iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 16h

Great thread of quotes. I haven't read the original article yet, but adding it to my never-ending list.

Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 18h

This thread links to Meg Mitchell's post (read that!), but I just want to add that I think people spend too much time on the wrong word of "stochastic parrots." As Mitchell points out, "parroting" doesn't mean "verbatim playback." But I think a lot of people use that as some sort of gotcha.

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Brian Merchant @bcmerchant.bsky.social · 19h

My theory: More than critiques of circular financing, or of dubious product functionality, "stochastic parrots" undermines the foundation that the entire AI boom is built on: The story that the AI industry is building an unfathomably powerful machine god.

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I really wish people understood that stochastic processes can produce correct predictions, but that does not add any evidence of reasoning or judgment that is worth trusting with important decisions.

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

This take is memory-holing so much of the history of ads. Ads were huge security vulnerabilities (unverified code running on your computer installing drive-by downloads). They also were (and still are) just flat-out anti-user hostility. I grew up in the era of printed newspapers & evening TV news...

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evacide @evacide.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Listen, I just think it's weird that the same people who are saying they're worried that AI is going to wipe out humanity are also eager for military contracts that will give AI control of weapons.

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

While I’m pleasantly surprised Good Place made the NYTimes Top 100 list (h/t to @liedra.net for introducing it to me), I’m shocked Walking Dead didn’t. Later seasons went downhill, but first ~4 (up to Alexandria) were great. If Lost and GoT made the list, bad later seasons weren’t disqualifying.

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AP Stylebook @apstylebook.com · 23/09/2026

Artificial intelligence systems do not think, feel, want or understand. Avoid language that gives them human characteristics.

apnews.com

https://apnews.com/article/openai-safety-ai-framework-089e75b95bc935af092da7b79d92706d

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

I feel like this is the logical endpoint of the last several decades. It's been easy for a lot of people to build careers as outsiders attacking institutions and mainstream things. The result is that we have to learn *all over again* why those things we destroyed matters and how to rebuild them.

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Wow, that was a crap challenge result.

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

I don’t think people outside of academia have any sense of how thoroughly and rapidly gen AI is laying waste to education, particularly at the college level.

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Twonks @twonks.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Wow

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

As if anyone needed another reason to hate the New England Patriots.

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

"Still no stochastic parrot has called // on its nation to knock back bleach." 🤣

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

It would be really great if organizations aiming to provide unique, persistent IDs (ORCID) actually took steps to verify them. 🤷‍♂️

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

This thread is great overall, but this point in particular has always been true: most security breaches happen because there’s a lot of boring tedious stuff that has to be done, it only takes one mistake, and there are normally plenty of mistakes to choose from.

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

New lifetime achievement unlocked: fly to a city in the AM, have an all-day meeting, fly home that night. I should get home about 18 hours after leaving. I hope I’m not completely exhausted and nonsensical in tomorrow morning’s classes.

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

This whole thread makes me incredibly sad.

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Eryk Salvaggio @eryk.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

I find that, no matter how many ways I acknowledge LLMs etc are changing, people dismiss me as “crazy” or “unserious” because I refuse to attribute those changes to “intelligence.” I will say again, automated language production and intelligence are completely different things.

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

The alignment problem is an oxymoron.

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but I’d like to suggest that the solution to the problem of many hands…isn’t to increase the number of hands to reduce culpability. Just a thought.

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

That original quote is something else and it’s taking a lot of willpower not to add to a dogpile. (Okay, it doesn’t really require a lot…)

static.klipy.com

Mad Max: Fury Road - That's Bait

Alt: Mad Max: Fury Road - That's Bait

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

I really wish I could get through a single week without new material for my CS ethics course. At this point, I probably have about 378 weeks worth of material that I could use for my single-semester course.

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Start the countdown for the Google and Apple Maps updates. 🙄

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

I am genuinely perplexed. How is it that Microsoft, maker of a program that easily parses comma-separated values, makes an email client that cannot process a list of comma-separated addresses?!? Semicolons or newlines only. 🤯

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

"The Omaha mayor and police chief said in a joint statement Monday that the gloves were used twice in the last school year, including in a program for students with learning deficits." What the...🤬🤬🤬?!?!

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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

I cannot really explain to someone who hasn't been steeped in this stuff for awhile how sudden and total the "go to college and get a good job" edict has collapsed. It's a vaccuum. And we know how nature feels about those. All we are throwing in there at the moment is A.I.

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Good, and I there's precedent to believe them unlike the cowards.

Mapquest showing the Gulf of Mexico, correctly named

Google Maps showing the Gulf of Mexico, incorrectly named as the "Gulf of America"

Apple Maps showing the Gulf of Mexico, incorrectly named as the "Gulf of America"

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Commence the countdown for the Google Maps update... 🙄

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Oh, uh, I guess the not-so-subtle reminders of aging are going to start to come more regularly now.

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Wow. 🤯 I think Target misspelled “Black face minstrel costume.”

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

"You cannot use facts to convince someone who did not employ facts to make their decision." I love that and it is so true in so many different domains.

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Helluva time for my institution decide to prioritize becoming an R1 in its strategic plan.

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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 24/08/2026

Sometimes society at large rejects certain ideas because they’ve been thoroughly shown to be wrong and also because they suck and the people who espouse them suck and when someone comes around arguing those ideas should be part of some edgy modern debate we can and should shun them and move on.

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Could you imagine the impact this would have in, say, mid-October if coupled with some targeted appearances on Fox News, Joe Rogan, etc.?

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

It's genuinely alarming driving onto campus at 9:30 AM and seeing this many students before classes start on Wednesday. I had a moment of panic where I thought that I messed up my calendar and missed teaching my first classes.

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

The purpose of a system is what it does. So the purpose of disabling keyboard access in Apple CarPlay is to make driving more dangerous, because it forces users to use the keyboard on their phone rather than the car’s media screen.

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Just drove past the Charlie Obaugh Auto Group Parking Deck and realized why naming rights deals are so revolting: it’s the naming as advertising maximization. It’s just absurdly excessive. It was “Sears Tower,” not “Sears, Roebuck, and Co. Department Store Tower.” Ugh.

static.klipy.com

The Simpsons Old Man Yells At Cloud Who'S Laughing Now Ah Shut Up Newspaper

ALT: The Simpsons Old Man Yells At Cloud Who'S Laughing Now Ah Shut Up Newspaper

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

I'm not anti-AI (though admittedly a bit ambivalent). I am, however, absolutely anti-AI-in-education (except for very specific circumstances). Cognitive outsourcing *during the learning process* is just phenomenally inane!

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Sokol 1 was a wake-up call. Sokol 2 was annoying sea lions. This Sokol 3 is dangerous and beating a dead horse.

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Me: *sits down* Faculty peer in different department, speaking to another person: “…so we’re using this tool called Pangram. Have you heard of it?” Me: *silently weeps*

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

It's remarkable to me how polarizing this issue is. While I understand the "just don't speed" arguments of advocates, it's remarkably priggish. So many things about our rush-rush-rush culture plus crap infrastructure has incentivized speeding. Not to mention psychotic truck drivers on interstates.

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Why do toddlers feel the need to smash everything they grab into your face? Phones, remotes, books, toys…all go straight to your face. Is this their attempt at sharing? Asking as a [ouch] genuinely [ouch] perplexed parent [ouch, no, please stop you adorable brute].

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

New distributed systems paper idea for Leslie Lamport: The Byzantine Subcontractors Problem.

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Michael S. Kirkpatrick @kirkpams.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Computer science is not about fixing or using computers. No, I don’t know how to fix that Windows error or use that app you installed.

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