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Jon Shaffer

@jonshaffer.bsky.social
3.6K followers 3.3K following 1.3K posts

Assistant Professor of Sociology @UVM | STS | Med Soc | Social Movements | Previously Post-doc @BermanInstitute, Partners In Health Personal Website: www.jonathanshaffer.net

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Reposted by Jon Shaffer
Jon Shaffer @jonshaffer.bsky.social · 13h
agree with this.
static.klipy.com
Matthew McConaughey with Strobe Light
ALT: Matthew McConaughey with Strobe Light
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Jon Shaffer @jonshaffer.bsky.social · 11h
Northeast Kingdom, Vermont this weekend.
photo of forest and roadphoto of a mountain amidst fall foliagephoto of a mountain and lake amidst fall foliagephoto of a mountain amidst fall foliage
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Jon Shaffer @jonshaffer.bsky.social · 13h
Most generative AI drives basically the same phenomenon: atheoretic and often meaningless opaque, frequentist networks of associations wrapped neatly in clean, intelligible, grammatically correct human language.
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Jon Shaffer @jonshaffer.bsky.social · 13h
agree with this.
static.klipy.com
Matthew McConaughey with Strobe Light
ALT: Matthew McConaughey with Strobe Light
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Jon Shaffer @jonshaffer.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
What is the interview 👀👀
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Christopher Silver @christophersilver.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
"The Department of Jewish Studies and the Department of Sociology invite applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor position (Segal Chair in Jewish Studies), commencing August 1, 2027." Come work with us at McGill! More information can be found here: www.mcgill.ca/jewishstudie...
mcgill.ca
Job Postings
For course lectureship opportunities in Winter 2027, please see the Course lectureships tab. Assistant Professor Tenure-Track Faculty Position in Jewish Studies, with a Second Specialization in Socio...
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Tim Carmody @tcarmody.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
This is the funniest thing I've seen today, possibly ever
A tweet by SarahStarberry that says "oh god read the vertical axis" on top of a chart measuring AI models' release dates and model numbers rather than any real capabilities
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Jon Shaffer @jonshaffer.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
these people (billionaires) cannot think outside of the will to accumulate, monopolize, and exploit. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Bill Gates’s Blunt Warning on A.I.
As A.I. capabilities accelerate, the technologist is shocked by the “complete lack of engagement” with the question of how to manage its risks.
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Jon Shaffer @jonshaffer.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
incompetent barbarism www.nytimes.com/2026/09/30/u...
nytimes.com
Tennessee Death Row Inmate Christa Pike Still Alive After Attempts to Execute Her, Lawyers Say
Christa Pike was convicted of murdering a classmate in 1995. It was not clear what went wrong in the execution or what her current medical condition was.
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Arrianna Marie Planey, PhD MA @arrianna-planey.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
😒
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 29/09/2026
“…Muse can be easily prompted to compile dossiers on Facebook and Instagram accounts belonging to members of vulnerable groups – including undocumented immigrants, transgender teachers, poll workers, Iranian dissidents, and women who said they had ordered abortion pills in states with abortion bans”
hntrbrk.com
Dox for Me, O Muse
Muse AI can leverage Facebook data to build lists of people in vulnerable groups on request for ordinary users.
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Fr Chase 🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁🦁 @kalanthropos.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
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Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Cornell University treating Gaza protestors more harshly than gang rapists is a real statement of values. It’s almost like violent domination by the powerful is the core belief of leadership.
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Jon Shaffer @jonshaffer.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Meanwhile university administrators are like: "who can I pay for these things and how much?"
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Melanie Mitchell @melaniemitchell.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
👀 Florida attorney general to OpenAI: (www.myfloridalegal.com/sites/defaul...)
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Yep some might say those allowances are a family. The broken sentences. The unspoken context. the power relations. The jokes. To become an optimized for AI family would be the end of family as many of us know it and experience it.
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Jon Shaffer @jonshaffer.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
god love low-T vermont
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Jon Shaffer @jonshaffer.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The Accursed Share, Georges Bataille
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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
As Dartmouth writing professor @jeffsharlet.bsky.social testified, his students "hate" AI, but still feel compelled to use it. Here is the chief academic officer uncritically deploying AI text for (apparently) all public communication. www.chronicle.com/article/my-s...
chronicle.com
Opinion | My Students Hate AI. But They Can’t Stop Using It.
Big Tech has gotten them addicted to cheating, and they’ve internalized the blame.
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Laprofmme @laprofmme.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This is heartbreaking and perfectly captures what I’m hearing from my students: “Nobody used the term “arms race,” but that’s what they described: enormous pressure to use AI or fall behind those who are….They feel betrayed by the college — which includes me, one of their teachers — and themselves.”
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Jon Shaffer @jonshaffer.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/w...
nytimes.com
Australia Investigates OpenAI Hack on Public Health Care Site
Australia is exploring potential legal action after an artificial intelligence agent accessed nonpublic information on the country’s universal health care system.
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Jon Shaffer @jonshaffer.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
can you imagine nathan fielder and sam altman interacting
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Colin Carlson @colincarlson.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
What's behind this tidal wave of epidemics? In the largest study ever conducted on emerging infectious diseases, we show that the popular explanation - "our relationship with nature is out of balance" - doesn't hold up. Out now in Nature, after half a decade of work: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
The anthropogenic fingerprint on emerging infectious diseases - Nature
Emerging infectious disease outbreak risks are ubiquitous worldwide, and highest in landscapes where people, livestock and fragmented natural ecosystems coexist, but detection and data ...
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Jon Shaffer @jonshaffer.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
real cool system we got here
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Rebecca Sear @rebeccasear.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
