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Thomas Arnold

@thomasarnold.bsky.social
710 followers 666 following 480 posts

HRI, AI, religious studies, pragmatism | ethics-sullying at Tufts Institute for AI | he/him | current pencil: Tombow 2558 H | end theory: low | realism: visceral thomasarnold.scholar.st

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Reposted by Thomas Arnold
Annette Yoshiko Reed @annetteyreed.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Shaul Magid @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social thinks with Benjamin Moser on Jewish anti-Zionism and erasures of Jewish history lareviewofbooks.org/article/anti...
lareviewofbooks.org
Snow Globe Palimpsest | Los Angeles Review of Books
Benjamin Moser delivers biographical sketches of Jews who refused to abandon the Diaspora.
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
This is snake-handling 101. The snake-handlers believe snakes can be deadly. But they also need you to be in awe of their faithful handling, to confer authority upon them as the special, spiritually gifted guarantors of Snake Safety/Governance. Fear, fascination, and protection reinforce each other.
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Reading "Foucault in California" and still trying to accept that, after a lecture at Claremont in 1975, the night after he trips balls in Death Valley with host Simeon Wade and his partner, Foucault is met by...Al Franken, who asks him "Who do you think will win the World Series?"
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
If one substitutes "people whom they consider odd or exotic are in pain" for "something is made with AI" one faces how excruciating certain knowing would be (ghost workers and women in my field hurt, do I want to know more?), what theaters of intellectual sophistication might help me not have to do.
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Ah, I see the successor to "My Bluesky # is _____ [contortion not to humblebrag]" is upon us.
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
ChatGPT Aspera opens up a link to "Ghost Work" then deletes itself.
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
LinkedIn posts as grimoire
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J. Nathan Matias @natematias.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
How do governments rewire science & the tech industry by threatening scholars? And how can we be more resilient? Writing for @ucs.org, I report on efforts by @thecoalition.bsky.social, @knightcolumbia.org, @acm.org, & @aoir.bsky.social to support researcher rights blog.ucs.org/guest-commen...
blog.ucs.org
Protecting Science from Government Intimidation - Union of Concerned Scientists
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Reposted by Thomas Arnold
Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
🌿🍄🌿 Finally went into the office + picked up my copy of Thinking With Plants + Fungi (and some other books). What a beautiful, colorful, joyful celebration of nature, history + science. Order your own copy + read my article on moss below (or on Amazon). 🌿🍄🌿 www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067...
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Nevins Library, Methuen MA One of many North Shore library gems.
Arched ceiling and stained glass of Nevins Library reading room, along with second-level wood-paneled study cartels.
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
And "responsible use" brings more refusal problems with it-- when does a system allow for refusal within an interaction? Where is real-time consent, safety shut-offs, silence, not "guardrails" but exits from the road of sycophancy before it's too late to turn around? dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1...
dl.acm.org
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Looking forward to speaking with Christian Miller about honesty, AI, and virtue in a "This is fine" fire age. DM me for host promocode, still have some remaining. #philsky interintellect.com/salons/the-h...
interintellect.com
[Upcoming Event] The Honesty Crisis in a Deep Fake Age: A Conversation with Christian B. Miller
Fakes, frauds, and cons are not recent inventions, but our contemporary age is bringing new zeal, technique, and scale to such enterprises. Beyond intentional scams, however, are even more unsettling ...
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Matthew A Kraft @matthewakraft.com · 06/08/2026
Brown just opened a cluster hire for two tenure-track positions in Education Policy. Come join our vibrant community of scholars at @brownedudept.bsky.social & @annenberginstitute.bsky.social! apply.interfolio.com/190527 Please help spread the word.
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
The recommendation of Sara Teasdale now seems unrealistic because of its restraint, rather than-- as it did in high school-- the breadth of the machine's poetic references.
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Looking forward to speaking with Christian Miller about honesty, AI, and virtue in a "This is fine" fire age. DM me for host promocode, still have some remaining. #philsky interintellect.com/salons/the-h...
interintellect.com
[Upcoming Event] The Honesty Crisis in a Deep Fake Age: A Conversation with Christian B. Miller
Fakes, frauds, and cons are not recent inventions, but our contemporary age is bringing new zeal, technique, and scale to such enterprises. Beyond intentional scams, however, are even more unsettling ...
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
The Coen Brothers have already done the Odyssey, it's time to let them plumb Minnesota darkness with Berryman's Dream Songs.
