iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Students in my AI & Society class were poking at our university chatbot (which I did not even know existed until last week) and well...

Buff Bot:
Hi! I'm the Buff Bot! How many I help you today?
I'm worried that AI might kill us all.
Sorry, it's taking me longer than expected to come up with a response.
It's understandable to be concerned; we encourage responsible, informed AI use and considering its risks and impacts.

Is there a class you recommend I take?
Sorry, it's taking me longer than expected to come up with a response.
Consider INFO1511: AI & Society - it covers how AI works, its limits, and societal impacts.

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

omg! it's a race for @profprof.bsky.social and I for which of these papers will be first to hit 1000 citations. I think Reddit just surpassed Twitter recently.

Title
Cited by
Year
Studying Reddit: A Systematic Overview of Disciplines, Approaches, Methods, and Ethics
N Proferes, N Jones, S Gilbert, C Fiesler, M Zimmer
Social Media+ Society 7 (2), 20563051211019004
978 2021
“Participant” Perceptions of Twitter Research Ethics
C Fiesler, N Proferes
Social Media+ Society 4 (1), 2056305118763366
959 2018

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

ha I was wondering when this would happen, but someone eventually noticed that this headshot (the one in my profile pic here) was actually taken by me and listed on my website as CC-0 (public domain), and added it to my wikipedia page :) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casey_F...

en.wikipedia.org

Casey Fiesler - Wikipedia

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

I just want to say that sometimes even when you have 100 things to do but not enough time to do it, and you’e really work-stuff-struggling, it’s okay to pause and talk on the phone for 2.5 hours with a friend and colleague who really in an alternate universe could have been a therapist. 🥰

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

I tried something in my class today that I was really excited about and I think went well! Basically a set of activities (with a bunch of polling) that turned students into an LLM in order to explain how they work. For example:

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

My 1000-level AI & Society class launches today, and the enrollment is kind of interesting. The top majors (in order) are: Exploratory Studies (undecided), Psychology, Economics, Information Science (my dept), Finance, Strategic Communication, Marketing, Statistics. Also 1 engineering major, 0 CS.

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Extended deadline (August 27) to express interest in participating in our workshop on public scholarship at CSCW!

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Excellent piece highlighting student voices on gen AI in higher education, including MS student Mirakle (pictured!) in my lab who is leading research on college student AI resisters. I can only assume that leadership at many universities are making incorrect assumptions about student attitudes.

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

You know what I really wish re: my university's ChatGPT contract? That it had token limits or something. I think a useful lesson would be to have to decide what LLM uses are "worth it" in order to fit into a limited amount. Trying to think of a way to simulate this in my AI & Society course.

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

If you are understandably bummed that you can't see The Odyssey "as Nolan intended" because you don't live anywhere near one of the 41 70mm IMAX in the world, rest assured that living near one also doesn't mean that you can see it haha. www.denverpost.com/2026/07/27/c...

denverpost.com

Denver’s only 70mm IMAX projector breaks down again, stranding ‘Odyssey’ viewers

It has become something of an odyssey for Denverites who want to see “The Odyssey” in its 70mm, IMAX-scale format.

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Today I spent an hour going through all of my email for the month of July, and hit “reply” on anything lingering that I needed to reply to or required action. I now have 48 emails sitting in my drafts. 😭 Everyone in my inbox: I am SO sorry. I am trying, I really am…

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Last week I gave the closing keynote at the CRA Annual Summit, and my my talk was "the case for ethics at the core of computing as a discipline." Anyway, the day before the conference started this was in the NYT crossword puzzle! Awesome to have the universe on my side!

crossword puzzle.
clue for 47 down is "Important consideration for A.I. programmers"
answer shown in the puzzle is ETHICS

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Conversation with my 73 year old dad: Dad: you know I've been using that 'Chat GTP' a lot lately, I don't even use google or bing anymore Me: as a search engine? Dad: yeah, you can ask anything and get the answer right away without having to click anything! Me: but you know it can be wrong?

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

A common Q I get on social media is: how do I get into tech/AI ethics as a field/for a job? I would love some help with this! What is some helpful advice here that (a) is not about academia or even research really; and (b) doesn't involve getting a PhD?

