Reposted by Jed BrownShannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 3hSo glad that this quote can be added to my forthcoming article on AI and Epistemic Dispossession because I had to say that they will absolutely be using AI to erase science and history but I didn’t yet have the ‘he admit it’ smoking gun 611452
Reposted by Jed BrownA. Feder Cooper @afedercooper.bsky.social · 1hOur large-scale study of memorization of books in open-weight LLMs (e.g., Llama, Qwen) will appear at the 2026 Conference on Language Modeling as an oral. We made a website for exploring our results on 200 books and 14 models: books-memorization.github.iobooks-memorization.github.ioHow much do open-weight LLMs memorize specific books?Open-weight LLMs memorize books far more than previously believed. Memorization varies by model family, model size, and book. In extreme cases, entire books are memorized, and we can generate them eff... 22916
Reposted by Jed BrownMegan McIntyre @rcmeg.bsky.social · 4hNew from @nobugsnous.bsky.social, @jsanofranchini.bsky.social, & me: "Avoiding [negative] feelings seems especially concerning in the context of a sycophantic technology marketed to users as a way to avoid the messiness and friction of human interactions."refusal.blogShame, Moral Displacement, and Tone Policing in a Time of Sycophantic ChatbotsJennifer Sano-Franchini, West Virginia UniversityMaggie Fernandes, University of ArkansasMegan McIntyre, University of Arkansas Wire Bound by Hanna Barakat & Archival Images of AI + AIxDESIGN /… 035
Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 23hEverything the "AI" industry knows about marketing it learned from the tobacco industry. 060
Reposted by Jed BrownBenjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 29/09/2026FIFTH REPORT: CHILDREN HARMED AT ALPHA SCHOOL'S BOOT CAMP Just over a week ago, 73 Alpha School high school students were left almost entirely unsupervised for three days in the Texas wilderness. It was a Fyre Festival-like disaster. buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com/p/fifth-repo...buildcognitiveresonance.substack.comFIFTH REPORT: CHILDREN HARMED AT ALPHA SCHOOL’S BOOT CAMPStudent hospitalized during Survival Challenge on wilderness ranch; police investigation is ongoing; other concerning incidents re student safety and privacy; one guide fired; also Little B. Diddies 68648
Reposted by Jed BrownJane Rosenzweig @janerosenzweig.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Something that has troubled me over and over in these AI years is how we seem to need to redraw every line to accommodate AI. It is possible for writing to have value for thinking and for oral exams and discussions to have value. We don't need to remake the world to eliminate writing/5 37815
Reposted by Jed BrownCharles Logan @charleswlogan.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Alpha School's "software is just techwashing for [Christopher Rufo and his coalition's] dream of teacherlessness and totalitarian surveillance of students and schools. That’s what they really want to hyperscale," writes @mattseybold.bsky.social.theamericanvandal.comAll Our Kids Will Go To Alpha SchoolOn the plans to hyperscale Alpha School’s “AI” tutoring software to “a billion kids.” 04823
Reposted by Jed BrownNicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Banned the book and banned me from coming to campus to give talks on the book. The month the book was published, I had about a dozen invitations to speak on college campuses. All but a couple were rescinded when upper level administration got wind about it—including unpaid talks. 1124
Reposted by Jed BrownNicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 28/09/2026One of my goals in writing this book was to get a copy in every college library so that survivors entering the Title IX system would know what they were getting into—and be able to use that knowledge however they wanted. But a lot of schools banned the book. 615878
Reposted by Jed BrownKylie Cheung @kylietcheung.bsky.social · 28/09/2026I think its important to understand the campus sexual assault crisis is way worse than you think. universities suspend just 1/12,400 students each year for sexual misconduct & expel 1/22,900. once you read title ix administrators in their own words, you get a sense why that is:jezebel.comNot Only Do Campus Sexual Assailants Go Unpunished, They Often Get Special TreatmentSince 2007, Jezebel has been the Internet's most treasured source for everything celebrities, sex, and politics...with teeth. 1662228
Reposted by Jed Brownjonny (leachate composite form) @jo.nny.rip · 28/09/2026Current contents of Muse's `messenger` skill that governs this: 2154
Reposted by Jed BrownNoel Healy @drnoelhealy.bsky.social · 25/09/2026The assault on US universities didn't start in 2025. Our new paper traces the decades of corporate capture that made it possible, and why climate research is a primary target. Open access: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 12695299
