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John P Slattery

@johnslatteryphd.bsky.social
497 followers 235 following 126 posts

Exec Director, Grefenstette Center for Ethics in Sci & Tech at Duquesne Univ. Historian, theologian, ethicist with a penchant for baking bread, playing chess, and critiquing society.

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John P Slattery @johnslatteryphd.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I was disappointed with the lack of critical views in this piece. What about the theologians and philosophers who did not drink the kool-aid? This feels like a piece written to boost an IPO. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/u...
nytimes.com
Is Claude Conscious? Inside Anthropic’s Quest to Instill Morality Into Its A.I. Models
In a series of private meetings, the company consulted religious scholars to help instill morality into its A.I. models — and make the case that Claude could be conscious.
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David Gibson @gibsonwrites.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
PSA for journalists: National Catholic Reporter is hiring a News Editor to help lead all facets of news coverage. It's a great opportunity given downward trends in media but a great place to work no matter the times. True pros, no A.I... www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=b...
indeed.com
Deputy Editor - Remote - Indeed.com
National Catholic Reporter
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Ryan Marino, MD @ryanmarino.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
The rule they are overturning was predicted to give $120 billion in public health benefits by 2047, with projections that by 2035, it would would prevent up to 1,200 premature deaths, 870 hospital and emergency room visits, 360K asthma attacks, 48K school absence days and 57K lost workdays each year
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Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 03/09/2026
In October, my new book HYPERSCALE hits shelves in North America and Europe. But my dive into the world of data centers started over two years ago when I put together a series called DATA VAMPIRES. With opposition to data centers exploding, I decided this was a good moment to bring the series back.
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Chris Dazzleox 🇵🇸 @dazzleox.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
On a Zoom call with 200 people and I assume more in person (can't see the room but based on how many people are laughing at how a guillotine can slice a bagel.) Average age has to be like 75; love seniors ofc and shows how much interest there is in the ethics of AI. by @johnslatteryphd.bsky.social
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J. Nathan Matias @natematias.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Many are reasonably skeptical of religion. I too struggle to connect with cultures that avoid admitting wrongs, repenting, & finding hope in the art of restitution & seeking mercy. So I'm heartened to work with John Slattery, organizer/scholar on science & eugenics www.science.org/content/blog...
science.org
Eugenics and the history of Science and AAAS
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J. Nathan Matias @natematias.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
So I'm grateful to be a fellow at Duquesne's Grefenstette Center for Ethics in Science, Technology, and Law to develop a (TBA) initiative connecting experts & organizers with diverse Christian communities who need to understand, act, and re-imagine the role of technology in our lives.
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Dominique Baker @bakerdphd.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
A site created by his former students
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Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
“Scientists should stop trying to be neutral and instead embrace their values,”says a group of top climate scientists, including @katharinehayhoe.com. The neutrality myth is harming the reputation of science right when we need it most.” #ClimateCrisis Science isn’t neutral. It’s science.
cbc.ca
Prominent climate scientist argues it's time to ditch the 'myth of neutrality' | CBC Radio
Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe talks to Bob McDonald about the polarization of science and why she thinks scientists should stop pretending to be neutral when it's our planet at risk.
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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
In "Resisting Dehumanization in the Age of "AI": The View from the Humanities", I call on humanities scholars to make legible to the world how even as we work with and write texts, the words aren't the work. This recent paper by Lauren Goodlad of is an excellent example: doi.org/10.1525/rep....
doi.org
We Have Always Been Action TheoristsToward a Critical Theory of Language for the Era of “Large Language Models”
Scholars of literature and culture understandably place themselves among the world’s premiere experts on matters of language. But they also know that fields like linguistics and communication have the...
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J Moral Theology @jmoraltheology.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Brianne Bell Jacobs @briannejacobs.bsky.social opens v.15.2 with her incisive theological critique of AI in "Infinite Generation, Infinite Consumption: Theological Anthropology & Human Relationships with Artificial Intelligence." As she argues, while promising... doi.org/10.55476/001...
doi.org
Infinite Generation, Infinite Consumption: Theological Anthropology and Human Relationships with Artificial Intelligence | Published in Journal of Moral Theology
By Brianne Bell Jacobs. AI chatbots promise infinite generation and connection, but when we turn away from human relationships toward AIs as companions, we undercut the generative context through whic...
