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Michael L. Nelson

@phonedudemln.bsky.social
358 followers 259 following 128 posts

Professor & Eminent Scholar, Old Dominion University Web Science & Digital Libraries Group (WS-DL) Dept of Computer Science School of Data Science Virginia Modeling, Simulation & Analysis Center (VMASC)

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Michael L. Nelson @phonedudemln.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Dominik Soós's trip report for the IEEE International Conference on Quantum Computing and Engineering (QCE) in Toronto: ws-dl.blogspot.com/2026/09/2026...
ws-dl.blogspot.com
2026-09-25: IEEE Quantum Week 2026 in Toronto, Canada
The Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group at Old Dominion University.
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himarshaj.bsky.social @himarshaj.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
And closing out the final session of #TPDL2026 with our own work! Nobody Truly Agrees on Sentiment: Humans, Bespoke Tools, and LLMs Struggle with Social Media Texts @webscidl.bsky.social, @phonedudemln.bsky.social, @weiglemc.bsky.social, @skandasiva.bsky.social
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himarshaj.bsky.social @himarshaj.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
📍 #TPDL2026 in Faro, Portugal 🇵🇹 Happening now: InfoVis-DL — Information Visualization in Digital Libraries: Multi-modal Applications to Cultural Heritage Collections. Excited for a great workshop and discussions! @webscidl.bsky.social @phonedudemln.bsky.social @weiglemc.bsky.social
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Michael L. Nelson @phonedudemln.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
John Deasy's review of "A self-correcting multi-agent LLM framework for language-based physics simulation and explanation" by Park, Moon, & Ryu (2026) ws-dl.blogspot.com/2026/09/2026...
ws-dl.blogspot.com
2026-09-17: Paper Summary: "A self-correcting multi-agent LLM framework for language-based physics simulation and explanation"
The Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group at Old Dominion University.
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Michael L. Nelson @phonedudemln.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Jhon Botello's trip report to he University of Agder (Norway) for the "Modeling for Histories" project: ws-dl.blogspot.com/2026/09/2026...
ws-dl.blogspot.com
2026-07-13: WSDL Cartoon Book: Issue 1: Trip to Norway and How It Changed the Way I Think About Web Archives and Digital Libraries
The Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group at Old Dominion University.
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Michael L. Nelson @phonedudemln.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
A great event. A post about my lightning talk from the Forum: bsky.app/profile/phon...
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infoDOCKET @infodocket.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Final Report: #Information #Stewardship Forum 2026: Creating Community and Purpose Around US #Government #Information archive.org/details/ia-i... @archive.org #govinfo #libraries #govdata
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brendareyesayala.bsky.social @brendareyesayala.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
"What can a computer see?" Testing out automated #qa on #webarchives, a great blog post by the Library of Congress based on my work: blogs.loc.gov/thesignal/20...
blogs.loc.gov
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infoDOCKET @infodocket.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
IMLS Grant Awarded on Identifying and Preserving Web Resources Referenced in Archived U.S. Local and National Television News (via @webscidl.bsky.social) ws-dl.blogspot.com/2026/08/2026... #funding #mediapreservation #digipres #media #tvnews #video @archive.org
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Michael L. Nelson @phonedudemln.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Happy that this is finally published! A discussion about social media screenshots that we factored out of our research pubs about determining real vs. fake attribution in screenshots. Screenshots are still bad, mkay, but there are a lot of valid reasons why they are used. @webscidl.bsky.social
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ArXiv Paper Poster (cs.SI & ph-soc) @soc-net-bot.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Why People Share Social Media Screenshots arxiv.org/abs/2608.27539 Posting screenshots of social media posts is a common way of increasing platform functionality, enabling inter-platform interoperability, and gives users more control over how content is presented and interpreted. Whil...📈🤖
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himarshaj.bsky.social @himarshaj.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Excited to share that our team received an IMLS award for CiteCast, a project to identify and preserve web resources referenced in U.S. TV news! @WebSciDL ✍️: ws-dl.blogspot.com/2026/08/2026... Drs. @acnwala.bsky.social, @ibnesayeed.bsky.social, @phonedudemln.bsky.social, & @weiglemc.bsky.social
ws-dl.blogspot.com
2026-08-31: IMLS Grant Awarded on Identifying and Preserving Web Resources Referenced in Archived U.S. Local and National Television News
The Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group at Old Dominion University.
