Sign in

Will Robertson

@anthrowill.bsky.social
99 followers 126 following 44 posts

Critical medical anthropologist focusing on LGBTQ+ health and wellbeing, arts and health, and critical AI studies in the US . 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ All views posted are my own. Website: anthrowill.com Blog: notebook.anthrowill.com

PostsRepliesMedia
Will Robertson @anthrowill.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
There it is. The day it happened many of us called it that some shit like this would come out and nothing he was doing was genuine. Corporate media ate that garbage up without a second thought while those of us paying even a little bit of attention saw right through it. These people are FREAKS.
010
Reposted by Will Robertson
Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 29/09/2026
Reuters got some of the IPO docs. Anthropic is a total dog of a company. Spent $12.6bn to make $4.6bn in revenue in 2025, $7.33bn of which was compute costs. Operating loss of $8bn. Losses getting worse year over year. Amazing stuff www.reuters.com/business/fin...
Summary
Companies
• Anthropic IPO could value the company at more than $2
trillion
• Anthropic lost $42 billion in 2025
• Al lab spent $7.33 billion on compute and infrastructure last year
• Operating loss widened to $8.06 billion in 2025 from $2.98 billion in 2024
• Execs, industry analysts have expressed concerns over harms of Al tech
Sept 28 (Reuters) - Anthropic is making a massive bet that Al will transform the global economy more profoundly than industrialization, electricity and the internet, according to its IPO prospectus seen by Reuters.
But the cost to get there will be staggering. Anthropic reported a net loss of $42 billion in 2025, and plans to spend $518 billion on cloud, computing and infrastructure obligations in coming year, according to the
prospectus.
17241251380
Will Robertson @anthrowill.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Another day, another institution ignoring systemic problems with sexual assault.
cornellsun.com
EDITORIAL | Cornell Won’t, We Will
The Editorial Board demands that Cornell stops protecting the alleged Chi Phi rapists through the University's opaque sexual assault policies.
000
Will Robertson @anthrowill.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Hey, look! The sociology report has basically the same errors with methodological rigging as I posted about on my blog today re: the anthropology report by Henrich. It's almost as if all these people screeching about rigor don't know what that word means!
190
Will Robertson @anthrowill.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Spent yesterday working on a detailed critique of some of the "methods" that Joseph Henrich used in his recently released report attacking sociocultural anthropology. He was the sole anthropologist involved with the Vanderbilt Report. It's long, but the more I looked the more issues I noticed.
notebook.anthrowill.com
Rigor for thee, but not for me! – Notebook
2216
Reposted by Will Robertson
Cordelia Fine @cordeliafine.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I reviewed A Billion Years of Sex Differences: How Evolution Shaped the Minds Of Men and Women, by evolutionary psychologist Steve Stewart-Williams, for The Conversation. theconversation.com/how-has-evol...
theconversation.com
How has evolution shaped men’s and women’s minds? A new book tells an outdated story
Psychologist Steve Stewart-Williams’ third book about evolutionary psychology is A Billion Years of Sex Differences: How Evolution Shaped the Minds of Men and Women.
1194
Reposted by Will Robertson
Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
the postwar university for all its problems worked according to a pretty complex balance of cultural and economic capital with other kinds thrown in, but it looks like we can simplify our Bourdieu for the phase of neoliberal higher ed we’re in now, where the only thing that matters, ever, is money
Diagram of Bourdieu’s four fold grid of forms of capital — Economic, Cultural, Social, and Symbolic, showing all of them crossed out except for Economic, which is now the only form recognized by the neoliberal university
27023
Will Robertson @anthrowill.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
There needs to be a Poe's Law but for AI hype. I could not tell based on the tagline "It also required my most personal data, and trust" if this was satire or not. Definitely a "hahahahaha!!! Oh, you're serious?!" moment for me. I hate this timeline.
nytimes.com
I Gave My Life Over to Meta’s A.I. Agent and Was Blown Away
Muse, Meta’s A.I. agent, helped handle my dental insurance, booked dinner reservations and created a podcast for me. It also required my most personal data, and trust.
000
Reposted by Will Robertson
Yell In a War @jelenawoehr.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