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Molly Crabapple @mollycrabapple.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
If you're a broke but passionate reader and can't afford your own copy of HERE WHERE WE LIVE IS OUR COUNTRY, we've got you. Apply for a free solidarity copy here docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
docs.google.com
Application for a Solidarity Copy of Molly’s Book
Are you a passionate reader who has been desperate to get your paws on a copy of Molly Crabapple's New York Times bestseller HERE WHERE WE LIVE IS OUR COUNTRY: THE STORY OF THE JEWISH BUND? Due to th...
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Adrian Daub @adriandaub.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️
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Paul Fairie @paulisci.bsky.social · 22/10/2024
A Brief History of Nobody Reads Anymore 🧵
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Commonweal @commonwealmagazine.org · 05/06/2026
Pope Leo’s call for disarmament leaves room for the possibility that AI can have good uses. But those uses can only be discovered by those who work for flourishing communities. @johnslatteryphd.bsky.social on 'Magnifica humanitas':
commonwealmagazine.org
Armed and Dangerous
Pope Leo's call for disarmament leaves room for the possibility that AI can have good uses. But those uses can only be discovered by those who work for flourishing communities.
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John P Slattery @johnslatteryphd.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
This is powerful stuff from @mollycrabapple.bsky.social!! "If tech does not serve humans in their quest for a good life, then we must discard it. And if we can't stop the slop vampire, at least we can refuse to bow our heads....“What Enoch makes, Enoch will break.”
read.dukeupress.edu
Vampire Slop | Critical AI | Duke University Press
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Commonweal @commonwealmagazine.org · 29/05/2026
"Leo's call to disarm AI is simultaneously ethical, theological, technological, and, referencing Laudato si’, ecological." @johnslatteryphd.bsky.social: 'Armed and Dangerous'
commonwealmagazine.org
Armed and Dangerous
Pope Leo's call for disarmament leaves room for the possibility that AI can have good uses. But those uses can only be discovered by those who work for flourishing communities.
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Commonweal @commonwealmagazine.org · 28/05/2026
.@antoniospadaro.bsky.social: ‘Magnifica humanitas’ challenges Silicon Valley’s Promethean pretensions.
commonwealmagazine.org
Pope Leo and the ‘Babel Syndrome’
What Leo XIII did for wages and the right of association, Leo XIV does for the human person in the era of the algorithm.
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Commonweal @commonwealmagazine.org · 27/05/2026
"AI is armed and dangerous, and the act of defusing it will take work from us all." @johnslatteryphd.bsky.social on Pope Leo's 'Magnifica Humanitas':
commonwealmagazine.org
Armed and Dangerous
Pope Leo's call for disarmament leaves room for the possibility that AI can have good uses. But those uses can only be discovered by those who work for flourishing communities.
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John P Slattery @johnslatteryphd.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
My latest for @commonwealmagazine.org , a reflection on what I consider the most powerful metaphor in the Pope's letter, and an urgent call: Disarming AI
commonwealmagazine.org
Armed and Dangerous
Pope Leo's call for disarmament leaves room for the possibility that AI can have good uses. But those uses can only be discovered by those who work for flourishing communities.
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John P Slattery @johnslatteryphd.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
with all this 'construction site' language in #magnificahumanitas, I think we should start referring to Pope Leo XIV as "Bob the Builder" Prevost
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John P Slattery @johnslatteryphd.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
i really love the act of expanding and specifying the technocratic paradigm in this letter. 185 "The modern Babel can be seen not only in the globalized technocratic paradigm, but also in the remote clash between opposing imperialisms, between powers that wish to preserve their supremacy...."
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John P Slattery @johnslatteryphd.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
I could live on paragraph 30 the rest of my life: "Rerum Novarum thereby continues to remind us that there is no authentic evangelization that does not also affect the structures of human society." #MagnificaHumanitas
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Prof. Anthea Butler @antheabutler.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Ya'll. I am shook. In a good way. Pope Leo XIV makes historic apology for Holy See's own role in legitimizing Slavery
apnews.com
Pope Leo XIV makes historic apology for Holy See's own role in legitimizing slavery
Pope Leo XIV has made a historic apology for the role the Holy See itself played in legitimizing slavery.
