iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Alfie Kohn

Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

For a long time I've wanted a sense of how trump has or hasn't interacted with chatbots (we know he posts a lot of slop sure). And this TIME anecdote about Grok arguably leading Trump into war is just extremely bracing

Since returning to office, Trump has marveled at AI’s capabilities. He is increasingly in thrall to the tech executives courting him. In December 2025, Elon Musk returned to the Oval Office for a clandestine meeting. Trump spent hours asking Grok, Musk’s AI chatbot, questions about his presidency and legacy, according to an official present. At the time, Trump was ordering missile strikes against Venezuelan boats he alleged were smuggling drugs into the U.S. He asked Grok how Venezuelans would react if the U.S. captured Maduro. According to the official present, the chatbot responded that Maduro was a repressive and deeply unpopular dictator and that many Venezuelans would likely celebrate his downfall. After Trump ordered the mission to seize Maduro, the following month, celebrations broke out in the streets. Trump, according to officials, came away thinking Grok was ingenious.

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It's Abby. Yep @itsabbyyep.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

One huge problem with AI is that it was designed to have the ethics of a billionaire

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 6h

Reading for years about "content creators," I'd been silently mispronouncing the first word and wondering when we're going to hear about people who *aren't* so damn satisfied with whatever they came up with.

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 19h

Live by the asinine, arbitrary rankings that privilege the privileged & elevate winning over learning, die by the asinine, arbitrary rankings that privilege the privileged & elevate winning over learning. Zero sympathy for any educator who ever bragged about their USNWR score: tinyurl.com/cuthrnfv

tinyurl.com

U.S. News Shuffled Its N.Y. High School Rankings. An Uproar Ensued. (Gift Article)

After the New York State Education Department denied a request from U.S. News for A.P. scores, perennially top-ranked schools plummeted.

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

25+ years after the punitive testing regimen known as NCLB decimated our schools, especially in low-income neighborhoods, kids are still tested relentlessly. Fairtest.bsky.social 's Harry Feder and I explore the devastating effects in "Raising the Scores, Ruining the Schools" - tinyurl.com/5vyvkxjs

fairtest.bsky.social

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Google's "ubiquitous presence in US classrms through Chromebks & its software partnerships w/schls have provided a critical launchpad for its AI tools...[which have] helped push many students to become acad'ly & emotionally dependent on AI...'They're learning to regurgitate whatever AI tells them.'"

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

fairtest.bsky.social

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Security expert: "OpenAI's security seems to be about what you'd expect from...[a company] focused more on beating its competitors than securing its infrastructure." On the same pg of the paper, Mike Johnson & JD Vance are described as believing safeguards on AI "would hurt American competitiveness"

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

1/2 It's not just that AI hallucinates. It's that AI induces *us* to hallucinate as it "sustains, affirms & elaborates on our own delusional thinking & self-narratives...[Our] false beliefs can not only be affirmed but can more substantially take root & grow as the AI builds upon them": is.gd/cwb1Bj

is.gd

Researchers say AI chatbots may blur the line between reality and delusion

A new study suggests AI chatbots may do more than spread misinformation — they can actively strengthen a user’s false beliefs. Because conversational AI often validates and builds on what users say, i...

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Reposted by Alfie Kohn

Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I know this is shocking, but it never seems to work out for them when Republicans bring right-wing internet conspiracies into courtrooms or committee hearings where the opposition actually gets to see their “evidence” and respond to it. They fare much better with the cultists on X.

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Taking a walk outside entails a fair amount of effort, so I've decided to optimize my enjoyment of nature by dispatching a robot to walk for me and present me with a summary of the weather, the terrain, and a list of which flowers are in bloom

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

1/2 From sociologist Robert Bellah et al., a timely observation (but a tough sell in a society preoccupied with self-sufficiency): "Education can never merely be for the sake of individual self-enhancement. It pulls us into the common world or it fails altogether."

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Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

If you put Republicans in charge of the presidency, they blame Congress for their failures. If they also control Congress, they blame the courts. If they control the courts, they blame their state. If they control their state, they blame a secret shadowy deep state, NGOs & media.

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

You may call it a "class reunion"; I call it a gathering of old people who happen to have the same names as kids I went to school with.

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Brian C. Keegan, Ph.D. @brianckeegan.com · 27/09/2026

These boys have a very promising future waiting for them headlining Turning Point USA conferences and writing in the NYTimes and Atlantic about campus cancel culture run amok.