it really needs to be more openly discussed that all the people advocating for “we should be fine with losing basic skills if we get more systems thinking” are men, meaning socialized to expect to be able to offload basic tasks of daily living onto a wife as part of their compensation for existing
201324509
Will Robertson @anthrowill.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Well that was one of the stupidest fucking things I've ever laid eyes on.
nytimes.com
Opinion | Jensen Huang Thinks A.I. Alarmism Has Gone Too Far
Jensen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, does not want you to be afraid of A.I.
000
Reposted by Will Robertson
AP Stylebook @apstylebook.com · 23/09/2026
Artificial intelligence systems do not think, feel, want or understand. Avoid language that gives them human characteristics.
apnews.com
https://apnews.com/article/openai-safety-ai-framework-089e75b95bc935af092da7b79d92706d
5542231617
Reposted by Will Robertson
Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 24/09/2026
I think that he should've had Altman arrested for running a company committing cybercrimes
261053179
Will Robertson @anthrowill.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Joseph Henrich's report--sorry, Claude's report with Henrich's name on it--detailing all the supposed evidence about anthropology that was left out of the Vanderbilt report was released. It is, to put it nicely, AI slop. No details about methods or the choices that were made collecting "evidence."
111
Reposted by Will Robertson
Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 23/09/2026
Here's a listing of all the right-wing humanities academic jobs that have been advertised so far this 2026-2027 hiring season. Suffice to say, conservative investment in the university humanities is not being matched by the peer-reviewed humanities community: asheeshksi.substack.com/p/tracking-c...
asheeshksi.substack.com
Tracking Civic Thought Hiring in the 2026-2027 Academic Job Cycle
I wanted to put together a post that tracks how right-wing civic thought programs have rapidly been taking over the academic hiring space in the humanities, especially in fields like history (mostly A...
25020
Reposted by Will Robertson
Becca Lewis @beccalew.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
👀👀👀👀 fnl.mit.edu/how-we-learn...
fnl.mit.edu
How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Campus Surveillance – MIT Faculty Newsletter
47030
Reposted by Will Robertson
Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 22/09/2026
Free newsletter: I estimate that ~50% of AI chip sales - $200bn to $300bn+ - are sitting in warehouses, with NVIDIA selling hundreds of billions of GPUs years in advance. Data centers take way longer to build than hyperscalers are leading us to believe. www.wheresyoured.at/wherere-all-the-ai-chips/
wheresyoured.at
https://www.wheresyoured.at/wherere-all-the-ai-chips/
If you liked this piece, you should subscribe to my premium newsletter, and you can subscribe on the following links: $70 a year, $18 a quarter, or $7 a month. In return you get a weekly premium…
29839214
Will Robertson @anthrowill.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
"Young said trusting Elon Musk, founder of SpaceXAI, is not important if it can bring more money and resources to Memphis." Just in case anyone was curious how things are going in Memphis with our mayor who invited the national guard in and ignores the community about SpaceXAI.
actionnews5.com
Memphis mayor responds to criticism over data centers
Memphis Mayor Paul Young says he agrees with residents who are pushing for a tougher approach to data center development and SpaceXAI, but said he cannot speak out publicly as much as he wants.
111
Will Robertson @anthrowill.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
21 paragraphs of whining about people trying to find ways to work around the ubiquity of LLM cheating, and how that will mean no more long-form writing from students. Not a single solution offered. But hey glad you got to do some long-form writing I guess.
insidehighered.com
The Cures for AI Are Killing the Humanities (opinion)
The retreat from take-home essays jeopardizes the future of the humanities.
100
Will Robertson @anthrowill.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
The LLM millenarianism is exhausting, y'all. I feel like I'm watching a mass psychosis.
000
Reposted by Will Robertson
Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 18/09/2026
It's pick your poison between TESCREAL billionaires folks. We have Sanders' advisors: funded by likes of Jaan Tallinn who led Anthropic's series A & other friends on the "left" wing Marc Andreessen, Palantir folks etc on the "centrist" wing writing our bills. www.levernews.com/big-ais-favo...
NEW: in the coming weeks, House Democrats are going to unveil an AI policy response. It’ll be decided by a Jeffries appointed commission stacked with members funded by the AI industry including Ron Conway and Leading the Future PAC led by OpenAI, A16z and Palantir's Joe Lonsdale


