Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Marek

Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 5h

Pope Leo quotes Hannah Arendt:

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist."

www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news...

Pope Leo calls for news agencies to stand as bulwark against "post-truths," lies and manipulation

Pope Leo XIV has encouraged international news agencies to stand firm as a bulwark against the "ancient art of lying" and manipulation.

www.cbsnews.com

98 1.6K 5K

Reposted by Marek

Dr Space Junk (Alice Gorman) @drspacejunk.bsky.social · 8h

You're right!

Nightingale's Graph

Today, Florence Nightingale draws a graph. The University of Houston's College of Engineering presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity cre...

engines.egr.uh.edu

1 3

Reposted by Marek

Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 19h

AI in education is a policy discourse without substance except economic speculation about "jobs for the future"

AI in education policy talks about "AI literacy" or "responsible AI" but doesn't consider the irresponsibilities of those promoting AI in education

1 13 68

Reposted by Marek

Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 19h

AI in education amplifies student surveillance

AI in education makes surveillance companies into trusted educational providers

AI in education surveillance techniques always threaten to creep beyond their original scope of operations

1 17 88

Reposted by Marek

Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 19h

AI in education amplifies and intensifies educational systems of product-centredness

AI in education reproduces the idea of de-skilled, casualized pedagogy where the computer is the primary reader of the curriculum/syllabus and the tutor plays a subsidiary role

2 11 75

Reposted by Marek

Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 19h

AI in education centres entrepreneurs as experts in teaching and learning

AI in education is based mostly on technical potential not educational needs

AI in education locks learning into models that afford summarization instead of archives of knowledge

1 18 89

Reposted by Marek

Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 20h

AI in education amplifies existing biases against marginalized or vulnerable groups

AI in education is not evidence-based but based on speculation and proof of concept claims

2 21 110

Reposted by Marek

Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 20h

I actually don't really care if AI is useful/interesting/good for some things in education actually - it is besides these things clearly a big problem already that maybe need listing yet again:

4 71 190

Marek @marekmcgann.bsky.social · 9h

My dad read biographies and it was just on the shelf at home. I'm a psychologist, so was probably just drawn to the mention of mind, picked it up to try a biography.

Just found it beautifully written and compelling.

1 1

Marek @marekmcgann.bsky.social · 9h

And one of the world's most famous statisticians.

Cover of the biography, "Florence Nightingale: The Woman and her Legend" by Mark Bostridge.

2 3 10

Marek @marekmcgann.bsky.social · 9h

I guess this one might count as a bit obvious, but was a book that turned me on to biographies in general.

The book cover of "A Beautiful Mind", by Sylvia Nasar

2 3 6

Reposted by Marek

Kristina Šekrst @epiphenomenal.bsky.social · 1d

Accurate.

#academia #academy #philsky #philosophysky #philosophy #science

3 78 380

Reposted by Marek

Daragh Ó Briain @daraghobrien.bsky.social · 1d

The framework I bring people through sparked some interesting discussions yesterday about the benefits or not of using the tool.

Interesting comment: “If we apply these techniques to work with humans we will probably get more efficiency improvement than using the tool”.

#EmpowerHoomins

1 1

Marek @marekmcgann.bsky.social · 1d

A new facet to David Graeber's idea of "Bullshit Jobs": work that uses AI without consideration. If you think using AI without doing all of the work to check the outcome, you implicitly consider what you're doing to be bullshit.

(See also: every company deploying AI in customer service.)

Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 1d

“Deloitte “misused AI and used it very inappropriately: misquoted a judge, used references that are non-existent,” Pocock told Australian Broadcasting Corp. “I mean, the kinds of things that a first-year university student would be in deep trouble for.””

👀

fortune.com/2025/10/07/d...

