Notices by Librarianshipwreck (librarianshipwreck@mastodon.social)

I genuinely believe that at this point all academic conferences should at least have a strong hybrid (online & offline) option—even when we aren’t in the middle of another COVID wave.

It makes the conference much more accessible.

One of my concerns about the spread of AI generated images is the speed with which it’s making it so that every image now gets doubted and treated as suspect. Going beyond a basic skepticism to a full on “this picture depicts something I dislike, so it must be fake.”

“To begin with, I am less than persuaded that the democratizing effects of computers outweigh their tendency to centralize and concentrate power,” - David Golumbia.

David was a hell of a critic, a generous mentor, and a true friend.

I will miss him:
https://librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com/2023/09/18/in-memory-of-david-golumbia/

Look, we’re all trying to find the guy who did this…
https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-furious-autopilot-tried-kill-him

The other day I was arguing with a colleague, & I said that I thought 95% of the funds getting thrown at AI would be better spent strengthening infrastructure to handle climate change. He said “AI will fix climate change.”

Now I think 100% of those funds should be redirected.

The focus on potential future harms caused by AI distracts us from the harms AI is actively causing in the present…
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/07/asylum-seekers-ai-translation-apps

We’re in a very interesting moment when critics of tech are more often getting mentioned alongside the celebrants (as in the Time AI 100), but I often worry these critics are elevated so the celebrants can say “we’re listening” while actively ignoring/suppressing those critics.

“If you don’t have a printing press, you don’t have a movement.”

Amidst the current arguments about the politics of the Internet, it’s worth considering the politics of other technologies.

A review of Kathy Ferguson’s book “Letterpress Revolution”:
https://librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com/2023/08/25/if-you-dont-have-a-printing-press-you-dont-have-a-movement-a-review-of-kathy-fergusons-letterpress-revolution

It’s always interesting when people who have never taught, and who don’t really know what kind of work teachers do in order to provide useful feedback, claim that AI will be great at doing that work…

https://t.co/sCvkBJI11D

This isn’t just happening in LA.

In lots of places cases are rising as college students move into their dorms. Granted, seeing as many colleges have stopped tracking cases, it’ll be hard to tell how bad it is.

https://deadline.com/2023/08/covid-los-angeles-increasing-cases-1235520334/

Who (except for the people who were mocked as technophobic Luddites for being skeptical of the AI hype) could have seen this coming?!?!?!
https://t.co/ZNs8M6SQxT

I recognize that there are real differences, but every time I see a comment/headline along the lines of “there will be lots of great jobs writing AI prompts for big companies” I’m reminded of a couple years ago when we heard the same about Metaverse stuff.

If I had to guess, I’d say that the biggest area of growth (in terms of creating new jobs) for a lot of these new AI tools will be in the area of copyright/intellectual property law.

Hobgoblin is done fixing footnotes for the day…unfortunately, I have many (so many!) more to fix…

You can go “goblin mode,” but I’m going to go “hobbit mode”: walking around barefoot in a comfortable home, eating more than three meals a day, splitting my time between tending my garden and writing, and occasionally getting pulled into an adventure by an old wizard.

I believe that the cult of the “genius” tech executive helped get us into this mess, and I worry the “oh, but he has a secret plan” stance is just a way of preserving the worship of tech executives in the face of considerable evidence that they don’t know what they’re doing.