Screenshot of article:

Big AI’s Favorite Democrats Are Writing The Party’s AI Plan

Hakeem Jeffries’ five-member AI commission is stacked with lawmakers backed by industry super PACs seeking to shape federal policy.
9330114
Reposted by Will Robertson
Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 14/09/2026
Cis people do not understand how much trans people's rights have regressed in just 5 years. 5 years ago, there were none of these restrictions. 19 states banned legal recognition 21 states have bathroom bans 8 states ban gender marker changes on DLs 25 ban gender affirming care for trans youth
11077423611
Reposted by Will Robertson
Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 15/09/2026
Has anyone considered orienting college education around the practice of sitting together and discussing real books, read on paper? www.nytimes.com/2026/09/15/u...
nytimes.com
Universities Sound Warnings About A.I. Even as They Embrace It
As A.I. upends education, university leaders have been all over the map about how to respond. It can be very confusing for students.
317028
Reposted by Will Robertson
Holly Dunsworth @dunsworth.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Penultimate post! Harari argues against biological patriarchy, but no one seems to notice AND he cites nothing and no one, So someone's gotta say it: Only a man could float a reference-free argument against biological patriarchy in a science book. ecodevoevo.blogspot.com/2026/09/sapi...
ecodevoevo.blogspot.com
Sapiens, Ch. 8: "unfounded myths rather than biological facts" about race, sexuality, sex, and gender
This is my penultimate post about the book   Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind .  For some reason, the previous post felt like rock bot...
265
Reposted by Will Robertson
Ken Burnside @kenburnside.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
The economists and boring people who study cash flow are saying: AI is a bubble, its burst is imminent, and it's going to wash away most of economic growth of the last decade when it happens. The historians are saying: What they said. Don't ask AI how to make guillotines. Use primary sources.
28818
Reposted by Will Robertson
Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 11/09/2026
Holy shit. Bloomberg just verified one of my biggest scoops - that Microsoft only has 2gw of operational capacity. I had it at 1.993GW in prep for the story that @aishadown.bsky.social and I did for the guardian. Vindication! www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Brody Ford @BrodyFord
Lot of speculation out there about how many GPUs are actually deployed.
Today, Microsoft has about 2GW of Al-specific capacity live. around 17% of the total fleet.
Only about 2 gigawatts of the company's current 12-gigawatt capacity is centered on Al-specific chips, the people said. This is expected to grow to about a third of the 38 gigawatts Microsoft plans to have online in 2032, they said.
Brody Ford @BrodyFord_ • 23h
scoop: Microsoft is planning a massive expansion of its data center fleet to 38 gigawatts. $msft w/ @mattmday bloomberg.com/news/features/...
3:15 PM • Sep 11, 2026 • 12.5K Views