Reposted by Jed BrownMike Boylan-Kolchin @mbkplus.bsky.social · 27/09/2026Once again, I gotta say: you cannot treat anything you’re feeding into an AI as anonymous. There are enormous ethics implications for, e.g. referees who are clearly uploading others’ unpublished papers without consent, let alone health care professionals or law enforcement 14750273
Reposted by Jed BrownMatt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 27/09/2026I’m publishing something tomorrow about Alpha School. One of the things I focus on is how it is an incubator for EdTech platforms with the ambition to hyperscale. Alpha may only have a few hundred students nationwide, but its founders are developing MANY extractive EdTech brands. This is one: 13924865
Reposted by Jed BrownAlondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social · 27/09/2026The idea that people want AI oversight to happen "all of a sudden" ignores years of research, warnings, and policy efforts. The delay hasn’t been a lack of awareness; it’s been because of years of industry lobbying against regulation, political resistance, and inaction. 37931243
Reposted by Jed BrownPhaedra C. Pezzullo @phaedra.bsky.social · 26/09/2026This is the full speech, over 30 mins, by Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley. Recommended to understand why the word "polycrisis" matters to climate justice: www.youtube.com/watch?v=inzS...youtube.comFULL SPEECH: Barbados PM Takes on Slavery, Slams Global Inequality, Climate Crisis & UN Power | AC1GYouTube video by DRM News 086
Reposted by Jed BrownNicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 25/09/2026One of the things that shocked me most in my study of campus sexual violence is that so many of the cases were just like this. The evidence was full of confessions. The perpetrators didn’t deny their violence. They just argued they should be allowed to do it and the school agreed. 18329
Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 27/09/2026This betrayal might seem confusing. Some kind of aberration or mistake. A few bad apples. The reality is so much more disturbing and I implore every campus worker and student to read @nbedera.bsky.social. www.nicolebedera.com/_files/ugd/c... 03313
Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 27/09/2026Phoenix has by some accounts 8 GW of construction in-progress or planned, often powered by gas. Combined-cycle gas uses ~1 L/kWh, or 1 acre-ft/GWh. 8 GW capacity is about 42 TWh/yr or 42000 acre-ft/yr, erasing 20 years of efficiency and curtailment. Water is local and Ag water rights are negotiated. 141
Reposted by Jed BrownJustin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 24/09/2026"Just as providers are using sophisticated A.I. tools to say their patients are sicker, insurance companies have been accused of using the tools to delay or deny care.... But as more hospitals and doctors use A.I., costs will continue to rise."nytimes.comBattle of Hospital A.I. vs. Insurer A.I. Is Pushing Medical Costs HigherThe use of artificial intelligence by hospitals and health insurers is escalating their longstanding feud over paying for medical care. 54222
Reposted by Jed BrownCharles Logan @charleswlogan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Collecting examples of a genre where a piece opens with a dad (often but not always a tech bro) using a chatbot to extrude a story to or with his kid. Sal Khan opens his book on AI in ed with a story like that and there was a Guardian article recently (please reshare) with a similar story. Others? 63112
Reposted by Jed BrownOlivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 25/09/2026As an academic, it feels like some colleagues have lost the ability to engage deeply: they don't want to read an article unless it directly answers a question they already have... basically like using a chatbot they only want an answer to a current issue & not to actually learn anything or explore. 1720424
Reposted by Jed BrownTressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Don’t believe people who tell you ai can be liberatory or any other misappropriation of movement talk or justice frameworks. Find some people who are preparing to rebuild and cast your lot with them. Then read a bit more. Just keep your wits about you because they are trying to run game. 91728323
Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 25/09/2026Must be convenient to categorically dismiss NYT reporting on the basis of AllSides, which employs the notoriously-rigorous ask-a-chatbot method of assessment and portrays The Free Press (where Bari Weiss auditioned for the CBS gig) as leaning left. 010