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Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ @padresj.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
Imagine being forced to subsidize the water and power costs for a data center that will generate NO continuing staff positions, all so that a billionaire can take your job.
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John P Slattery @johnslatteryphd.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
My latest of AI and inevitability for @ctewc.bsky.social "An Ethicist’s Guide to Our Technological Dystopia" disq.us/t/53krpwg
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Ashok Dadhwal @ashokdadhwal196.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
Seven countries now generate 100% of their electricity from renewable sources, proving the transition is not theoretical but already operational. The barrier is no longer technology, but political will, investment priorities, and the courage to move faster.
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Victor Ray @victorerikray.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
I would like some of the folks who signed the Harper’s letter or spent years yammering about the threat to free speech posed by Oberlin undergrads protesting eugenicists to bring an ounce of that energy to the state censoring entire disciplines.
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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 27/03/2026
This is how disciplines die. Now that Sociology courses don't count for GenEd credit, far fewer students will take them, let alone choose Sociology as a major. And so, Sociology department budgets will shrink, meaning fewer faculty and fewer courses offered. www.miamiherald.com/news/politic...
miamiherald.com
Florida bans sociology from core curriculum at state universities
For years, Republican lawmakers and education leaders have argued that sociology — especially high-enrollment introductory courses — has been overtaken by progressive ideology
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CEO of Beckett Mariner @kariizumi.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
Pope Leo is the first Pope to have ever experienced the US healthcare system, so there's that
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Alex Stern @alexwstern.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
"AI is a loaded gun in the hands of children." Good piece in @commonweal.bsky.social by @johnslatteryphd.bsky.social
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Albert Pinto @70sbachchan.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
"Remember when they told you the war was costing $1 billion a day? Turns out it was $3 billion a day just for the munitions. Oops." x.com/jekavanagh/s... www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...
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Commonweal @commonwealmagazine.org · 09/03/2026
"It feels right that Donald Trump is the one to bring AI into the mainstream of war-making. Trump is susceptible to all forms of sycophancy, for which chatbots are infamous." @johnslatteryphd.bsky.social on Trump's AI war:
commonwealmagazine.org
The First AI War
Donald Trump will go down in history as the president who made AI a weapon of war.
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AAUP @aaup.org · 09/03/2026
“Our federal government is sending a message that only a narrow definition of humanities can be supported, celebrated and invested in, and that there are only a narrow set of people, culture and experiences that are worth understanding in depth"
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Bridget O’Brien @bridgetemob.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
Thank you for this, @johnslatteryphd.bsky.social. www.commonwealmagazine.org/slattery-ai-...
It feels right that Donald Trump is the one to bring AI into the mainstream of war-making. Trump is susceptible to all forms of sycophancy, for which chatbots are infamous. His administration deplores accountability, ethics, and transparency. AI is an out-of-control technological marvel, but not in the way that tech CEOs want the public to fear: we aren’t in The Matrix, and we are not in danger of HAL taking command of the ship. AI is something else: a loaded gun in the hands of children. The children holding the gun happen to be in charge of the most powerful military the world has ever seen. 

Welcome to the first AI war.
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John P Slattery @johnslatteryphd.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
My latest piece, about the nature of AI and the current war in Iran.
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Commonweal @commonwealmagazine.org · 08/03/2026
Donald Trump will go down in history as the president who made AI a weapon of war. Analysis from tech ethicist @johnslatteryphd.bsky.social:
commonwealmagazine.org
The First AI War
Donald Trump will go down in history as the president who made AI a weapon of war.
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Bridget O’Brien @bridgetemob.bsky.social · 01/03/2026
148 people at a girls’ school.
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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
Sorry, Jensen, can't make us stop. Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 will continue on with the #RidiculeAsPraxis cc @alexhanna.bsky.social
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John P Slattery @johnslatteryphd.bsky.social · 02/01/2026
"Telling someone to love literature because reading is good for society is like telling someone to believe in God because religion is good for society." As an avid reader of fiction these days, I support this 💯
theatlantic.com
Reading Is a Vice
Being a reader means cultivating a relationship with the world that, by most standards, can seem pointless and counterproductive.