1,993,608.00
W


MW


GW





Are Microsoft's AI
plans being held back by a shortage of chips?
Guardian investigation finds
apparent discrepancy between what tech company has said about its AI capacity - and the
number of advanced chips it
has in operation
By Aisha Down and Ed Zitron
A Microsoft datacentre in the North Holland village of
Middenmeer in the Netherlands. Photograph: Ramon van
Flymen/EPA
251938362
Will Robertson @anthrowill.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
It feels impossible to push back against the deluge of uncritical "reporting" and reactions to this garbage. I am so grateful for Ed Zitron's coverage of and critical positionality against all this garbage LLM criti-hype.
218021
Reposted by Will Robertson
Emily PhD 🎓 @ejwillingham.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Shallow revisionist nonsense and a fallacious comparison intended to gild the outlook for GenAI trash that represents the nonexistent as reality & lifeless artificiality as human. These media were conduits for messy, authentic, dynamic *humanity* and deep community building
0154
Reposted by Will Robertson
Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 10/09/2026
This Jacob Coxon thing is weird. He worked at Anthropic for six weeks and OpenAI for nearly three years. He’s doing a whole media tour without any real statements about what it is he’s scared of other than vague references to recursive self improvement, a theoretical ai that teaches itself.
471406264
Will Robertson @anthrowill.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Yet another techbro publicly announces his departure from an LLM company along with his message about how dangerous it is, and of course the media and most of the public eat it up uncritically. But while everyone is freaking out about some imaginary future, they are causing immense harm NOW.
100
Reposted by Will Robertson
Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 25/08/2026
Today's newsletter is the AI Hater's Manifesto - where generative AI fails technically, economically, and morally. From its ever-changing products and rate limits to its ever-increasing demands for trillions of dollars, LLMs exhaust everything they touch. www.wheresyoured.at/the-ai-hater...
12843217
Reposted by Will Robertson
Jon Phillips @jowiph.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Imo the heavy-handedness is part of the point. Mamdani's been waging a campaign to make government interventions more visible and legible to the general public, which is good in its own right. Hiding efforts behind subsidies and tax breaks just mean people think their government isn't doing anything
1185
Reposted by Will Robertson
Quinta Jurecic @qjurecic.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
It makes sense that the far right loves the idea that trans girls can overpower cis girls, because that naturally follows from the position that cis women are inherently weak. The fact that people nominally on the left adopt this position, and claim it to be feminist, is somewhat more puzzling
541150213
Reposted by Will Robertson
Samuel Moyn @samuelmoyn.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Devastating www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...
bostonreview.net
The Wrong Way to Criticize the Humanities
A recent report, commissioned by the chancellors of Vanderbilt and Washington University, invites further intrusions on scholarly self-governance.
03114
Reposted by Will Robertson
Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 30/06/2026
Today's newsletter is about how the AI industry is losing - its economics don't work, its leaders can only sell its product through swindling and egregious forward-looking statements, and the largest financial institutions in the world are wising up. www.wheresyoured.at/the-ai-industry-is-losing/
wheresyoured.at
The AI Industry Is Losing
If you liked this piece, you should subscribe to my premium newsletter. It’s $70 a year, or $7 a month, and in return you get a weekly newsletter that’s usually anywhere from 5,000 to 18,000 words, in...
221061285
Reposted by Will Robertson
Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
"Why Does a Suspected Anti-Muslim Attack Barely Make the News?" Zeteo UK's Shehab Khan on the double standards from politicians & the media when it comes to attacks on Muslims. No front page headlines on Edinburgh; no Cobra meeting; no sustained outrage. Read/share/subscribe:
zeteo.uk
Why Does a Suspected Anti-Muslim Attack Barely Make the News?
The political and media reaction to a knife-wielding man allegedly attacking Muslims in Edinburgh raises uncomfortable questions about whose safety Britain takes seriously.
551111335
Will Robertson @anthrowill.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
Been seeing this misinformation circulating around a lot today in many anti-AI circles. Folks, we do not need to resort to this. Attack them for the insane shit they actually say and do because it is already horrific enough.
wionews.com
Fact check: Did Jeff Bezos say human use of water is slowing down AI? Here is what we found
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is going viral for allegedly saying that human use of water is slowing down the growth of AI. However, it is a fake statement and completely fabricated. We heard the conferen...
