Below you will find pages that utilize the taxonomy term “generative AI”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Meta’s new AI image generator was trained on 1.1 billion Instagram and Facebook photos | Ars Technica'
- kudos:The phrase popped into my head before the article could even get to it: We are the product. link to “Meta’s new AI image generator was trained on 1.1 billion Instagram and Facebook photos | Ars Technica”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'AI chatbots can infer an alarming amount of info about you from your responses | Ars Technica'
- kudos:Welp, this is scary. link to “AI chatbots can infer an alarming amount of info about you from your responses | Ars Technica”
🔗 linkblog: mes pensées sur 'Les deepfakes pornographiques comme nouvelle arme de harcèlement scolaire - rts.ch - Technologies'
- kudos:C’est bien inquiétant, cette histoire. lien pour “Les deepfakes pornographiques comme nouvelle arme de harcèlement scolaire - rts.ch - Technologies”
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on '4chan users manipulate AI tools to unleash torrent of racist images | Ars Technica'
- kudos:Content moderation is a good thing. link to “4chan users manipulate AI tools to unleash torrent of racist images | Ars Technica”
- kudos:
Another set of proofs, another set of complaints about a copyeditor making changes to my writing in ways that distort my meaning. If I get grumpy about a human doing my writing for me, why would I ever want generative AI to do it?
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Terraforming Mars team defends AI use as Kickstarter hits $1.3 million - Polygon'
- kudos:This is an interesting interview. I don’t think I’m sold on the defense—if anyone can afford to pay artists, the team behind Terraforming Mars can—but I do see how there’s more nuance here than my gut reaction to the headline. Still not pleased, though. link to ‘Terraforming Mars team defends AI use as Kickstarter hits $1.3 million - Polygon’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/07/govern-yourself-accordingly/'
- kudos:Appreciate Doctorow’s thinking here. link to ‘https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/07/govern-yourself-accordingly/’
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College conversation about investment in GPT-type tech to support research is continuing. I think it’s… fitting that the survey being circulated is clearly using Qualtrics’s auto-suggested Likert responses—and that the responses aren’t quite right for the questions being asked.
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My college is floating the idea of investing in GPT-type technology to help researchers code text data. This reminds me of my longtime belief that the distinction between “qual” and “quant” is often less important than the distinction between different research paradigms.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Gizmodo’s owner shuts down Spanish language site in favor of AI translations - The Verge'
- kudos:Gizmodo’s owner seems way too optimistic about AI. link to ‘Gizmodo’s owner shuts down Spanish language site in favor of AI translations - The Verge’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'You Are Not Responsible for Your Own Online Privacy | WIRED'
- kudos:Some important—if disheartening—observations from Marwick. link to ‘You Are Not Responsible for Your Own Online Privacy | WIRED’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Scammers Used ChatGPT to Unleash a Crypto Botnet on X | WIRED'
- kudos:Three cheers for ChatGPT or whatever. link to ‘Scammers Used ChatGPT to Unleash a Crypto Botnet on X | WIRED’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Use of AI Is Seeping Into Academic Journals—and It’s Proving Difficult to Detect | WIRED'
- kudos:Good article on a worrying trend. It’s things like this that make me skeptical of arguments that generative AI could have real benefit when used properly. It’s not that I disagree—it’s that in the aggregate, I’m not sure the proper uses will outweigh the problems. link to ‘Use of AI Is Seeping Into Academic Journals—and It’s Proving Difficult to Detect | WIRED’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'An Iowa school district is using ChatGPT to decide which books to ban - The Verge'
- kudos:Even if ChatGPT could be trusted to do this task, “let’s remove books from libraries with less work” is a good example of how efficiency isn’t always a good thing. link to ‘An Iowa school district is using ChatGPT to decide which books to ban - The Verge’
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I get why folks in ed compare ChatGPT to Wikipedia, but there are important differences. Wikipedia is entirely non-profit, lays bare its knowledge generation process, can be fixed on the fly, and can’t actively generate problematic content. It’s not just about reliability.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'AI hysteria is a distraction: algorithms already sow disinformation in Africa | Odanga Madung | The Guardian'
- kudos:So many important points in this piece. link to ‘AI hysteria is a distraction: algorithms already sow disinformation in Africa | Odanga Madung | The Guardian’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Generative AI Is Making Companies Even More Thirsty for Your Data | WIRED'
- kudos:This is not a future I look forward to (or a present I want to live in). link to ‘Generative AI Is Making Companies Even More Thirsty for Your Data | WIRED’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Zoom Became a Part of Daily Life. It Needs to Tell Users Exactly How It's Using Their Data | WIRED'
- kudos:Lots of good stuff in here. link to ‘Zoom Became a Part of Daily Life. It Needs to Tell Users Exactly How It’s Using Their Data | WIRED’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Author discovers AI-generated counterfeit books written in her name on Amazon | Ars Technica'