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Absolutely right, as is the 3rd post in this thread. Current bipartisan acceptance of the SOR propaganda campaign's claims about reading instruction echoes bipartisan acceptance 25 years ago of NCLB (punitive high-stakes testing) - in both cases, rubber-stamped by mainstream media.

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Those woke liberals want to take "equity" into consideration, but we conservatives say no because we insist that all such decisions be based purely on merit. (See also: Murdoch's sons, Lindsey Graham's sister, etc., etc.)

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Forgive me this semantic quibble, but a "masterclass" is a specific event in which selected students (musicians, actors, etc.) perform individually in front of an eminent person in their field, who then offers feedback. The word does not mean "any extremely impressive example of something."

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

cc: that friend of yours who needs *one more reason* to stop using Facebook, Insta, or Whatsapp

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

For some reason this thoughtful paragraph by Ian Bogost makes me think about A.I.

Optimization is terrific if you want to get somewhere else in the future. But it's terrible for being where you actually are right now. When goals overtake experience, you lose the freedom to encounter your lfe as it happens. And when you lose tha ability, you are no longer living in full. We used to optimize work so we could do everything else. Now we optimize life as though living were another job. Too many of us seem to be maxxing our way out of the experiences and perspectives that give us maximum meaning.

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

1/2 I've argued that one way to frame good parenting is as a quest to raise a human being who is as unlike Trump as possible (www.alfiekohn.org/article/untr...). But now I'm thinking that Trump can be a useful point of reference - a cautionary tale - for academics and writers, too...

bit.ly

Raising an UnTrump

SALON August 27, 2017 Raising an UnTrump By Alfie Kohn When the words “Trump” and “children” appear in the same sentence, it’s often because the writer is trying to figure out how to protect the…

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

According to a consortium of schools, U.S. News & World Report is now only the country's 4,879th best magazine.

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Tech columnist Kevin Roose: A.I. execs "are not plowing ahead without regard for the consequences of their actions....Many of them are genuinely fearful that the technology they're building could imperil or disempower humanity, and have chosen to build it anyway."

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

My theory is that on some level they're uncomfortable with their own bigotry, so they try to rationalize it by inventing a reality in which the people they despise are threatening them. Same with the myth that gay people are groomers (looking for converts) and Black men are all after "our" women.

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

"I don't know how much longer I'll be able to continue making a fortune by voluntarily staying at a company that is barreling full-speed ahead with something most of us believe will have catastrophic consequences."

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Two more illustrations today of what people who proudly announce they "stand with Israel" actually stand for.

@ Peter Link: Israel Blocking Hundreds of Wheelchairs for Injured Children From Entering Gaza
More than 11,000 children have severe life-changing injuries, including thousands who have had limbs amputated as a result of Israel's assault on Gaza.
Common Dreams headline:
Israel Blocking Hundreds of Wheelchairs for Injured Children From Entering Gaza

Israeli President Pardons Ex-Soldier Over Killing of Incapacitated Palestinian

In 2016, Elor Azaria killed a Palestinian attacker who had been injured, fueling a public debate both at home and abroad over lsracli military actions.

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

To defend the use of AI for teaching or evaluating writing is to admit "you have given up on the work of education. You are now in the 'automated batch processing of student units' business. If the writing experience can be graded by AI, it's not an experience worth doing" - @biblioracle.bsky.social

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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Everything the pro-Trump billionaire Ellison family will now own: Paramount+ CBS CNN Showtime HBO Warner Bros TNT TBS MTV DC Studios Nickelodeon Comedy Central And more... With this comes the power to decide which stories get told, but more importantly, which stories DON'T get told. Shameful.

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Susan Neiman, author of “Call It Evil,” argues that many institutions capitulated to the Trump regime because of a tendency to regard virtue as naïve: “When self-interest becomes the basis of reason, evil no longer needs to justify itself. It’s already been mistaken for rationality.”

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Reposted by Alfie Kohn

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

It's jaw-dropping how often Republicans rationalize the toddler president's tantrums with "well, our special little boy felt like people were being mean to him, so it's certainly understandable that he set the room on fire"

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

My Democrat opponent has been caught on tape suggesting that immigrants and trans people are human beings. I'm obviously running against a radical Communist extremist. So if your state still allows people like you to vote, choose me to save America. I'm Theo Kraddick, and I approve this message.