000
Will Robertson @anthrowill.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Well if this isn't the biggest piece of shit I've seen out of this rag since ... last week. I guess MLK was a divisive "activist" not a uniting "citizen," since apparently those are mutually exclusive. 🙄 Nothing says "I've never talked or engaged with activism in my life" like this garbage.
001
Reposted by Will Robertson
Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 19/06/2026
The goal of the Vanderbilt report is: provide ideological cover to the existing plan to defund the history and English departments and replace them with right-wing civic centers by recycling old, discredited culture war lies harpers.org/archive/2026...
harpers.org
Republican Machines, by Ann Manov
Can the GOP save the humanities?
0217
Will Robertson @anthrowill.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
The incomparable biocultural anthropologist Jon Marks (@jontheanthroman.bsky.social) wrote this excellent response to the Vanderbilt report, taking a different tack than other responses by asking the question that is the title of the post.
anthropomics2.blogspot.com
Why Is Anthropology So Threatening to Reactionaries (and morons)?
I came to the party a bit late, but after reading the infamous “ Report on the State of Scholarship in the Humanities and Humanistic Socia...
093
Will Robertson @anthrowill.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Don't have money to pay adjuncts or grad students a living wage, but they can always find money for their admin bullshit. What a joke.
insidehighered.com
Universities Hiring Student Expression Specialists
The new staff members will focus on creating, explaining and enforcing college speech policies following years of escalating campus protest activity.
000
Reposted by Will Robertson
Current Affairs @currentaffairs.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
1154
Will Robertson @anthrowill.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Real happy that our city "leaders" decided to let this crap in so that folks in Boxtown suffer illness so Trump could bomb elementary schools and other civilian infrastructure in Iran for no reason other than he's a fascist warmonger who let Netanyahu steer his foreign policy decisions. 🤮
wreg.com
Memphis supercomputer powered Iran war effort, agency says as it tries to halt lawsuit
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Federal agencies are trying to stop a lawsuit against xAI’s Colossus supercomputers in Memphis, saying the technology was used in recent military operations in Iran and is cr…
000
Reposted by Will Robertson
Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
The AAUP chapters at Vanderbilt & Wash U have issued a joint statement denouncing the “State of Scholarship” report commissioned by their chancellors. Please, let’s make this as widely read as the gaslighting to which it responds.
Joint Statement on the "State of Scholarship" Report
The Vanderbilt University and Washington University chapters of the American Association of University Professors express our profound disagreement with the "State of Scholarship" report commissioned by our universities' chancellors. The report distorts the state of humanistic and social scientific scholarship at our universities and in the academy overall. Worse, it proposes a shocking intrusion of university administration into faculty governance and portends greater threats to academic freedom that should concern all faculty.
The report currently appears on Vanderbilt's website under the insignia of both Vanderbilt and Washington Universities. It is already receiving public condemnation. As the American Council of Learned Societies makes clear, the report is founded on false premises and anecdotal evidence and thus does nothing to "ensure deeper and more meaningful relations among scholars and members of the public." No doubt more rebuttals from scholars, departments, and professional societies will follow. It suffices for us to say that the report falls far short of the standards of political neutrality and disinterested inquiry it claims to champion. Historians, literary scholars, and anthropologists are singled out for caricature while the authors fail to acknowledge their own public biases against scholarship performed in the name of social justice. Nor does the report divulge its source of funding or conflicts of interest that may entail - standard practice for any work of humanistic or social scientific scholarship. In sum, the report is itself a clear example of "politicized" research that its authors attempt to decry.
What is most alarming is the guidance the report offers to its intended audience of university chancellors and presidents. By falsely arguing that humanities and social science departments are in the throes of an epistemological crisis, the authors lay the groundwork for university adminis…Weakening faculty governance does nothing to solve the real challenges facing our universities, and undermines our ability to effectively address society's most profound problems and challenges, from the inequalities of wealth and white supremacy to the political consequences of climate change.