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Michael L. Nelson @phonedudemln.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Six WSDL @webscidl.bsky.social courses offered for Fall 2026: CS 418/518 Web Programming CS 432/532 Web Science CS 620 Intro to Data Science & Analytics CS 625 Data Vis CS 733/833 Natural Language Processing CS 795/895 Foundational Models for Data Science ws-dl.blogspot.com/2026/08/2026...
ws-dl.blogspot.com
2026-08-23: Six WSDL Classed Offered for Fall 2026
The Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group at Old Dominion University.
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Alexander C. Nwala @acnwala.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
I'm humbled to share that our project, "CiteCast: Linking US local & national television news to cited web resources," has been selected to receive an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) National Leadership Grants - Libraries award. www.imls.gov/grants/award...
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Nature @nature.com · 20/08/2026
The US National Science Foundation will award about 30% fewer new research grants this fiscal year than in the last one, Nature has learnt. go.nature.com/3UcGoNW
go.nature.com
Exclusive: NSF set to issue lowest number of new grants in four decades
The US science-funding agency is withholding $1 billion of its budget so that the money can go to a special White House project.
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Alexander C. Nwala @acnwala.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
I'm honored to lead this project at @wm.edu, and sincerely grateful for the opportunity to work with an exception team of collaborators: @phonedudemln.bsky.social & @weiglemc.bsky.social at ODU, and @ibnesayeed.bsky.social at @archive.org.
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Michael L. Nelson @phonedudemln.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Dominik Soós's trip report from ACM KDD in South Korea @webscidl.bsky.social ws-dl.blogspot.com/2026/08/2026...
ws-dl.blogspot.com
2026-08-18: KDD 2026 in Jeju, South Korea
The Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group at Old Dominion University.
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Jill Walker Rettberg @jilltxt.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Half of all content on the web has been AI-generated since 2025. Actually they checked a random sample of English language webpages in the Common Crawl dataset, because there's no way to check the whole web. The results in June 2026 were similar to a year before. graphite.io/five-percent...
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Jian Wu @fanchyna.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
I am excited to receive the NSF REU award to support undergraduate students in researching Human-AI Interaction and Evaluation in Web and Information Systems. ws-dl.blogspot.com/2026/08/2026... Thanks, NSF, and all mentors! @webscidl.bsky.social @phonedudemln.bsky.social
ws-dl.blogspot.com
2026-08-03: REU Renewal Proposal Awarded by NSF
The Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group at Old Dominion University.
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Michael L. Nelson @phonedudemln.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Jian Wu @fanchyna.bsky.social and WSDL @webscidl.bsky.social are on a heater -- we just received official confirmation that our NSF REU site was renewed for a second term. The topic this time is "Human-AI Interaction and Evaluation in Web and Information Systems". ws-dl.blogspot.com/2026/08/2026...
ws-dl.blogspot.com
2026-08-03: REU Renewal Proposal Awarded by NSF
The Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group at Old Dominion University.
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Michael L. Nelson @phonedudemln.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Congratulations to Jian Wu and Sampath Jayarathna for securing NSF funding for the JCDL Doctoral Consortium for the next three years. I'm happy that WSDL @webscidl.bsky.social & the NSF are able to continue to support JCDL @jcdlconf.bsky.social. congrats to all! ws-dl.blogspot.com/2026/08/2026...
ws-dl.blogspot.com
2026-08-03: JCDL Receives Sponsorship from the NSF to Support Its Doctoral Consortium Workshop
The Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group at Old Dominion University.
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Misty De Méo @cdrom.ca · 28/07/2026
The stuff I've been working on recently is finally public! I've spent the past bit revamping the social media site support in Browsertrix. We can capture much more content from Facebook and Instagram now, and I've also fixed Youtube video capture. webrecorder.net/blog/2026-07...
webrecorder.net
Social media improvements in Browsertrix • Webrecorder Blog
What’s new in the world of web archiving?