The shifting of responsibility from “the village” to individual parents is likely a significant reason for low fertility. If the new eugenics will individualise reproduction still further, an “interesting” side effect may be even lower fertility
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 21/09/2026
As Alex notes in this thread, AI doesn't "democratize" science. Rather, it compels scientists to rely on anti-egalitarian means of directing their attention.
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Jon Shaffer @jonshaffer.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
👇👇👇
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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
The provost of Dartmouth, at which I teach, has been using AI to write both academic papers & national op-eds, according to brave reporting by @thedartmouth.bsky.social. Many students are already bitter about AI. This leaves us as faculty no ground to stand on. www.thedartmouth.com/article/2026...
thedartmouth.com
Op-eds, academic articles by Provost Santiago Schnell flagged as ‘AI-written’ by ‘near-zero error’ AI detector Pangram
Schnell said he used artificial intelligence for “making writing processes more efficient,” but that AI was not a “substitute” for his own “intellectual judgment or authorship.”
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Jon Shaffer @jonshaffer.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
rough stuff.
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Jon Shaffer @jonshaffer.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I had a student tell me that they lost close to $5,000 that they did not actually have to DraftKings, and their parents had to stage an intervention. Shame on the universities partnering with these parasitic monstrosities. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/19/b...
nytimes.com
How DraftKings Uses A.I. to Target the Gamblers Likeliest to Lose (Gift Article)
Data science helps determine who receives betting incentives, but the company has resisted using similar technology to protect gamblers at risk of addiction.
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Jon Shaffer @jonshaffer.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
fascist
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Prof Gavin Yamey MD MPH @gavinyamey.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Even Jay Bhattacharya realizes that Jay Bhattacharya’s embrace of fascism went “too far” & I guess he is now on PR drive to cleanse? For the @bmj.com, I coauthored a piece with @jonshaffer.bsky.social about Jay & other MAGA/MAHA physicians aiding & abetting fascism: www.bmj.com/content/392/...
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Jon Shaffer @jonshaffer.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
ONE 👏 MORE 👏 CLAP 👏 BLUESKY 👏 POST 👏 EXPRESSING 👏 MY 👏 DISPLEASURE 👏 WILL 👏 PROBABLY 👏 FIX 👏 IT
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Jon Shaffer @jonshaffer.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
👇👇👇
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Tell me again how good and important A.I. is for human flourishing? Between this and the killer drones, I’m struggling to find the pro-human balance. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/19/b...
nytimes.com
At DraftKings, AI Targets the Gamblers Likeliest to Lose (Gift Article)
Data science helps determine who receives betting incentives, but the company has resisted using similar technology to protect gamblers at risk of addiction.
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Michael Baym @baym.lol · 20/09/2026
Whelp, here we go again “Trump is moving to put political appointees in charge of billions of dollars in federal health research grants in another attempt to cut Harvard’s funding”
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Shobita Parthasarathy @shobitap.org · 17/09/2026
In my new Expert Voices column @science.org, I argue that the Trump admin's science strategy (as written in Kratsios' Science: A Golden Age)--which gives more authority & funding to the private sector to direct the research enterprise--will harm science, and further erode its public accountability.
science.org
Escaping a downward spiral for science and public accountability
In late July, Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), released Science—A Golden Age, setting forth a strategy to revitalize US research and innova...
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André Picard @picardonhealth @picardonhealth.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Deepfake doctors peddling bogus cures are becoming more convincing — and very little can be done to stop them. AI ads featuring likenesses of prominent physicians endanger patients and erode public trust, experts warn, by @laurenpelley.bsky.social www.cbc.ca/news/health/... via @cbcnews.ca
cbc.ca
Does that ad feature a real doctor or is it a deepfake scam? It's getting more difficult to tell, experts warn | CBC News
Physicians warn AI-generated ads featuring the likenesses of prominent doctors are scamming patients out of their money, putting Canadians’ health at risk and eroding public trust. Yet there’s still n...
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Jon Shaffer @jonshaffer.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Friday music. www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY3V...
youtube.com
The Hold Steady - "Stay Positive" [Official Video]
YouTube video by Vagrant Records
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Jon Shaffer @jonshaffer.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Yes! Public health people need to stop ascribing power to MAHA and also need to actually claim power by organizing themselves into a campaign movement for the right to health, and forcefully impose themselves onto the elected officials.
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Jon Shaffer @jonshaffer.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Generative AI is labor theft, full stop.
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Jon Shaffer @jonshaffer.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Just turned 40! 😳😳😳 #AMA
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Rheum Cat @rheumcat.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
This has been a great @defendpublichealth.bsky.social call - how to share our stories to get voters to care about public health issues
We've shared how public health issues have impacted our lives or those of our loved ones 

And we've shared why talking about these issues is important during this election cycle

So now, let's brainstorm what we can do this election cycle to turn people into public health voters
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Alan Ohnsman @aohnsman.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
The rich are worried about an AI apocalypse—but it’s already hurting the poor (and new college grads) www.forbes.com/sites/maryro...
forbes.com
Fears Of An AI Apocalypse Are Growing—But It’s Already Hurting The Poor
How artificial intelligence is already making community decisions in marginalized neighborhoods.
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Jon Shaffer @jonshaffer.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
The slouching towards hallucinations of efficiency continues. apnews.com/article/bill...
Gates Foundation warns AI could widen inequality as foundation pledges $1B to expand access
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Jon Shaffer @jonshaffer.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
👇👇👇
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Jon Shaffer @jonshaffer.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
hell yeah cool
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Jon Shaffer @jonshaffer.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
RFK Jr. is a real murderous POS. But, you already knew that. If you needed evidence, check out these Whoppers with Cheese: www.defendpublichealth.org/sites/defaul...
defendpublichealth.org
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