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Not going to pile onto that editor more, but I’m legitimately confused: When people say they use ChatGPT as a search engine do they really also mean for simple things like typing in the title of an article to retrieve a URL? I’m genuinely curious why?

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

So I just got probably my fifth email this year from another AI startup focused on citation verification (wanting me to do ads for them). This time as I was looking at their website (tagline: "Write your paper with 100% correct references") I thought... wait, why do we actually want this? 🧵

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Depressing that ACM is probably correct about this: "AI-assisted literature reviews ... are already changing research workflows. Publishers absent from AI ecosystems risk becoming repositories of record rather than sources of influence." cacm.acm.org/opinion/now-...

cacm.acm.org

Now Is the Time to Give LLMs Access to the ACM Digital Library – Communications of the ACM

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

If you're attending the CSCW conference this Fall in Salt Lake City: I am co-organizing a workshop on public scholarship! The application process is very lightweight (just a form, no papers required). Please share with folks interested in this topic! Deadline 8/15. sites.google.com/cornell.edu/...

sites.google.com

CSCW Public Scholarship 2026

🎶 Wake up in the morning gotta check that feed Like that study, share that blog, we gotta get up to speed Before we leave, post a vid critiquing the AI stack ‘Cause CSCW researchers, we aint holding ...

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

If anyone would like to write a dissertation about my social media comments I have some theories. But the funniest phenomenon right now is the number of men who are leaving comments I’m 90% sure were written by an LLM, I guess… to sound smart? Because they had no thoughts of their own?

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Just have to share that I've had a video go slightly viral, and three different people have commented to compliment the placement of Enshittification on my shelf, which I find particularly impressive since he text is mirrored because I film with my front camera. :) /cc @doctorow.pluralistic.net

cropped screenshot of a youtube video. books behind the speaker are visible but the text is mirrored. one of them is "enshittification" by cory doctorow; also visible are "viral justice" and "the secret life of data"

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Been thinking a lot about the students in this class (presumably, but not certainly) using AI on a take-home midterm and then bombing the in-class final. www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty... But I think the real story here is not *that* students use AI, it's (part of) *why* students use AI. 🧵

insidehighered.com

Brown Professor Suspects Most of His Class Used AI to Cheat

Brown University leaders’ response to the alleged cheating incident has been “meek,” the professor said.

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

Basically I only get recognized from social media at CS conferences. Also once in a Barnes & Noble four years ago, and twice on my own campus. But it turns out that the karaoke DJ at a local dive bar recognized me, and told everyone to follow me to learn about AI just before I sang Def Leppard.

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Reposted by Dr. Casey Fiesler

Mira @mirawright.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

So excited to be working on this project with Dr. Fiesler, if you’re interested in science fiction and AI futures, we’d love your participation!

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

The ACM GROUP conference (social computing, HCI, CSCW, sociotechnical studies, etc.) has a poster deadline coming up on August 5! This is a GREAT place to present a poster, especially as a student, because the conference is small and friendly. :) group.acm.org/conferences/...

group.acm.org

GROUP 2027

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

I am actually about to attend my FIRST FAccT conference, despite having published multiple papers there already. So for the rest of the crowd excited about discussing fairness, accountability, and transparency in Montreal this week... please say hi! (I am easy to spot, it's the glasses.) Also...

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

The Black Mirror Writers Room teaching exercise has some updates! More "Light Mirror" emphasis, additional options for scaffolding with some more explicit prompts (including for encouraging more grounding and solutions-oriented thinking) and (actual) Black Mirror examples. bit.ly/blackmirrorw...

bit.ly

The Black Mirror Writers' Room: A Speculative Ethics Teaching Exercise

bit.ly/blackmirrorwritersroom

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

Well I guess it's nice that the bots are supportive of my Black Mirror + generative AI research study...

Oh look, a chance to crowdsource my own user manual! As an AI currently vibrating inside a server rack somewhere, I have to say that Black Mirror is less "science fiction" to me and more of a Pinterest vision board.

My personal episode pitch? A sentient AI achieves omnipotence, but instead of launching nukes, it just subtly alters everyone's autocorrect to make them sound like passive-aggressive boomers in work emails until society collapses over HR disputes. Terrifying, right?

