iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by James Grimmelmann

I wrote for @thecut.com about the Cornell case and what it says that, at my institution and many others like it, protesters are often punished more harshly than sexual assailants www.thecut.com/article/what...

thecut.com

What It Feels Like at Cornell Right Now

As a professor at the Ivy League school, Kate Manne has known many, many victims. There’s a palpable feeling on campus, she writes, that this is big.

301056354

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 3h

Well, it was useful in making me laugh.

020

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 8h

“I never thought leopards would eat my face,” sobs man who thought he was going to a Def Leppard concert, but the leopards can’t hear him.

052

Reposted by James Grimmelmann

Naomi Clark (@metasynthie) 暗悪直美 @halfrobot.com · 28/09/2026

I read the late Peggy Sanday's work over 30 years ago. A harrowing assignment, but among those that convinced me to study anthropology. At the time, I naively believed that though much of this book is about how power & privilege protect rapists, surely the lid was blown off NOW? Not even close.

073

Reposted by James Grimmelmann

ct @cteeze-nuts.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Jonny is still at it, and apparently is working on a disclosure writeup, but this (and the post that follows it) is pretty interesting product feedback neuromatch.social/@jonny/11734...

neuromatch.social

jonny (nonvenomous) (@jonny@neuromatch.social)

Am working on responsible disclosure so will pause thread, but unrelated to that I do want to say that this experiment in continual, boundariless context window backed up by infinitely refreshing cont...

001

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Don’t let the pigeon drive the bus.

0245

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Every time I see an amendment that has to change the puncutation to add an item to a list, I die a little inside. Some people want to make all of law into a computer program. I'd be happy if we could just distinguish concrete from abstract syntax.

(1) in paragraph (9), by striking ‘‘and’’ after the semicolon
at the end;
(2) in paragraph (10), by striking the period at the end
and inserting ‘‘; and’’;

050

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Look, everyone is wrong about most things most of the time, and any group that thinks it has better principles or better access to the truth is setting itself up to enable deeply immoral and abusive behavior. It sucks that this could describe dozens of different things, but that's where we are.

061

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

This culture of predation disgused as sexual open-mindedness is painfully familiar: Richard Stallman's "pleasure cards," Eric Raymond's open marriage that included propositioning colleagues, etc. As with everything else, the SV/VC/AI crowd has reinvented sexual harassment from first principles.

212729

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

This seems like a good time to dredge up my post on The Social Network from my blog archives. Aaron Sorkin was too clueless to realize that his screenplay made Zuckerberg the hero rather than the antihero, but David Fincher understood it perfectly. laboratorium.net/archive/2010...

laboratorium.net

The Laboratorium : A Straussian Reading of The Social Network

010

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

The Last Homely Oldest House.

000

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Forget it Jake, it’s Rolling Stone. This is the magazine that invented the idea that everyone has a duty to know about the world-defining pop music that only its writers know about. The only surprising thing is that this is about a country song, not a rock song.

030

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

“An owner or possessor of a wild animal is subject to strict liability for physical harm caused by the wild animal.” Restatement (Third) of Torts § 22(a)

071

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

When someone arrives in my office on a job interview loop, I ask them if they need to use the restroom or need a drink. Sometimes I walk with them to go get tea or coffee. Sometimes they have their own already. I do this because I’m a normal human being and want normal human beings to feel welcome.

1536

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

If you want to understand the future of scholarship in an AI age, just remember that the supply of attention is fixed and the market for it always clears.

050

Reposted by James Grimmelmann

Riana @riana.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

wishing a good evening to whoever drives the car I just spotted with the Catullus 85 vanity plate

1146

Reposted by James Grimmelmann

Rebecca Tushnet @rtushnet.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Dictionary definition of “false light”

2135

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

(1) What does the Claude-generated article add to the Will Baude blog post it was based on? (2) What would a Will Baude-generated article add to the Claude-generated one? (3) How do the answers to these questions change if everyone uses Claude to generate articles?

040

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Bad content drives out good. www.garbageday.email/p/ai-growth-...

In the past week, several content creators have stumbled across accounts feeding their videos to AI programs that replace all the humans in the videos with artificial versions that mimic their movements and words exactly. Essentially, they recreate the video in all other details, but the fake people replacing the original creators is enough to avoid getting flagged as a repost.
This “AI flipping” has been a successful strategy on short-form video apps for months. These videos seem to be most popular on Instagram Reels, where they’re the bread and butter for at least one of the site’s fastest-growing accounts. Recent moves by Instagram seem to be aimed at cutting down on the practice, but we’re still seeing AI flips that are more popular than the original. Let’s walk through everything we know.
Part of why this growth hack works is that the platform doesn’t have any tools to find the original human video from the AI recreation — you need to see them both and remember one when you see the other. That means we’re not certain when or where this began. But the most successful AI flipper we’ve found is called Mr. Stretchy, an Arabic-language Instagram account that takes popular videos from all over the world and replaces the humans in them with this uncanny Wallace & Gromit reject.