Indeed, the direst threats to public trust in higher education are not philosophical debates about the nature of truth. Currently, the federal government is dramatically cutting funding for the humanities and social sciences as well as for the natural sciences, engineering, medicine, public health, and the arts. In response, university administrations have instituted austerity measures, even as administrative salaries and administrative positions have taken up an increasing share of decreasing budgets.
The best way for scholars to cultivate diverse opinions and advance knowledge is by strengthening academic freedom. Political threats to higher education have degraded, and will continue to degrade, the quality of all fields of our universities' research, to the detriment of America's global standing.
We note that the organizations now working most actively and successfully to defend academic free inquiry from politicized federal interference are not university leaders but the American Council of Learned Societies, the Modern Language Association, and the American Historical Association - professional societies of the very disciplines chastised by the report.
We call on our chancellors to rescind the report and affirm their commitment to the intellectual autonomy of faculty, academic departments, and governing faculty bodies. Administrative interference into academic departments, as licensed by this report, is a violation of the standards of academic freedom that have made American universities the envy of the world. Rather than undermining these bedrock principles, administrators should vigorously and publicly defend them.
Vanderbilt University AAUP
vanderbiltaaup@gmail.com
Wa…
5439246
Reposted by Will Robertson
Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 15/06/2026
Free newsletter: AI's business model is inherently broken. Both OpenAI and Anthropic are discussing potential price cuts to to the cost of their models for enterprises as they allow their subscription users to burn $8k to $14k in tokens for $200 a month. www.wheresyoured.at/brokenomics/
wheresyoured.at
AI's Brokenomics
If you liked this piece, you should subscribe to my premium newsletter. It’s $70 a year, or $7 a month, and in return you get a weekly newsletter that’s usually anywhere from 5,000 to 18,000 words, in...
21806183
Will Robertson @anthrowill.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
The academy has never been apolitical. Also, reading this prompted me to wonder: what example(s) of “objective” cultural anthropological scholarship would these people claim as evidence supporting their bs? I’m pretty familiar with the history of anthro & there’s nothing that comes to mind.
insidehighered.com
The Question Haunting the Vanderbilt/Wash U Report (opinion)
A new report criticizes a turn toward politicized scholarship in the humanities. But could it be that a more diverse academy is asking different questions?
100
Will Robertson @anthrowill.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
Bezos-owned capitalist propaganda rag WaPo publishing bullshit lies from one of the Vanderbilt authors. Shockerrrrrr! 🙄
washingtonpost.com
Opinion | These academic disciplines risk forgetting their core task
Some academics don’t believe in truth. What are they researching for?
000
Reposted by Will Robertson
Rosemary Joyce @rajoyce.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
Anthropological research on subsistence is offered in the dangerous and authoritarian “report” on the humanities as a key example of supposed ideological weakening of scholarship. This critique begins to show how the key example cited actually proves the opposite. Let’s go into it in some depth 1/
insidehighered.com
Academic Authoritarianism in New Attack on Humanities Scholars
There is virtually no evidence offered in the report for its sweeping conclusions about the entirety of the humanities.
213471
Reposted by Will Robertson
Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽 @needhibhalla.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
That the authors explicitly question “gender as a spectrum” and defend the “gender binary” to make their argument presents a clear link between the attack on the humanities and the attack on science
1269
Reposted by Will Robertson
Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa @benjaminschultzfig.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
What's so insidious about this is that it's cloaked in the language of reestablishing academic rigor and standards even as they do not feel beholden to these things. Is their report peer-reviewed? No. Is it rigorously factual? Also no. Are its methods clear and accessible? Haha. No.
313248
Will Robertson @anthrowill.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
Excellent response by Augustin Fuentes to the incredibly vapid nonsense in the Vanderbilt report. He is a biological anthropologist who has written extensively on topics the report misrepresents and very easily takes down their bullshit claims about anthropology.
chronicle.com
Opinion | McCarythism Dressed Up as an Academic Report
We should not be distracted by the bogeyman of social-justice scholarship.
051