- kudos:I’m not thrilled about AI’s ability to do this, but let’s be clear: Amazon is as much to blame here, and I like them even less. link to ‘Author discovers AI-generated counterfeit books written in her name on Amazon | Ars Technica’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Now you can block OpenAI’s web crawler - The Verge'
- kudos:This is a welcome step, but I’m concerned it’s an empty, distracting gesture—it certainly doesn’t solve the deeper issue. link to ‘Now you can block OpenAI’s web crawler - The Verge’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Zoom says its new AI tools aren’t stealing ownership of your content - The Verge'
- kudos:Zoom’s responses to this are meaningless, empty corporate speak. I’m not concerned about owning my content, I’m concerned about others using it while affirming my ownership. And yes, I “consent” to it in the sense that I use Zoom, but that is meaningless consent and Zoom knows it. What a garbage response. link to ‘Zoom says its new AI tools aren’t stealing ownership of your content - The Verge’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'A jargon-free explanation of how AI large language models work | Ars Technica'
- kudos:Haven’t read this yet, but I’m bookmarking for my classes. link to ‘A jargon-free explanation of how AI large language models work | Ars Technica’
- kudos:
It’s good to ask whether generative AI is good or bad for students, instructors, or education, but it’s arguably more important for ed. stakeholders to ask who else generative AI is good or bad for. Edtech needs to pay more attention to broader contexts.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Cleaning Up ChatGPT’s Language Takes Heavy Toll on Human Workers - WSJ'
- kudos:Everyone excited about generative AI needs to account for this kind of thing. We don’t pay enough attention to digital labor and the dehumanizing aspects of content moderation. link to ‘Cleaning Up ChatGPT’s Language Takes Heavy Toll on Human Workers - WSJ’
draft syllabus statement on code, plagiarism, and generative AI
- kudos:I’m spending a chunk of today starting on revisions to my Intro to Data Science course for my unit’s LIS and ICT graduate prograrms. I’d expected to spend most of the time shuffling around the content and assessment for particular weeks, but I quickly realized that I was going to need to update what I had to say in the syllabus about plagiarism and academic offenses. Last year’s offering of the course involved a case of potential plagiarism, so I wanted to include more explicit instruction that encourages students to borrow code while making it clear that there are right and wrong ways of doing so.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Why AI detectors think the US Constitution was written by AI | Ars Technica'
- kudos:I don’t like generative AI, and I get grumpy about advice to accept it and work it into classes (even though I probably agree with that approach at the end of the day). For all that dislike and grumpiness, though, I feel even more strongly that AI detectors are not the way to go. This is a really interesting article. link to ‘Why AI detectors think the US Constitution was written by AI | Ars Technica’
how I'm talking about generative AI in my content management class
- kudos:Fall 2023 will mark my fifth time teaching my department’s class on Content Management Systems. I have really loved taking on this class and making it my own over the past several years. It’s also been fun to see how teaching the class has seeped into the rest of my life: It’s a “cannot unsee” situation (in a good way!) where the concepts I teach work themselves into everyday encounters with the news, my own websites, and other things around the internet.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'AI Junk Is Starting to Pollute the Internet - WSJ'
- kudos:I’ve seen some reviews describe the new Mission Impossible movie (apparently featuring a malicious AI) as perfectly suited for our time of ChatGPT. I’m more worried about things like this: content farming, model collapse, etc. link to ‘AI Junk Is Starting to Pollute the Internet - WSJ’
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Slowly realizing that I have no choice but to make generative AI one of the themes of my content management class in the fall.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Gizmodo’s staff isn’t happy about G/O Media’s AI-generated content - The Verge'
- kudos:I read that “chronological order of Star Wars” media piece mentioned here in io9 and I was baffled by how poorly done it was (not realizing it was done by AI and wondering how an io9 writer could get things so wrong). Using AI to content farm is a terrible idea. link to ‘Gizmodo’s staff isn’t happy about G/O Media’s AI-generated content - The Verge’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'ChatGPT users drop for the first time as people turn to uncensored chatbots | Ars Technica'
- kudos:I get that it’s straightforward language that everyone will get, but I think “uncensored” is the wrong word here. Content moderation is not (necessarily) censorship, and content moderation is good and helpful for tools like generative AI. link to ‘ChatGPT users drop for the first time as people turn to uncensored chatbots | Ars Technica’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'The Fanfic Sex Trope That Caught a Plundering AI Red-Handed | WIRED'
- kudos:This is a wild, compelling story that I missed when it first came out. Glad to be reading it now. link to ‘The Fanfic Sex Trope That Caught a Plundering AI Red-Handed | WIRED’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Reddit Won’t Be the Same. Neither Will the Internet | WIRED'
- kudos:Good focus on the digital labor aspects of this whole thing. I sympathize with Reddit for not wanting to provide free value for generative AI (this is one of the trickiest parts of that conversation), but Reddit’s users are right to balk at providing free value for the platform. link to ‘Reddit Won’t Be the Same. Neither Will the Internet | WIRED’