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Adolph and I have our disagreements, sure, but we've joined forces today to show our shared support for cats.

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

1/2 Thinking about rules for A.I. use in schools, I found myself recalling Dave Barry's three-part summary of the Monroe Doctrine: 1. Other nations are NOT ALLOWED to mess around with the internal affairs of nations in this hemisphere. 2. But we are. 3. Ha-ha-ha.

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Just as the NY Times has taught us that children in Gaza always die in "clashes" or "conflicts" (never by being killed by Israel soldiers), so buildings there are only destroyed by "war."

NYT headline: "At Least 21 Die in Collapse of One of Many War-Damaged Buildings in Gaza" -- which has been edited to read "...One of Many Civilian Buildings in Gaza Bombed by Israel"

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

The same right-wing bros who were determined to dismantle vital government agencies and services are equally enthused about *adding* A.I. Does that tell us anything about A.I.?

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

No, stress does not bring out the best in people. In fact, research suggests that "accountability" demands on teachers are as counterproductive as pushing students hard to succeed academically. Hear more on the latest episode of Kohn's Zone: "Caution: Contents Under Pressure": tinyurl.com/5vyvkxjs

alfiekohn.org

Podcast

The Work Of Alfie Kohn

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Note how the US military's dangerous, provocative decision to be the first to put weapons in space is depicted as motivated by concern that another country might do so: tinyurl.com/2we3z9ns. Everything we do is defensive by definition. If Russia had gone first, would the framing have been the same?

tinyurl.com

U.S. Has Deployed Weapons in Space, Air Force Secretary Says (Gift Article)

Troy E. Meink’s comments were the first public acknowledgment of American weapons in orbit. The Pentagon has been preparing for potential conflict in space with Russia or China.

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Annie Dillard (1945-2026) on writing: “You don’t do it from willpower [but] from an abiding passion” - like parenting: “If you have a little baby crying in the middle of the night, and you depend only on willpower to get you out of bed to feed the baby, that baby will starve. You do it out of love.”

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Must-read essay by an Israeli human-rights activist about the way language employed by Israel and its defenders is used to bolster "a project of supremacy, dispossession, and elimination" of Palestinians by camouflaging what's going on and the human costs: tinyurl.com/462c54fx

The language I grew up with did not require me to deny Palestinian suffering. I could acknowledge it, even be horrified by it, while still regarding the system that produced it as fundamentally legitimate. Today, after years of deepening dehumanization, Palestinian suffering is simply ignored in much of Israeli public discourse. That is why the language of those who live under this system matters so much. The people who witness, endure and survive under that power can describe what their lives look like: unprotected, shaped by fear, vulnerability and uncertainty.

The word we settled on to describe what these seemingly separate acts add up to is “elimination.” The logic of elimination does not require every Palestinian to disappear. It seeks to make Palestinian collective life increasingly impossible while securing permanent Israeli Jewish control. In Gaza, the logic of elimination has taken its most extreme form: genocide. In the West Bank, it dismantles the conditions that allow Palestinians to remain on their land and live as a society and a people.
And yet, even as Israel states its goals openly, international governments and institutions keep recasting those aims in conventional political language: a conflict to be managed, an occupation expected to end, an extremist government that needs to be restrained. That reframing lets governments condemn violence without confronting the system behind it. It lets them remain within a reassuring political story, rather than facing their obligations under international law and exerting the sustained pressure it would take to reverse it. It obscures the larger reality: a new phase of the political project to make Israeli Jewish control permanent while dismantling the conditions for Palestinian collective life.

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 15/09/2026

“trump will destroy everything he cannot own in perpetuity” is one reason i am filled with dread over 2028

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

In a rational society, something as problematic - and as potentially devastating - as AI would of course be strictly regulated by the government. But we're still in thrall to Reagan-era free-market ideology that leaves for-profit companies to police themselves. Laissez-faire dogma could kill us all.

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Apart from the psychological harms, can pressure to succeed - and a "no pain, no gain" ethic - actually make students (or, for that matter, teachers) perform better? Not really. Moreover, internal pressure can be as bad as external. Hear why on the latest episode of Kohn's Zone: tinyurl.com/5vyvkxjs

tinyurl.com

Podcast

The Work Of Alfie Kohn

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

tinyurl.com

Podcast

The Work Of Alfie Kohn

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

"People don't resist change. People resist being changed." -Peter Scholtes (author, "The Leader's Handbook")

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