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Robin Berjon @robin.berjon.com · 10/07/2026
Imagine things being so bad that your best solution is to cut yourself off from Google Search traffic. I don't think that people realise just how much of a bad actor Google has been, for year. No other company has damaged the web nearly as much. 🧵 www.adweek.com/media/publis...
adweek.com
Publishers Are Preparing to Opt Out of Google Search
The nuclear option is gaining traction as web traffic collapses and Google refuses to negotiate with content creators
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Michael L. Nelson @phonedudemln.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
We've uploaded the video for Tuesday's 2026 WS-DL Research Expo -- be sure to check it out if you missed it. @webscidl.bsky.social ws-dl.blogspot.com/2026/06/2026...
ws-dl.blogspot.com
2026-06-25: 2026 WS-DL Research Expo
The Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group at Old Dominion University.
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Michael L. Nelson @phonedudemln.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
2026 WS-DL Research Expo Tuesday, June 23, 2pm EDT All are welcome: members, alumni, friends, etc. github.com/oduwsdl/2026... 5 students, 1 from each @webscidl.bsky.social prof, will give a ~15 min summary of their current research. Status updates from profs & alumni too! (zoom link in repo)
github.com
GitHub - oduwsdl/2026-research-expo: 2026 ODU Web Science and Digital Libraries (WSDL) Research Expo
2026 ODU Web Science and Digital Libraries (WSDL) Research Expo - oduwsdl/2026-research-expo
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Internet Archive @archive.org · 22/06/2026
📣 TOMORROW! 📣 There’s still time to join us for THE FIGHT FOR THE PUBLIC RECORD, a LIVE #FutureKnowledge #podcast conversation on one of the defining information challenges of our time. 📅 Tues, Jun 23 🕙 10AM PT 📍ONLINE 🎟️ www.eventbrite.com/e/the-fight-... @merrileeiam.bsky.social
Promotional banner for "The Fight for the Public Record," a Future Knowledge podcast live recording on June 23rd, 10am PT / 1pm ET, online. Features headshots of guests Merrilee Proffitt, James Jacobs, and Christopher Marcum alongside the Future Knowledge podcast cover art and Internet Archive and Authors Alliance logos.
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Michael L. Nelson @phonedudemln.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
2026 WS-DL Research Expo Tuesday, June 23, 2pm EDT All are welcome: members, alumni, friends, etc. github.com/oduwsdl/2026... 5 students, 1 from each @webscidl.bsky.social prof, will give a ~15 min summary of their current research. Status updates from profs & alumni too! (zoom link in repo)
github.com
GitHub - oduwsdl/2026-research-expo: 2026 ODU Web Science and Digital Libraries (WSDL) Research Expo
2026 ODU Web Science and Digital Libraries (WSDL) Research Expo - oduwsdl/2026-research-expo
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Michael L. Nelson @phonedudemln.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
Recently, Sawood (ibnesayeed.bsky.social) & I uncovered a tricky web archiving replay problem. An API call several layers of JS deep had superfluous browser size args that would intermittently load the wrong JSON for the archived HTML ws-dl.blogspot.com/2026/05/2026... (all images/links are SFW)
ws-dl.blogspot.com
2026-05-26: URL Arguments in API Calls Can Cause Intermittent Temporal Violations While Replaying Archived Web Pages
The Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group at Old Dominion University.
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Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
Our research team is ramping up for coming midterms. Looks like we'll be busy. If you're interested, here's an interactive graph (thanks to Stephen Prochaska) showing how X influencers re-ran the "rigged election" narrative during/following the CA primaries. faculty.washington.edu/kstarbi/Cumu...