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Anna Bower @annabower.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
Per NY Times’s Michael Grynbaum on X, this is Sharyn Alfonsi’s email to her “60 Minutes” colleagues in full:
News Team,
Thank you for the notes and texts. I apologize for not reaching out earlier.
I learned on Saturday that Bari Weiss spiked our story, INSIDE CECOT, which was supposed to air tonight. We (Ori and I) asked for a call to discuss her decision. She did not afford us that courtesy/opportunity.
Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now-after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.
We requested responses to questions and/or interviews with DHS, the White House, and the State Department. Government silence is a statement, not a VETO. Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed
to kill the story.
If the administration's refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, wehave effectively handed them a "kill switch" for any reporting they find inconvenient.
If the standard for airing a story becomes
"the government must agree to be
interviewed," then the government effectively gains control over the 60 Minutes broadcast.
We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state.
These men risked their lives to speak with us.
We have a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their
stories. Abandoning them now is a betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism: giving voice to the voiceless.
CBS spiked the Jeffrey Wigand interview due to legal concerns, nearly destroying the credibility of this broadcast. It took years to recover from that "low point." By pulling this story to shield an administration, we are repeating that history, but for political optics rather than legal ones.We have been promoting this story on social media for days. Our viewers are expecting it.
When it fails to air without a credible
explanation, the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship. We are trading 50 years of "Gold Standard" reputation for a single week of political quiet.
I care too much about this broadcast to watch
it be dismantled without a fight.
Sharyn
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Katharine Hayhoe @katharinehayhoe.com · 17/12/2025
NCAR is quite literally our global mothership. Everyone who works in climate and weather has passed through its doors and benefited from its incredible resources. Dismantling NCAR is like taking a sledgehammer to the keystone holding up our scientific understanding of the planet. Unbelievable.
usatoday.com
Trump moves to dismantle major US climate research center in Colorado
The Trump administration is breaking up the National Center for Atmospheric Research, taking aim at one of the world's leading climate research labs.
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Melody Schreiber @melodyschreiber.com · 14/12/2025
Gun violence is the number-one cause of death for children. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
theguardian.com
‘Distracting the public’: group of health professionals call for RFK Jr to be removed
Ahead of the second Maha report, grassroots Defend Public Health warns that everything HHS is doing is ‘horrifying’
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Andy Rivkin @asrivkin.bsky.social · 07/12/2025
For comparison, every robotic mission NASA has ever sent in its history, from the dawn of the Space Age 65 years ago to today, from Mercury to Pluto and beyond, has cost less than $40B. I know which one has done more for humankind and which one should be dismantled.
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John P Slattery @johnslatteryphd.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
At a wonderful panel on Judith Weisenfeld’s groundbreaking "Black Religion in the Madhouse"! Highly recommend. #aarsbl25
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John P Slattery @johnslatteryphd.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
45 minutes in the exhibit hall and I'm already feeling overwhelmed with all the people! Time to find a place to break in quiet. #conferencing #aarsbl25
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John P Slattery @johnslatteryphd.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
Enjoying an espresso and some chess at Faro Cafe near Harvard as I warm up for whole day of eugenics discussions before #AARSBL25! Wonderful little place
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Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 11/11/2025
Kind of wild that while food assistance was withheld from millions of families, one Trump-supporting billionaire (Ellison) saw his net worth grow more this year than the entire SNAP budget. And the YTD gains of the other four richest men would’ve fully covered salaries for all 2M federal employees.
Table showing the five richest men in the U.S from Bloombergs billionaire list
., all in technology. Elon Musk tops the list with a net worth of $461B and a year-to-date gain of $28.2B. Larry Ellison is second at $300B with a $107B YTD gain. Jeff Bezos has $268B (+$29.5B YTD), Larry Page $250B (+$81.9B YTD), and Sergey Brin $234B (+$75.5B YTD). Each row also lists last-day change, country (all United States), and industry (all Technology).
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