Reposted by Jed BrownProf. Anthea Butler @antheabutler.bsky.social · 25/09/2026You should read this piece about Jim Crow theobros. It says a lot about the racial underpinnings that I talk about in my book White Evangelical Racism; The Politics of Morality in America. religionnews.com/2026/09/24/t...religionnews.comThe rise of the Jim Crow theobros(RNS) — A group of Reformed pastors and influencers has wedded old-school segregationist theology with the hypermasculinity of the manosphere and the savvy of the attention economy to preach and sell ... 516773
Reposted by Jed BrownChase Million @millionconcepts.com · 25/09/2026VP of Firefly quoted here referring to "subsidized cost-per-kilo model" for launch wrt SpaceX. Is everyone coming around to the fact (or finally willing to state publicly) that Falcon 9 was never as cheap as claimed, and that SpaceX has been doing venture backed predatory pricing for a decade?satellitetoday.comThe Era of Cheap, Price-Per-Kilo Launch is Over, Launchers SayPARIS — Space launch competitors think it’s time for a new model of pricing in the launch market. Against the backdrop of SpaceX winding down the Falcon 9 1229
Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 25/09/2026Amazing thread from @jo.nny.rip on the security of Meta's Muse and the hard-coded "cancel my subscriptions" stunt that duped the NYT. "great! got a root shell"neuromatch.socialjonny (nonvenomous) (@jonny@neuromatch.social)Attached: 2 images great! got a root shell 192
Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 25/09/2026Investors took it for granted that the state government would be a rubber stamp on 7 MtCO2e & water. "Project Jupiter was initially set to be powered by 2.2 gigawatts of gas turbines, but the state land office blocked a request to run a natural gas pipeline to the data center, the report said."reuters.comOracle's $18 billion data center debt under pressure, FT reportsAbout $18 billion in loans tied to an Oracle-leased data center in New Mexico has come under pressure, with loans quoted at 89 to 91 cents on the dollar by syndicate banks including Santander and Je... 131
Reposted by Jed BrownTimnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 24/09/2026Democracy Now! has now gone from constantly inviting Max Tegmark to platforming people from none other than MIRI. That's right MIRI. Y'all know how bad that is? Do you understand the level to which they are doubling down on the eugenicists? 11287100
Reposted by Jed BrownJohn Stott @jpsastro.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Had a UKRI funded grant proposal rejected at the "AI triage stage". "This AI-based triage was used only to identify approximately 50% of the strongest proposals to take forward to full human review." 🧪 #academicsky 40414219
Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 24/09/2026UT emulates UATX “The pattern is pretty clear,” Hsu said. “Even within the other (department) units, all courses that referenced women were rejected.” "cuts include Climate Change History; Ethics of Artificial Intelligence; God and AI; Race, Ethnicity and Health; and U.S. Immigration Enforcement." 022
Reposted by Jed BrownJohn Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 24/09/2026The Dartmouth provost's decision to stop writing by substituting AI-assisted text production is a great opportunity to have the kinds of conversations every institution should be having about AI use in higher education. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...insidehighered.comDartmouth’s provost has stopped “writing.”Dartmouth’s provost raises a tension we should examine. 17321
Reposted by Jed BrownDr Zena Assaad @zenaassaad.bsky.social · 23/09/2026The only reason they're doing this is because they're now pushing to self-regulate. It's the compromise no one asked for, that works best for only them. Instead of much needeed third party regulation we Instead have "AI that we develop will end the world and only we can save it!". 192
Reposted by Jed BrownDr Heidy Khlaaf (هايدي خلاف) @heidykhlaaf.bsky.social · 22/09/2026New from me in Nature. I discuss the need to look to regulated industries on how to govern AI, and not give into AI companies' self-regulation. Those actually serious about safety and security would start by applying safety critical techniques and legislation first. www.nature.com/articles/d41...nature.comWhy AI companies can’t be trusted to self-regulateFrom aviation to banking, high-risk industries are subject to independent oversight and meaningful penalties. AI companies should be no exception. 611252
Reposted by Jed BrownDavid Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 23/09/2026Wtaf is this question my university just asked me about my project? 15145791297
Reposted by Jed BrownTressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 23/09/2026It is breathtaking. Like many things these days it is hard, but necessary, to figure what is a continuity and what is a rupture. EdTech has always been a private sector parasite feeding off the public sector. The rupture is AI EdTech is experimenting on the rich instead of the poor. 8488138
Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 23/09/2026Private schools that do not receive federal funding are not subject to FERPA. Many states have rejected Alpha School's charter school applications. Texas also rejected them, but then carved out a way to give them state funds anyway. www.propublica.org/article/alph... 030
Reposted by Jed BrownMatt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 23/09/2026As a result of @benjaminjriley.bsky.social's most recent Alpha School reporting, all who have been saying "AI has a Mechanical Turk problem" - that is, "artificial intelligence" is actually the cognitive labor of humans in the Global South - get to take another victory lap. They must be winded. 216580
Reposted by Jed BrownDominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 23/09/2026This is also why you've gotta read the papers when it comes time for p&t 711427
Reposted by Jed BrownOlivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 23/09/2026They get it! > How do you enforce this? > You [can't]. People will still send LLM generated code. This policy makes it explicit that we do not welcome these careless submissions. We have a Code of Conduct that is 80% about [...] what our values are, and 20% about handling unwanted behavior 💯 27723
Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 23/09/2026Recall that Instructure paid a ransom to ShinyHunters in May after Instructure's third denial/minimization of Canvas SaaS hacks impacting over 8000 universities. They hit universities via Oracle PeopleSoft again in June. This was also an Oracle PeopleSoft zero-day leading to access to AWS GovCloud.404media.co‘We Hacked the FBI:’ Hackers Say They Have Data on All FBI EmployeesA sample of 5,000 alleged agents seen by 404 Media includes names, addresses, phone numbers, and details on FBI employees' spouses. 011
Reposted by Jed BrownKetan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 22/09/2026This is going to be a thread of AI greenwashing getting pumped out at New York Climate Week Here's one from today: Siemens, raking in MOUNTAINS of $$ from selling gas turbines to data centres (not mentioned) says: “we are racing to mitigate this as fast as possible" apnews.com/article/clim... 719398
Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 22/09/2026😊 > “Not sure what I am missing here but why is this a ‘feature?,’ one employee wrote on Meta’s internal message board for workers. “This has potential for so much negative PR. It could portray us as ‘their AI is not good enough so they still need humans’ kind of coverage for this launch.”404media.coMeta Tests Muse AI Agent Calls That Are Actually Made By Humans in a Call Center"This has potential for so much negative PR. It could portray us as ‘their AI is not good enough so they still need humans’ kind of coverage for this launch." 062
Reposted by Jed BrownBridget Dooling @bridgetdooling.bsky.social · 22/09/2026I’ve been writing about duties to do one’s own writing. Touched on academics and the self-deception of thinking that they’re in control of the writing when they start from someone / something else’s draft… papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....papers.ssrn.comGhostwriting the Government<p>Ghostwriting is when a writer prepares materials to be issued under someone else’s name. The word describes a politician’s use of a speechwriter, a student’s 0104
Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 21/09/2026"You’re zeros and ones to us once you’ve been scanned" 😳 This product is popular to "secure server halls, cages, mantraps, and MDF/IDF closets" at data centers. Of course the biometrics and records are linked to the person (that's the whole point). 01610
Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 21/09/2026Notice how Meta, a company that happily advertises nudify apps, doesn't even view censoring "civil rights, feminism, [and] social reform" as an error. This is what they want. > To resolve the situation, Meta recommended removing “key words” so that the text doesn’t appear to encourage activism. 0146
Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 21/09/2026🎯 "What makes it possible for a [..] dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer." -- Hannah Arendt 062
Reposted by Jed BrownLouis Römer @lromeranth.bsky.social · 20/09/2026As for the NHJ piece, I think it is telling that the US public sphere lacks the emotional maturity and resort to blame parents for everything, as if parents have omnipotent capacities to control for structural inequities. 1338
Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 20/09/2026This thread starts out with a need for "continual monitoring and human oversight" 💯 and ends up promoting whack-a-mole without structural critique. But this framing is so problematic. Agents are just shoddy software, not "intelligence", even if an observer perceives outputs to be useful. Anyway... 2115