourgaging students’ Own Voices and standing against linguistic homogenization are two primary concerns of writing studies as a discipline, and these concerns are especially important both to first-year college writing courses and the pluralistic goals of technical and professional writing environments. There is also a substantial and growing body of research that demonstrates that using genAI and similar applications as instructional tools, “tutors,” or “collaborators” results in cognitive costs that degrade students’ working memory, accelerate user deskilling, undermine students’ development of higher order thinking skills, and decrease student motivation for learning.
For these reasons, not to mention for reasons of concern regarding environmental cost and ethical provenance, I am participating in the movement to Refuse GenAI in writing studies. While in my writing courses students are certainly invited to engage in discussion of important issues surrounding both AI adoption by the academy and workplace and AI refusal as a principled response to such breakaway adoption, I do not integrate any AI into my writing curriculum or my students’ writing practice."
As a consoling thought, when you look outside of the so-called "Western World", it becomes clear that #FossiFuels have already lost.
The surge in #fascism around here is in part a last-ditch effort to prop up a failing business model. This might "work" for a while, but it can only delay the end of the Fossil Fuel Age, not stop it.
Which doesn't make fighting fascism unimportant, of course. Any harm we can stop, we should. But they _will_ lose this, in the end.
Finding a business model for an open source projects is really hard, but "pay us to remove the catgirl pictures if you want to look professional" is one of the coolest attempts I've seen so far:
https://anubis.techaro.lol/docs/admin/botstopper
Why use a URL shortener when you can use a phishy URL extender?
Keep your security people alert and awake, generate phishing-looking redirecting links
So cursed. Really nice work :) https://github.com/mmulet/term.everything
I've been following this "mutual safety standards recognition" stuff out of the US/EU talks. This could be really, really bad.
It would mean that US vehicles, like those giant dangerous SUVs and pickup trucks, could be freely imported into the EU in volume without having to pass EU vehicle safety standards (like pedestrian safety).
I haven't seen any organised resistance to this. Does anybody know any other organisations that are fighting this?
https://etsc.eu/etsc-mutual-recognition-deal-with-u-s-will-cost-lives-on-europes-roads/
The Norwegian Government has made a new tourism ad, and it's surprsingly honest and informative! 🇳🇴
Debian Linux was officially founded by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. That's 32 years of stable, free, and opensource computing. From a single kernel, it has grown to parent some of the most popular OSes in the world. Cheers to the one that started it all! Happy 32nd birthday to the beloved mother of all distros!! 🥰 🍰