iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

More in the spirit of telling people on here when I'm teaching with their materials: Monday my AI in Fact and Fiction class is discussing @samtasticbooks.com's The Rabbit Test in our continuing discussions of data and surveillance!

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Yes, that was true, but my memory is that the Patriot Act undid it and we all rebelled about it and not enough people cared. Almost all the surveillance badness we have is traceable back to the Patriot Act, in my experience!

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So I have my AI students do an assignment where they count surveillance cameras in a location of their choosing so we can talk about the ways data is aquired and used, and one student counted 65 cameras in our tiny SLAC library. THE LIBRARY. I haven't confirmed yet but MY GOD.

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Yeah, I worry about how much I don't always love being around people but if the vibe is "everyone leaves everyone alone" and there's music to drown out all people's annoying habits then I think I could still be down with it

Me to the dog: should we drug you today so you don't bite my friend tomorrow? Everybody loves drugs! Drugs are great! My tween, without looking up from his video game: you're sending me some very mixed messages right now.

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Anthony Moser @anthonymoser.com · 03/10/2026

Blame translation problems and rename it!

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Reposted by Robin Z

i'm hearing computers are able to do math now and this is supposed to be sufficiently impressive that i forget ai companies are fully part of the fascist project

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I'll jump on the North American branch of this!

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Also on this note, I should mention my senior capstone students just finished @tonychemero.bsky.social's Intertwined Creatures and one wrote "where has Chemero's work been all my life" so I'm really pleased with my students this year, obvs!

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yeah mum is the word on that!!

An interesting side-product of @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social sending US folks to Blackwells online for his books is that I've also discovered Blackwells online will ship overseas to me for even better prices than amazon in many cases (and they have lovely UK editions of things I can't otherwise get!)

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I haven't seen this! Thanks!

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Be Good for Goodness’ Sake

I like to tell people on here when I'm teaching with their materials so this is my yearly reminder that my AI in Fact and Fiction class is reading @timmaughan.bsky.social's "Be Good For Goodness' Sake" today, alongside Bradbury's The Veldt, as an intro to our discussions of surveillance capitalism

vice.com

In a not-too-distant Christmas, Amazon's child-friendly surveillance elves will motivate your kid to be nice not naughty with the promise of nonstop streaming content and elfcoins.

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Hrm good morning is today any sort of important day for indie musicians I'm not sure let's check the tapes

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I finally caught up on Silo but my alarm goes off in 5 hours so I can't speculate wildly and I want to.

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Hard not to rant in any educational sector in 2026!

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All I'm saying is my boot-and-skirt-matching game is on point

Woman in a long sleeved black hoodie with olive green boots and an olive green plaid akirt

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Brenna Clarke Gray @brennacgray.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I haven't picked up my pull list from my comic shop in at least 4 months and I feel super bad about that. I'm going to try and stop tomorrow after work but I feel like I need a better excuse than "I suck and have too much Life to deal with". Gotta be a supervillain I can blame for this.

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Reposted by Robin Z

I am doing an online workshop next month for BCcampus about ethical practice and genAI tools. If you want to come hang out in a space where inevitability discourse is verboten, consider registering: bccampus.ca/events/the-f...

bccampus.ca

The Future We Opt Into

This session will explore the ethics of GenAI in teaching and learning practice.

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Rosamundi @rosamundi.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I usually think of these as models of 1950s brains because that's basically all that was known about them and it's tragic that the biggest ANN boosters are proud of their ignorance of biological plausibility in 2026.

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Reposted by Robin Z

I had no idea this was an option.

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Robin Z @firepile.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I'm not even a full chapter into @add-hawk.bsky.social's newest book and I already want to Clockwork Orange every college administrator into reading it so they have to contend with what they do to meaningful education by demanding metrics and assessments for every single action.

Al wranglers responded, "Well, that's the dataset we have. Show us a better dataset for good art and we'll optimize for that instead." And that's the core problem: We don't have a massive dataset for good art, but we do have a massive dataset for engagement hours.
And this is no accident. Some kinds of things are systematically harder to measure because they are more variable, more personal, or more delicate. This is what a lot of this book will be about: why so many of the important things in life seem to consistently defy mea-surement. They vanish from sight when we insist on using the measurement tools of large-scale institutions and bureaucracy. What's meaningful is intimate and unpredictable; it eludes easy classifi-cation. If we let institutional metrics set our values and drive our lives, we end up chasing what's easy to count, and not what's really important.
When we play games-when we are in charge of them-we are touring a whole ecosystem of deeply different rules and scoring sys-

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Reposted by Robin Z

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 30/09/2026

Eugenics 🤝 ai www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/h...

One of the things that is going to change is that we’re never ever again going to be able to be dominated by public officials who tell us, ‘Trust the experts,’” Mr. Kennedy said during the Tuesday session.

“If somebody tells you, ‘Masks work, trust the experts,’ A.I. may tell you otherwise,” he added. “If somebody tells you, ‘Social distancing works, trust the experts,’ A.I. may correct that. And if somebody tells you that a vaccine will prevent transmission and infection, or you need to take it to protect your grandmother, A.I. may say it actually doesn’t do that.”

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Robin Z @firepile.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Update: kid emerged shouting for reparations after being forced to take a cold shower today and he isn't wrong

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We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility

Remember this @404media.co report about the Vegas Amazon facility destroying rare books? Today in my AI class, one of my students realized we were talking about the facility where he had worked. He had no idea what the purpose of the book scanning was - they were told they couldn't know.

404media.co

We placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.

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ofc, why *wouldn't* our hot water heater break?

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This will be my official course description btw

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Kevin Hearne @kevinhearne.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I'm so annoyed at all of the Discourses about College and AI that now I'm thinking I'll teach a class next year just called WAT: Writing-As-Thinking where we'll look at the theory and cognitive science behind the claim that writing is a distinct form of thought and GenAI should fuck off into the sun

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Reposted by Robin Z

How do we incentivize people to paint wizards on their vans again I haven’t seen a wizard van in a decade and it feels like we lost something precious Can we offer up a tax credit? Little bags of shrooms? Start a wizard van painting program at vocational schools?

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Luke LeBrun @lukelebrun.ca · 26/09/2026

Tech companies suddenly decide they can, in fact, moderate content on their platforms after all

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Reposted by Robin Z

Noah Berlatsky @nberlat.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Me: (driving car into wall) My car has gone rogue! Me: (dropping phone into tub) My god, my phone has gone rogue! Me: (tripping over table) The table! It's gone rogue!

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Robin Z @firepile.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Oooh I got that bad boy on release and so had no idea what to expect. What a treat!

Robin Z @firepile.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

SO good. It's paired with the LeGuin, ofc, but also The Trolley Problem in The Good Place.

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Reposted by Robin Z

elliot @elliotcc.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Hear me out

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Reposted by Robin Z

Elizabeth Bear @matociquala.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Advice for my younger friends: if you want to encourage yourself to stay healthy and functional, to exercise and eat well... ...pick a couple of motherfuckers you really want to outlive.

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Robin Z @firepile.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I complain endlessly about my job because I shouldn't have to work 100-hour weeks for no money, but tomorrow includes teaching Weizenbaum's original ELIZA paper and @nkjemisin.bsky.social's The Ones Who Stay and Fight, and another chapter of @tonychemero.bsky.social's Intertwined Creatures. So, A+.

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Robin Z @firepile.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Stop letting it seep... where I can see it