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Robin Z @firepile.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
Really disappointed not to see @jgcarpenter.com quoted or cited here- sure seemed like she broke at least half this story on here almost 2 weeks ago
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
It took 9 years, but it seems this @tcarmody.bsky.social theory has manifested. kottke.org/17/12/lebron...
kottke.org
LeBron James and the Philly Beard Theory
LeBron James, as a basketball player, is arguably better now than he’s ever been. More importantly, LeBron James’s beard is inarguably better now than it’s
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
One of the many small details in @karenhao.bsky.social's Empire of AI that has stayed with me, amid many more gruesome others, is how OpenAI took the term "red-teaming" from cybersecurity without any adherence to its criteria and standards-- it just sounded cool, adversarial, accountability-coded.
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Showing Morass sums up so much of AI vibe-metaphysics
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
I started writing a joke about the Odyssey in translation but then I saw on my screen "Chapman's Homer Beat Yanks 5/4" so I stole a better writer's joke.
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Join us for this conversation (DM me for host promocode). This got me to look back at More's Utopia, where I realized Sebald's "Austerlitz" might be riffing off it-- both start with meeting a mysterious man in Antwerp, who unveils truths from colonial exploration. interintellect.com/salons/nowhe...
interintellect.com
[Upcoming Event] Nowhere Good: Rethinking Utopia in the 21st Century
Utopia translates from the Greek outopos as ‘no place’. It is somewhere that can only be reached through the imagination. When he coined the term in his 1516 book Utopia, Thomas More told a story of a...
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Reposted by Thomas Arnold
Julie Carpenter, PhD @jgcarpenter.com · 16/07/2026
As a robotics researcher, learning scientist, and author who has followed Realbotix for years, I'm compelled to do a Bluesky thread on this whole pivot that Realbotix is now trying, turning from humanoid sex robots to classroom "education" robots. Buckle up. nysfocus.com/2026/07/14/n... 🧵
nysfocus.com
Rural NY School To Launch Humanoid Robot Teacher
Plans to deploy a "lifelike" robot and avatar teaching assistant at Salamanca High School have sparked debate over the role of technology in schools.
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Come on, join me in avoiding writing. #philsky
A five panel sequence from John Oliver on General Hospital, showing him interrupted, slapped and stunned by a character. My text is Wittgenstein commenting on logical form then getting slapped by Piero Sraffa à la his famous Sicilian gesture for which he asked W for logical form.
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
Might be time for a Rorty reboot geared to AI, how the linguistic turn can serve a second-order "representation" and mirroring fantasy. Or a reboot of Wittgenstein, who would have vomited at the idea of LLM's vindicating anything from him other than his ear for Brahms.
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Enjoying this book and looking forward to the discussion interintellect.com/salons/nowhe...
interintellect.com
[Upcoming Event] Nowhere Good: Rethinking Utopia in the 21st Century
Utopia translates from the Greek outopos as ‘no place’. It is somewhere that can only be reached through the imagination. When he coined the term in his 1516 book Utopia, Thomas More told a story of a...
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Reposted by Thomas Arnold
Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 23/06/2026
If you're an anthropologist of science/tech in the Boston area and want to teach an intro-level class at Tufts on the same this fall, well you're in luck: apply.interfolio.com/188534
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
A very short intro for Theology and Science, submitted with impeccable timing a few days before the papal encyclical's release. On AI ethics, Moloch, Greek tragedy, and care. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
Prompt engineering, via Philip K. Dick's "The Penultimate Truth" (1964).
At the keyboard of the rhetorizor he typed, carefully, the substantive he wanted. 'Squirrel.' Then, after a good two minutes of sluggish, deep thought, the limiting adjective 'smart'.""Dear," Colleen said, and sighed. "I heard you type out only two semantic units. Give it more to ogpon."
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 12/06/2026
a yellow bumper sticker reading “Keep Honking! I'm reading Donna Haraway's germinal 1988 essay, 'Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective'”
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
* Arendt, Irigiray
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Darby Saxbe @darbysaxbe.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
I loved talking to @npr.org's Meghna Chakrabarti for On Point this summer. They re-aired the interview this weekend if you're curious to give it a listen! Link in comments.
Screenshot of NPR website with headline "The new science of 'dad brain'"
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Mel Andrews @bayesianboy.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
Excellent new work out from my lab exemplifying how philosophy, cognitive science, and computer science must put their resources together in order to make headway on characterizing the capabilities of AI systems, especially when those capabilities are in a mentalistic idiom.