A cumulative line graph titled "2026 CA Primary – 'Rigged Election' Allegations: Cumulative Tweets Graph," showing total tweets on the Y-axis (ranging from 0 to 1,500,000+) and time in UTC on the X-axis (June 2–10, 2026). The data, obtained using Brandwatch Consumer Research, shows a steadily accelerating upward trend in tweets over the period. Points are color-coded by tweet type: dark blue for original tweets, salmon/pink for replies, and gold/yellow for quotes. Larger hollow circles overlaid on the line indicate highly shared posts sized by number of retweets. Several notable clusters of large circles appear around June 3, June 5, June 7, and June 9, suggesting bursts of high-engagement viral posts driving spikes in cumulative tweet volume.
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George Macgregor @g3om4c.code4lib.social.ap.brid.gy · 10/06/2026
The #Library #Innovation Lab #Harvard has just launched #WARCbench, which they describe as a "Swiss Army Knife for #WARC Processing". This is a high benchmark because I frickin' love Swiss Army knives! 😀But, on a serious note, this WARCbench looks seriously useful. As someone who has recently […]
code4lib.social
Original post on code4lib.social
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himarshaj.bsky.social @himarshaj.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Excited to share that I passed my PhD proposal defense on April 24, 2026 -- another step closer to finishing my PhD 🎓 Special thanks to my dissertation committee: @weiglemc.bsky.social, @phonedudemln.bsky.social, @acnwala.bsky.social, & Erika Frydenlund for their guidance & support.
slideshare.net
Client Challenge
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herbert @hvdsomp.w3c.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/06/2026
I want to take a moment, here, to highlight the very short yet utterly to-the-point blog post by my long time hero, David Rosenthal, in which he explains to his old boss, Eric Schmidt, why he and his ilk are getting booed at college commencements, and why laws […] [Original post on w3c.social]
Picture of J.P. Morgan hitting a photographer with a cane. The image is featured in David Rosenthal’s blog post, which I promote in this toot.
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Michael L. Nelson @phonedudemln.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Updated with additional examples from niigata-u.repo.nii.ac.jp, again courtesy of Martin Klein.
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Michael L. Nelson @phonedudemln.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
I've been trying to resolve the cognitive dissonance between "AI-generated summaries are useful" and the backlash that Dr. Fieisler (@cfiesler.bsky.social), myself, and many others felt at the ACM DL briefly making them default over authors' abstracts in December. ws-dl.blogspot.com/2026/05/2026...
ws-dl.blogspot.com
2026-05-28: If LLMs can write abstracts, what's our job? The Uncanny Valley and Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect in the ACM Digital Library
The Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group at Old Dominion University.
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Michael L. Nelson @phonedudemln.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
Recently, Sawood (ibnesayeed.bsky.social) & I uncovered a tricky web archiving replay problem. An API call several layers of JS deep had superfluous browser size args that would intermittently load the wrong JSON for the archived HTML ws-dl.blogspot.com/2026/05/2026... (all images/links are SFW)
ws-dl.blogspot.com
2026-05-26: URL Arguments in API Calls Can Cause Intermittent Temporal Violations While Replaying Archived Web Pages
The Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group at Old Dominion University.
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Michael L. Nelson @phonedudemln.bsky.social · 06/12/2025
A follow up to the @tarannum44.bsky.social / @webscidl.bsky.social study on Twitter UI generations. This time, it's about acct pages, not just individual tweets. ws-dl.blogspot.com/2025/12/2025...
ws-dl.blogspot.com
2025-12-03: Exploring the Different Generations of the UI for Twitter’s Account Pages
The Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group at Old Dominion University.
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Michael L. Nelson @phonedudemln.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
On Thursday, May 14 2026, we held our WSDL gathering at Hank’s Filling Station. It also served as a promotion and tenure party for Vikas Ashok. Himarsha and Skanda brought the future WSDL member (and shared her with others), and former members were there too (Sawood, Yasith, Gavindya).
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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
ArXiv is going to ban researchers for a year if they are caught submitting AI slop. ArXiv told us it's a one strike rule: do it once, you're out. www.404media.co/new-arxiv-ru...
404media.co
ArXiv to Ban Researchers for a Year if They Submit AI Slop
The change comes as arXiv and others struggle to manage an influx of AI-generated materials masquerading as rigorous science.
