Below are posts associated with the “link” type.
🔗 linkblog: AI to hit 40% of jobs and worsen inequality, IMF says'
Even if AI would be beneficial for humanity in the aggregate, it’s important to ask how that benefit would be distributed.
🔗 linkblog: Plagiarism is the latest weapon in the culture wars. But what even is it? - Vox'
Lots of interesting comments in this article. I haven’t been following this story as closely as I should, but it—and articles like this—are making me think that I need to think harder about plagiarism: what it is and how I should respond to it.
🔗 linkblog: I’m sorry, but I cannot fulfill this request as it goes against OpenAI use policy - The Verge'
Yeah, but don’t worry, this is definitely the only way that generative AI will be used to overwhelm us with useless content.
🔗 linkblog: Substack Realizes Maybe It Doesn’t Want To Help Literal Nazis Make Money After All (But Only Literal Nazis) | Techdirt'
As usual, I find Masnick’s recap of this recent nonsense helpful in terms of summary and interpretation.
🔗 linkblog: Pluralistic: Kelly and Zach Weinersmith’s “A City On Mars” (09 Jan 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow'
I’ve wanted to read this book for a while, but Doctorow has really sold me on it.
🔗 linkblog: Open Infrastructures and the Future of Knowledge Production, part 2 – Platypus'
Strong follow up to the last post I just linked to.
🔗 linkblog: Open Infrastructures and the Future of Knowledge Production, part 1 – Platypus'
Lots of helpful thoughts in this post. Makes me think about the value of Mastodon for the academy—and other spaces that I care about. Also, I love seeing Doctorow and academic thinking come together.
🔗 linkblog: TikTok Quietly Curtails Data Tool Used by Critics - The New York Times'
Don’t love it when platforms shut down tools because they don’t like outside research.
🔗 linkblog: Are education and learning engineering problems? – George Veletsianos, PhD'
I’m grateful for George’s comments here.
🔗 linkblog: Wife of Investor Who Pushed for Harvard President’s Exit Is Accused of Plagiarism - The New York Times'
Plagiarism is clearly bad, but its weaponization as part of a culture war could well he worse. I don’t love the idea of its escalation. Gift link.
🔗 linkblog: La première église urbaine de Suisse romande ouvre ses portes à Lausanne - rts.ch - Vaud'
De quoi s’inspirer pour imaginer de nouveaux avenirs chrétiens.
🔗 linkblog: Kentucky Senate leader files bill to curb 'divisive concepts' in public higher education - Kentucky Lantern'
Welp, here’s something to pay attention to this legislative session.
🔗 linkblog: ‘God Is Under the Rubble in Gaza’: Bethlehem’s Subdued Christmas - The New York Times'
Again, what’s going on isn’t bad because it happens to touch on things significant to Christians, and it’s bad when Christians only care about Palestine and Israel because it fits with their religious worldview. Yet, it would be a missed opportunity to talk about Bethlehem this Christmas season without asking about the West Bank, Israel, and Gaza, and how to make a better world for everyone there.
🔗 linkblog: Substack says it will not remove or demonetize Nazi content - The Verge'
There are legitimately difficult content moderation decisions, but this is not one of them. Shame on Substack for this approach.
🔗 linkblog: With war raging in Gaza, Christmas in Bethlehem has been canceled : NPR'
As I’ve written before, I’m skeptical when Christians see the Middle East uniquely through the particularities of our beliefs and tradition—there’s so many ways that can (and does) go wrong. Yet, if we’re going to sing and preach about Bethlehem this year, we ought to use modern Bethlehem to get us thinking about a better world for the West Bank, Israel, and Gaza.
🔗 linkblog: Adam Mosseri spells out Threads’ plans for the fediverse - The Verge'
I think folks are right to distrust Meta, but Threads with ActivityPub seems to me to be clearly better than Threads without.
🔗 linkblog: 'Shameless': Reporters Without Borders rebukes X for claiming to support it : NPR'
Kind of hilarious, actually, but in the depressing way that most Twitter news is these days.
🔗 linkblog: Ranked choice voting: what it is and where it might be next : NPR'
I wasn’t aware of these critiques of ranked-choice voting. The right-wing hand-wringing about it is obviously ridiculous, and I still believe more RCV is the way to go, but I appreciate more nuance in the conversation.
🔗 linkblog: Community Notes Is Great Until It Challenges Elon, And Then It’s Being ‘Manipulated’ By State Actors | Techdirt'
Is this the same feature Elon says will be sufficient for keeping Alex Jones in check?
🔗 linkblog: Moins de chats, plus de crustacés... des scientifiques veulent davantage de biodiversité dans les emoji - rts.ch - Environnement'
Trop de vertébrés dans les emojis ? Ça fait rire un peu, mais je comprends aussi la motivation. C’est vrai que ces petits symboles représentent notre compréhension du monde—pourquoi ne pas donc élargir la collection ?
🔗 linkblog: How Africans Are Changing French — One Joke, Rap and Book at a Time - The New York Times'
Joli article ! I mostly learned Parisian French from my school classes, and I’ve always been interested in the alternatives out there, though I’ll admit I’ve never fully appreciated African French. Time for that to change.
🔗 linkblog: Elon Musk unbans conspiracy theorist Alex Jones from X - The Verge'
This… this is even worse than just giving him an account back. Ugh.