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
It was a pleasure to host yesterday's @interintellect.bsky.social salon with @carissaveliz.bsky.social. The book is superb, an exemplary work of what we sweet summer children used to call a public intellectual.
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
The theological arachnics she would have unleashed on the name, message, and prophesying of Anthropic appearing at a joint press conference about a papal encyclical... My Adam Curtis doc would note she passed away in 2010, the year of the first ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge...
The cover of Mary Daly's "Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy," green with a symmetrically serpentine illustration by Emily Culpepper.
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
How about some 20 minute Tiny Desk lectures on politics and History
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Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha @thellpsx.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
in the u.s., print and ebook: bookshop.org/p/books/the-... in canada from arsenal direct arsenalpulp.com/Books/T/The-.... and the week we hit the bestsellars: lithub.com/the-independ...
lithub.com
The Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers: Fiction
Here are this week’s Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers for fiction, based on sales in hundreds of independent bookstores nationwide, generously provided by the American Booksellers Association. …
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
We are nearing capacity and the event date, and in addition to zeugma I have some free codes to offer. DM me in interested.
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
As tech companies have started blaming science fiction for their AI's shambolatry, it's time to face up to Melville's culpability for the Canvas hack.
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
A diamond in the rough podcast on health and AI, a rare combination of front-line ER experience with genuine knowledge of the AI research landscape. codeandcure.buzzsprout.com/2502446/follow
codeandcure.buzzsprout.com
Code & Cure
Decoding health in the age of AIHosted by an AI researcher and a medical doctor, this podcast unpacks how artificial intelligence and emerging technologies are transforming how we understand, measure,...
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
Theology as a subset of spiritual care makes much more sense, pedagogically and intellectually, than spiritual care as a downstream, unsophisticated repackaging of theology.
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
"What is a problem with individual liberty revealed by Emerson? Palantir just needs to confirm its exact coordinates. Also, any 'close readings' of further Emerson will be reported to the administration."
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
Film you've watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Star Trek, Star Wars, LOTR, Marvel, Disney, or Ghibli.
media.tenor.com
a close up of a man 's face looking at the camera
ALT: a close up of a man 's face looking at the camera
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
The ethical parallel is the complete vapidity of "alignment" from data, as if norms were optimization. You can't infer a negative ("Don't recommend self-harm") from sheer absence of behavior. Which is why even with ghost work behind the scenes LLM's will continue to violate.
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
How a neurosymbolic approach outperforms an LLM (VLA) on a novel problem-solving task AND consumes much less energy in the process. arxiv.org/abs/2602.19260
arxiv.org
The Price Is Not Right: Neuro-Symbolic Methods Outperform VLAs on Structured Long-Horizon Manipulation Tasks with Significantly Lower Energy Consumption
Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models have recently been proposed as a pathway toward generalist robotic policies capable of interpreting natural language and visual inputs to generate manipulation acti...
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Oh, you saint America don't love you So I could never love you In spite of everything -- The Song Book of Ezra
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✊🏼Indigiqueer Hummingbird @riotousmuse.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
I just lost my wedding ring at Newark airport terminal C in the bathroom near departures when you first enter near door 3. ~10:30am Eastern Time Friday April 17th Our flight doesn't leave until 2pm DM ME IF YOU GET INFORMATION ABOUT THIS @phoenix-rights.bsky.social is at lost & found now
A high-quality photo of the wedding ring. It has an oval shaped gold in quartz in the center flanked by 2 small clusters of 3 small diamonds, with gold nuggets all along the sides of the band.A photo of the wedding ring on my hand. It has an oval shaped gold in quartz in the center flanked by 2 small clusters of 3 small diamonds, with gold nuggets all along the sides of the band.
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monika bielskyte @monikabielskyte.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
The future should not be defined by those most insulated from the consequences of their actions. But it has been. I wrote why, and how we could try and change our future briefs: substack.com/@monikabiels...
substack.com
Monika Bielskyte (@monikabielskyte)
The future should not be defined by those most insulated from the consequences of their actions. https://monikabielskyte.substack.com/p/we-can-always-do-something-about?r=1fofg&utm_medium=ios
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
I'm not "past deadline," my draft is so powerful I cannot release it to reviewers.
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Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
www.openculture.com/2024/12/disc...
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