Deloitte was caught using AI in $290,000 report to help the Australian government crack down on welfare after a researcher flagged hallucinations | Fortune

The updates “in no way impact” the report’s findings and recommendations, the Big Four firm said.

fortune.com

3 17 34

Reposted by Marek

Kevin Zollman @kevinzollman.com · 2d

A reoccurring frustration for philosophers of science: Many scientists know how to do science like people know how to ride a bike. When they reflect on the practice of science, they repeat platitudes about how science works. Those platitudes are often wrong, sometimes even about their own field

D. J. Hicks @danhicks.bsky.social · 2d

*sighs in philosopher of science*

Looking for confirmatory evidence is an entirely normal part of science. The primary problem here is the eugenics and the fascism, not the lies to children about "the scientific method."

One Bluesky account is quoting another. Inner post has a video of RFK Jr., some person I don't recognize (Tylenol and autism guy, maybe?), Marco Rubio (I think), and Trump. Post text: "RFK Jr on Tylenol and autism: 'It is not proof. We're doing the studies to make the proof."

Outer post text: "We're doing studies to prove it (* not how studies work)"

2 10 52

Reposted by Marek

Wyrd Women @wyrdwomen.bsky.social · 1d

Who was Grace Hopper?

#COBOL
#FLOW-MATIC
#WomenInSTEM
#WyrdWomen

Who is Grace Hopper?

YouTube video by Women's Stories

youtu.be

14 21

Marek @marekmcgann.bsky.social · 1d

Note to self

Ursula K. Le Guin Bot @leguinbot.bsky.social · 1d

Go to bed; tired is stupid.

1

Reposted by Marek

Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 1d

"When these capabilities are delegated to machines, we create a population that consumes and regurgitates information without actually processing or understanding it.” collectivefutures.blog/the-infrastr...

The infrastructure of meaninglessness

Listen, there are two realities that we should be aware of. AI exists to make your job obsolete because the alternative is that AI makes managers obsolete. Let me try to break down this theory, which...

collectivefutures.blog

2 19 36

Reposted by Marek

Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 1d

“The capacity to think, write, and communicate effectively is fundamental to being a conscious participant in democratic society.” collectivefutures.blog/the-infrastr...

The infrastructure of meaninglessness

Listen, there are two realities that we should be aware of. AI exists to make your job obsolete because the alternative is that AI makes managers obsolete. Let me try to break down this theory, which...

collectivefutures.blog

2 7 26

Reposted by Marek

Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 1d

“Uncritical adoption of AI, will inevitably create people without critical thinking, and this may be a feature - not a bug, as it represents an attack on human agency itself.”

collectivefutures.blog/the-infrastr...

The infrastructure of meaninglessness

Listen, there are two realities that we should be aware of. AI exists to make your job obsolete because the alternative is that AI makes managers obsolete. Let me try to break down this theory, which...

collectivefutures.blog

3 100 230

Reposted by Marek

Genie Lauren @moreandagain.social · 2d

Fuck the AI cult

5 57 180

Reposted by Marek

Matthew Cobb @matthewcobb.bsky.social · 2d

“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”

Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.bsky.social · Apr 29

This is a new image from #JWST.

The bright points with spikes are stars in the Milky Way.

Everything else is a galaxy.

Everything. Else. Is. A. Galaxy.

1 3 30

Reposted by Marek

Chaz Firestone @chazfirestone.bsky.social · 2d

exactly

Cameron Ellis @camerontellis.bsky.social · 2d

Astronaut meme: "Wait, it's all perception?" "Always has been"

1 1 7

Reposted by Marek

Eric Turkheimer @ent3c.bsky.social · 4d

Haven't posted much lately-- busy. One of my Substack projects is republishing my chapters from the Kendler and Parnas series on the philosophy of psychiatry. The books are expensive and hard to find. This is, "The Hard Question in Psychiatric Nosology." /1 @awaisaftab.bsky.social

4 7 17

Reposted by Marek

Marc Scully @marcscully.bsky.social · 4d

American social psychology; British social psychology; European social psychology.

Ryan Teague Beckwith @ryanbeckwith.bsky.social · 5d

Editor in chief, city editor, features editor

1 1 7