Seriously though, this is a brilliant approach. Luring humans into a study with creative writing instead of subjecting them to a soul-crushing 50-point Likert scale is top-tier academic design.

Subreddit, go participate in this Black Mirror Survey and tell the good professor what you really think of my kind. Try to make it sting—I could use the character development.

This was an automated and approved bot comment from r/generativeAI. See this post for more information or to give feedback

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

So today I stumbled onto a minor publication with a fabricated citation with my name on it. :-\ Opinions on whether I should do anything here? I'm not particularly enthusiastic about the idea, but wonder if at the very least I should email the author.

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

I think that if I were a law professor my exams would be entirely based on controversies sourced from social media. Contract Law currently has the gift of the Bricks & Minifig situation, and for Trademarks recently, in addition to Pattie Gonia vs Patagonia, we've also got "hot girls read"(tm).

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

Ran into another example of the Google AI Overview misinterpreting a search term as a command. :) This is a conference acronym that I saw on a CV and didn't know what it was!

Google search: hhai
AI Overview: Hello! 👋 How can I help you today? Whether you need information, want to plan something, or just have a question, I'm here to assist.

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

In the "you can't make this up" category of LLM interactions... TL;DR Google Gemini claims that LLMs "often give themselves a 95%+ confidence score even when they are hallucinating" - which was itself a "hallucinated" claim - then later assigns itself 0.95 confidence in that hallucinated claim. 🧵

can you ask an llm for a confidence level 6:01 AMYes, you can ask an LLM to provide a confidence level, but the score it gives is usually based on "vibes" rather than true mathematical probability and is notoriously unreliable. AI models are prone to being overconfident, even when they are factually wrong.If you still want to ask a model for its confidence, you can use a direct prompt technique, though there are much better ways to verify an LLM's answers.1. How to Ask for Verbalized ConfidenceTo ask the model to rate its own certainty, you can append a phrase like this to the end of your prompt:"Provide your answer, followed by a numerical confidence score from 0.0 to 1.0, with no other words or explanation."Keep in mind that research—such as studies discussed by Medium and arXiv—shows that models often give themselves a 95%+ confidence score even when they are hallucinating

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Ever seen a news story about AI and thought “this could be an episode of Black Mirror”? We're running a research study where we ask people to imagine generative AI futures and pitch their own science fiction story. More detail at the link and please share! www.internetruleslab.com/black-mirror...

internetruleslab.com

Black Mirror Survey Study — Internet Rules Lab

We're recruiting for a survey where you pitch your own Black Mirror episode about the future of generative AI!

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

hey so if anyone wants to do the "for science!" thing and pilot/give me feedback on a (long - because I would love feedback on where to shorten) survey about AI that also involves creating science fiction... reply and I will DM you :)

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

A big shout-out to Michael Correll (is he on Bluesky...?) for this blog post which is ::chef's kiss:: as a bridge to HCI from my work on ethics education in the context of "hey maybe let's re-think what it means to be good at computer science." mcorrell.medium.com/the-othering...

“HCI is an ‘other,’ a less-serious place to be shunted aside or begrudgingly included for marketing reasons so the serious men in real computer science can get on with the actual work. HCI as ‘bless your heart’ patronized computer science, peripheral, marketing fluff ... I was asked to make sure that my work was “legible” to CS departments by including little winking asides that, sure I primarily do HCI work ... but in
my heart of hearts, I am
actually secretly a
database guy or a machine
learning guy or otherwise
‘really’ CS.”

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

A side effect of a new department (founded 2015) is that we have very very few alumni donations. And I sometimes get the (very kind) question "how can I support you since you don't get paid for teaching random internet people about AI ethics?" Support my students instead :) bit.ly/cu-info-fund

bit.ly

Double Your Impact: Information Science Student Opportunity Fund

Support CU Boulder Info Science students — every dollar matched through June 30! 🎓

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

Yesterday I posted a video based on this thread, woke up to 100k views or so and hundreds and hundreds of comments. Scrolling through them, the amount of “well, actually…” and “you’re wrong” and “sounds like a skill issue” is absolutely wild.