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Kate Klonick @klonick.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
The Internet is disappearing before our very eyes and it’s why we should all support that absolutely critical work of @archive.org
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404 Media @404media.co · 15/05/2026
NEW: ArXiv, the open-access repository of preprint academic research, will ban authors of papers for a year if they submit obviously AI-generated work. www.404media.co/new-arxiv-ru...
404media.co
ArXiv to Ban Researchers for a Year if They Submit AI Slop
The change comes as arXiv and others struggle to manage an influx of AI-generated materials masquerading as rigorous science.
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herbert @hvdsomp.w3c.social.ap.brid.gy · 15/05/2026
#lazyweb I am wondering which schema.org term can be used to convey the URL of an institutional repository, current research information system, ...
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Samuel Moore @samuelmoore.org · 11/05/2026
"If writing about the science is where scientists figure out what their science actually means, then treating paper-writing as a decorative layer on top of formalized claims may remove important think-work from the writing process." Enjoyed this piece on replacing the scientific article.
thetransmitter.org
Is the scientific paper due to be replaced?
AI is pushing scientific publishing to the brink. For neuroscience, the crisis may be an opportunity to finally connect findings across subfields.
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Internet Archive @archive.org · 10/05/2026
Web history disappears when it can’t be preserved. Today, some publishers are blocking the Wayback Machine from archiving parts of the public web, putting decades of digital history at risk. Tell publishers: don’t block the #WaybackMachine. Sign the petition ➡️ www.savethearchive.com/newsleaders/
savethearchive.com
Tell New York Times, The Atlantic, and USA Today to keep the crucial work of journalists in the Wayback Machine!
The news isn’t getting preserved in the Wayback Machine anymore because major media outlets are blocking it.
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infoDOCKET @infodocket.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
The Guardian: “‘Things Were Going Dark Left and Right’: The Race to Save US Government #Datasets Before They’re Deleted” www.infodocket.com/2026/05/07/t... @datarescueproject.org @envirodgi.bsky.social @archive.org #data #libraries #librarians
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Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
The AI-driven hard drive shortage is making it more expensive for the Internet Archive to operate, causing problems for Wikimedia, causing delays in academic and hobby archiving projects. Normal people and non AI companies simply can't find reasonably priced drives: www.404media.co/the-ai-hard-...
404media.co
The AI Hard Drive Shortage Is Making It More Expensive and Harder to Archive the Internet
The Internet Archive, Wikimedia, academics, and hobby archivists are having trouble finding hard drives or are having to pay extremely high prices for them.
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404 Media @404media.co · 05/05/2026
The Internet Archive, Wikimedia, academics, and hobby archivists are having trouble finding hard drives or are having to pay extremely high prices for them.
404media.co
The AI Hard Drive Shortage Is Making It More Expensive and Harder to Archive the Internet
The Internet Archive, Wikimedia, academics, and hobby archivists are having trouble finding hard drives or are having to pay extremely high prices for them.
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Sharon Howard @sharonhoward.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
I don't think people fully understand yet just how fragile university-hosted digital resources are after external funding ends (especially if the lead academic retires or moves or is made redundant).
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infoDOCKET @infodocket.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
New Research: "Friendly #AI #Chatbots Make More Mistakes and Tell People What They Want to Hear, Study Finds" (via @oii.ox.ac.uk) www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news-events/... #LLMs #GenAI
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Luiza Jarovsky, PhD @luizajarovsky.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
🚨 The authors found that, by mid-2025, 35% of newly published websites were AI-generated or AI-assisted (up from zero before ChatGPT’s launch). Interesting paper on the impact of AI-generated text on the internet, relying on data from the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 28/04/2026
More details on the firing of the National Science Board. The NSF now has no director, deputy director, or board. They have issued almost no new awards in 2026. The plan appears to be to completely destroyed the agency. The details are horrifying and have Russ Vought written all over them.
insidehighered.com
Board Ouster Raises Further Concerns About NSF’s Future
The White House axed all members of the board overseeing the National Science Foundation Friday, leaving the agency with no board, director or deputy director. It finally provided a reason Monday afte...
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