Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

J. Nathan Matias @natematias.bsky.social · 27m

Thrilled for NoViolet Bulawayo, who has won the "Best of Caine" prize for work that has stood the test of time.

news.cornell.edu/stories/2025...

Bulawayo wins 25th anniversary Best of Caine prize | Cornell Chronicle

NoViolet Bulawayo, M.F.A. ’10, assistant professor in A&S, has won the Best of Caine Award as judges have chosen her short story, “Hitting Budapest,” as the best to have won the Caine Prize for Africa...

news.cornell.edu

1

Reposted by J. Nathan Matias

Union of Concerned Scientists @ucs.org · 1h

Join the webinar “Science in a Shifting Political Landscape,” where UCS’s Dr. Kristie Ellickson & @dminovi.bsky.social will discuss findings from our recent report documenting how attacks on science have undermined scientists’ work & how this affects public health.

📍Thursday, 10/23, 10 am PT. RSVP:

Science in a shifting political landscape

The first six months of the current administration have seen an escalation in the number of attacks on science, public health, and democratic institutions. Actions have ranged from censorship and...

www.healthandenvironment.org

8 10

J. Nathan Matias @natematias.bsky.social · 1d

This must-read survey for higher ed leaders offers a lot of hope & guidance on ways to work with the public to defend and support higher ed, at a national AND a state level.

Many thanks to everyone who carried out this project!

Katherine Ognyanova @ognyanova.bsky.social · 1d

We just launched a new project tracking public attitudes to higher ed. First report is out: we find the public trusts universities and opposes funding cuts, but worries about tuition costs and free speech on campus. With @davidlazer.bsky.social, M. Baum, J. Druckman, & M. Santillana edbarometer.org

American Higher Education Barometer

Measuring American Attitudes Towards Higher Education

edbarometer.org

3

J. Nathan Matias @natematias.bsky.social · 1d

Thanks for writing about this! You may want to update the social media post — I believe it's a fee, not a fine? If it's not a fine, this post could cause substantial public consternation.

J. Nathan Matias @natematias.bsky.social · 1d

If true, this perception of problem complexity creates a trap for advocates and scientists. Convince people it’s solvable and it will get trivialized. Convince people it is complex and it will get dismissed as unadressable.

3

J. Nathan Matias @natematias.bsky.social · 1d

Pondering a conundrum that a postdoc and I have observed about inaction on tech harms.

Some inaction is justified by trivializing a problem that is more complex than acknowledged.

Other inaction (racism/inequality for ex) is justified by overplaying the complexity and difficulty of change.

1 8

J. Nathan Matias @natematias.bsky.social · 1d

To be fair, they *are* announcing it ahead of time, so there's that at least.

J. Nathan Matias @natematias.bsky.social · 1d

The story arc of every major social platform. In 2025, it's not possible for firms to claim that easily predicted problems are a surprise.

Rather as @catherinebracy.com points out, it's a playbook for scaling fast & only addressing externalities as they threaten the bottom line.

Matt Burgess (WIRED) @mattburgess1.bsky.social · 2d

Oh good, ChatGPT is getting "erotica for verified adults" later this year

We made ChatGPT pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues. We realize this made it less useful/enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems, but given the seriousness of the issue we wanted to get this right.

Now that we have been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues and have new tools, we are going to be able to safely relax the restrictions in most cases.

In a few weeks, we plan to put out a new version of ChatGPT that allows people to have a personality that behaves more like what people liked about 4o (we hope it will be better!). If you want your ChatGPT to respond in a very human-like way, or use a ton of emoji, or act like a friend, ChatGPT should do it (but only if you want it, not because we are usage-maxxing).

In December, as we roll out age-gating more fully and as part of our “treat adult users like adults” principle, we will allow even more, like erotica for verified adults.

1 7

J. Nathan Matias @natematias.bsky.social · 2d

Just saw this or I would have submitted - looks like a great event. I hope it's interesting and enlightening, and that we get a chance to see some notes!

2

Reposted by J. Nathan Matias

Estelle Smith @estellesmithphd.bsky.social · 2d

More new members to welcome to our #CSCW2025 Starter Pack! Can't wait to see many of you in-person soon in Bergen. 🇳🇴
@cyberlyra.bsky.social
@lkurek.bsky.social
@mara-ulloa.bsky.social
@muitanprasert.bsky.social

🔥 go.bsky.app/SPumuMT 🔥

5 13

Reposted by J. Nathan Matias

ACM CSCW @acm-cscw.bsky.social · 3d

Spiritual struggles are widely shared online, but professional spiritual care has lagged behind. 🌱

A #CSCW2025 study with 22 chaplains explores how care principles can move online, proposing a “Care Loop” to link community & institutional care.

More here:

Addressing Spiritual Crises at Scale through Online Spiritual Care Communities

Have you or someone you loved ever experienced an unsettling shift or crisis in your sense of meaning, purpose, or connection to something…

tinyurl.com

1 4

J. Nathan Matias @natematias.bsky.social · 3d

Is AI a "shiny toy with a price?"