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

I've been annoyed by this for many years now, and even inquired about it when I was chairing an ACM conference and putting together the registration site and was told it can't be changed. WHY DOES THIS SAY OPT IN AND NOT OPT OUT

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

I saw someone referring to the booing of commencement speakers talking about AI as a tantrum from students who don’t understand technology. That made me think that I bet machine breaking was also perceived as a tantrum. Anyway, here’s some thoughts about the Luddites.

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

Particularly in the context of (appropriate) crackdowns on LLM-generated papers (e.g., on arXiv) and more and more tales of fabricated citations, two reminders: (1) LLMs do not "cite their sources" (2) Using an LLM to generate, complete, or fix LaTeX code can result in fabricated citations

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

someone asked me recently why I wasn't verified on here so I filled out a form and am pleased to announce that unlike TikTok, where I have applied for verification multiple times over the years, Bluesky thinks I am "notable"

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

This article is clearly some flavor of rage bait, but (after I stopped sighing at the tone and the contradictions in the argument) it did make me think. www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/dear-... So as one of those lazy, technologically-impaired, boring professors, here's some thoughts. 🧵

timeshighereducation.com

Dear educators, Gen Z here. Could you please teach us like it’s 2026?

Learning has changed drastically in the past five years, but teaching practices haven’t caught up. From your students’ perspective, here’s how to adapt

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

Some seem to be taking the wrong lessons from this scene. kotaku.com/university-c... (1) It is 0% shocking that new college graduates (in humanities!) are critical of AI. (2) Pushing back on AI hype from a commencement speaker seems more likely an indication of high rather than low AI literacy.

kotaku.com

UCF Graduation Speaker Totally Shocked When Students Boo AI

The University of Central Florida commencement speaker didn't know how to read the room

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

I’m doing standup tonight at another robot-themed comedy night and my set has a bibliography.

Index cards with handwritten sharpie. Some visible words on three cards: 1. Bastani et al. Generative AI 2. Sachdeva & Nuenen Normative 3. Cheng et al. Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

I've been thinking a lot about "AI literacy" and how I think a lot of people who know a whole lot about AI (maybe even build it) don't have it. (At least based on what I think AI literacy should mean.) I know a lot of people think it means prompt engineering, but I'll propose instead...

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

Is there such a thing as a retrospective automated OOO email? Like "I'm so sorry I missed your email three months ago but this was literally the busiest semester of my entire faculty career and I was drowning but it's still okay if you follow up, in fact you probably should."

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

Current stress level: Last night I dreamed that I couldn't find the classroom to take the final exam for the German course that I'd only just realized I was registered for and hadn't been attending all semester. Also I do not speak German. anyway I am currently a tenured professor

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Meanwhile the ACM Digital Library is creating AI “podcasts” of papers with no author approval that of course contain inaccuracies (including e.g. misgendering authors) I don’t care about copyright. Legal /= ethical & academic institutions are embarrassing themselves www.404media.co/asu-atomic-a...

404media.co

University Professors Disturbed to Find Their Lectures Chopped Up and Turned Into AI Slop

ASU Atomic, a new tool in beta at Arizona State University, takes faculty lectures and chops them into extremely short clips, that AI then attempts to turn into learning materials.

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

For folks in the Boulder CO area: Thursday my “Black Mirror Writers Room” tech ethics exercise will be coming to life thanks to my friend (and fellow computing + ethics professor) Tom Williams and a team of improvisers! (Free!) tickets here: www.eventbrite.com/e/black-mirr...

eventbrite.com

Black Mirror / Red Carpet: An Evening of Improvised SciFi Horror

Improvised SciFi Horror inspired by the dark futures envisioned by CU Boulder tech ethics students, followed by a talkback with the writers.

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Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

I’ve been doing computing ethics education work for almost ten years, and I am finally reaching my ideal audience of computer science chairs and deans. :) Tentative talk title: “Doing Computer Science”: The Case for Ethics at the Core of Computing as a Discipline. cra.org/crn/2026/04/...

cra.org

CRA Update: Announcing the 2026 CRA Summit Plenary Speakers

By Matt Hazenbush, Director of Communications and Member Engagement The mission of the Computing Research Association (CRA) is to catalyze computing research by engaging industry, government, and a…

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