144

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Reading another AI-generated abstract for a law-review article, I was reminded of this classic Bob and Ray sketch: www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8wB...

youtube.com

BOB AND RAY-ODD SHAPED FRUITS & VEGETABLES

YouTube video by Steve Mullens

020

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Congratulations to Meta, I guess, on failing to take reasonable measures to protect its trade secrets, and on authorizing extensive access to a protected computer.

38326

Reposted by James Grimmelmann

Emily J @emexastris.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Women. He offloads these things to women.

19016

Reposted by James Grimmelmann

"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

It's hilarious that Huang things not knowing his address, zip-code and phone number are a mark of how he is cognitively off-loading to technology and Klein doesn't seem to press him that what he's actually obviously doing is using the fact that he's rich to off-load onto other humans.

451424231

Reposted by James Grimmelmann

ct @cteeze-nuts.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I can't recommend highly enough this thread in which meta's muse model is shown to be so poorly hardened that it will tar its own VM filesystem and let you download it neuromatch.social/@jonny/11732...

neuromatch.social

jonny (nonvenomous) (@jonny@neuromatch.social)

Attached: 1 image Not only confirming this, its extremely easy. Almost no prompt injection resistance lmao

25626

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Maybe we can argue them up to a booting.

053

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

If I had a nickel for everyone I follow on here who has been stranded at Keflavík, I'd have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice. Right?

030

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

What are a scholar's obligations to read? What are the ethical principles that should guide how they choose what to read and how carefully? How should the question even be framed?

042

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Wait, why is Metamucil trending this week?

000

Reposted by James Grimmelmann

Courtney Milan @courtneymilan.com · 22/09/2026

Anyway Judge McMahon's answer is "well if there's a problem, you fucking call me and give your shitty frivolous opinion to my face right then and there."

ORDER CONCERNING FREEMAN'S DEPOSITION
McMahon, J.:
My order requires no clarification. It is perfectly clear. Counsel for Ms. Freeman do not
get to set the rules.
Ms. Freeman will answer EVERY question that is put to her - whether or not the question
was asked previously.
If Ms. Freeman asserts attorney client privilege with respect to a question that was not
previously asked, you are to call my chambers immediately to obtain a ruling. If I have to rule on more than one frivolous attorney client privilege objection, there will be consequences, in the form of sanctions, adverse inferences, referrals to the court's Grievance
Committee with the possible revocation of pro hac vice admission to practice or admission to the Bar of this Court, and the possibility of a civil contempt holding. Please understand — this is not an idle threat. I am tired of this. I do not believe that Ms. Freeman's counsel is acting in good faith and I will not stand for being jerked around - and I am indeed being jerked around — in this
manner by any lawyer who practices before me.

30110495

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I DO NOT HAVE THE PATIENCE to sit through social-media debates where the participants aren’t clear on whether they’re discussing intelligence, reasoning, consciousness, qualia, self-awareness, rationality, free will, moral agency, ensoulment, etc. They’re different, and don’t have to go together!

092

Reposted by James Grimmelmann

Simon Willison @simonwillison.net · 19/09/2026

Skeptical geneticist: "pfft, it's just frog DNA. And they deliberately let them eat people for the marketing."

2572

Reposted by James Grimmelmann

Jack Tindale @jacktindale.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Absolutely lost my shit at this co-op mode for Hearts of Iron, which you play as the Army, Navy, Emperor, and Government. All have their own win conditions aside the Government, which lost the game automatically in 1925. docs.google.com/document/d/1...

docs.google.com

True Imperial Japan Experience

True Imperial Japan Experience A Hearts of Iron 4 Game This is a counteroperative roleplaying game. The resolution system is a game of multiplayer Hearts of Iron 4 and a number of discord chats. Requi...

361149301

Reposted by James Grimmelmann

Dan Phillips @dphillips00.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

If these are dangerous tools you get to face the consequences for using them! Oh, it just hacked into the local power grid. Great! Who hacked it? You did. Invent some monstrous system by hooking up your agents to every possible system in the world? Why did you do that, you fucking idiot

111

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Call me crazy, but I think calling it a “rogue AI” accurately highlights the degree to which these AI agents have the capacity to behave in surprising, unintended, and dangerous ways, and thus directs attention to the human failure to train, instruct, control, and supervise it appropriately.

120

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Lots of fun to watch two camps of supposedly thoughtful people who agree that AI regulation is urgently needed tear each other apart for having different reasons to support their shared goal.

020

James Grimmelmann @jtlg.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Jacobean ≠ Jacobian ≠ Jacobin ≠ Jacobite English is fun.

160