As Avriel Epps and I were writing a proposal, we noticed a 👩🏾‍🍳🤌🏾 Taylor Swift reference in @alondra.bsky.social's @science.org article about AI's "Cruel Summer"

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

An ELSI for AI: Learning from genetics to govern algorithms

In the United States, the summer of 2025 will be remembered as artificial intelligence’s (AI’s) cruel summer—a season when the unheeded risks and dangers of AI became undeniably clear. Recent months h...

www.science.org

2 10

J. Nathan Matias @natematias.bsky.social · 3d

Many people have ideas for AI firms to manage provenance and data agency (copyright, identity spoofing, scraping, tracing data training paths).

But how do we design the needed tech? Great conv recently with Emily Wenger at Duke, who is working on this:

arguslab.pratt.duke.edu/2025/01/01/a...

Reclaiming Data Agency in AI Systems

Building tools to give rightsholders agency over how (or if) their data is used for AI.

arguslab.pratt.duke.edu

1 3

Reposted by J. Nathan Matias

Abe Newman @abenewman.bsky.social · 3d

5/More generally, this is part of a confluence of two phenomena that @himself.bsky.social and I have worked on. First, it is the use of transnational politics by political factions to transform politics in other countries. We called it the New Interdependence Approach.
www.jstor.org/stable/26153...

The new interdependence approach: theoretical development and empirical demonstration on JSTOR

Henry Farrell, Abraham Newman, The new interdependence approach: theoretical development and empirical demonstration, Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 23, No. 5, Special Section: The Ne...

www.jstor.org

1 2 4

Reposted by J. Nathan Matias

Jameel Jaffer @jameeljaffer.bsky.social · 5d

This is a perilous moment for democracy in the United States, but I couldn’t be prouder of the Knight Institute’s work right now, and I don’t take for granted that we have the freedom and resources to do it. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

This free speech group at Columbia is taking on Trump when the university won’t – and winning

The Knight Institute is defending free speech at a school now synonymous with compromising on it

www.theguardian.com

4 120 400

Reposted by J. Nathan Matias

Knight First Amendment Institute @knightcolumbia.org · 6d

JOB ALERT: Seeking an Associate Multimedia Producer to work with our comms team to create video, audio, visual, and other online content in support of the Institute’s programs and mission. Two-year, grant-funded role w/ a possibility of extension.

knightcolumbia.org/page/associa...

4 3

J. Nathan Matias @natematias.bsky.social · 6d

Crossing the Manhattan Bridge, I thought of the late Tom Winpenny, a historian of science who wrote about the bridge & its builders in 2004.

We in tech rush out grand claims while making things that last a year or two. Grateful for Tom for showing me the long view.

www.nytimes.com/2004/09/05/n...

2

Reposted by J. Nathan Matias

Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 7d

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

nyti.ms

140 1.8K 4.7K

J. Nathan Matias @natematias.bsky.social · 8d

Note also that Sora 2 can't actually support the potential privacy / activism uses of deepfakes, since it makes deepfakes *more* traceable than other types of media.

J. Nathan Matias @natematias.bsky.social · 8d

So far, the most interesting list of positive uses of deepfake tech I've seen by Sonja R. O'Brien at the @wilsoncenter.org as part of a wider analysis.

- Real-time 911 translation
- Sign language translation
- Alzheimers treatment
- Masking identity in activism
www.wilsoncenter.org/article/posi...

Positive Use Cases of “Deepfakes”

As artificial intelligence (AI) models are increasingly capable of producing more life-like content, there has been an understandable hesitancy regarding “deepfakes” and their potential negative impac...

www.wilsoncenter.org

1 1 2

J. Nathan Matias @natematias.bsky.social · 8d

Keep sharing folks! I've heard a lot of ideas for what deepfakes are good for. Initial ideas:

- Personalized education videos (not convinced)
- Privacy via synthetic audio/video proxies (not sure deepfakes are needed when we have other techniques)
- Real-time translation (maybe for low-stakes?)

1

Reposted by J. Nathan Matias

Mark Riedl @markriedl.bsky.social · 8d

Hi all,

Georgia Tech is holding its 2nd Summit on Responsible Computing, AI, and Society October 28-29th in Atlanta.

rcais.github.io

Our speakers and schedule is set. It's going to be great!

If you are planning to be in Atlanta and want to join us, registration is now open on the website.

7 21

J. Nathan Matias @natematias.bsky.social · 8d

I am willing to believe it can become an on-ramp to doing more art for some people

2

J. Nathan Matias @natematias.bsky.social · 8d

Thank you for sharing your story. It sounds like an especially frustrating and demoralizing experience with the technology.

Reposted by J. Nathan Matias

🇬🇾🗽Sydette The Dreaded Gorgon🗽🇬🇾 @blackamazon.bsky.social · 8d

They think this is good.

We can’t fight or even properly discuss this if we don’t start flipping the questions

Because the question is

“Why do all of their technologies turn to abuse vectors of the least defended and respected identities”

And the abuse of those who transcend their bias

J. Nathan Matias @natematias.bsky.social · 8d

Genuine question - what are OpenAI’s Sora and other video generation tools good for?

I am honestly trying to understand what is so important that it’s worth the cost. If you have examples, I would be interested to hear them.

futurism.com/artificial-i...

People Are Making Sora 2 Videos of Stephen Hawking Being Horribly Brutalized

People are using OpenAI's Sora 2 to generate videos of theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking being brutalized in ghoulish ways.

futurism.com

3 30 69