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Richard

@rwpickard.bsky.social

180 followers 220 following 1.3K posts

Reader, tree-hugger, teacher, preserver of foodstuffs. Canadian. Deleter of rwpickard from Twitter/X. http://boughtbooks.blogspot.com

boughtbooks.blogspot.com

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Richard @rwpickard.bsky.social · Aug 30

Re-upping this post, just to make my feelings about AI unmistakeable. #noAI #againstAI
boughtbooks.blogspot.com/2025/05/neig...

Neighbourhood radical: A story about "AI"

Last night, at a kind neighbour's gentle garden party, I found myself calling for revolution and telling someone to choose which side they'd...

boughtbooks.blogspot.com

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Reposted by Richard

Andrea Reyes E (she/her) @altibel.bsky.social · 5h

LMAO - so this "amazing new technology: is gonna be used for ads, porn, surveillance, and giving the illusion of efficiency (so greedy bosses fire half of their employees), while burning the planet? It definitely makes sense that universities are pushing it into every ffing task 🫠 #ResistAI

Matt Burgess (WIRED) @mattburgess1.bsky.social · 8h

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.

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Richard @rwpickard.bsky.social · 3h

Just heard the Provost say, "The first thing our students in computer science will do is use AI to code. Vibe-coding is just a thing now." Any thoughts, team? #againstAI

Reposted by Richard

tante @tante.cc · 4h

Nothing says "We are the future of everything and make a totally viable product" better than pivoting to providing a sexbot.

The Verge @theverge.com · 7h

Sam Altman says ChatGPT will soon sext with verified adults

ChatGPT is about to get flirty.

buff.ly

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Richard @rwpickard.bsky.social · 3h

You're welcome! Looking forward to the next book, but also thinking hard about your most recent book, which I'll start talking about with my students next week.

Reposted by Richard

Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 8h

theresakishkan.com/2025/10/14/o...

Alt text:
a gravel road leading up a hill through trees

orts

(Note: my mum used this word for leftovers. She would make a meal for us of orts. Today I am making a post of orts.) 1. Coming home from swimming, the sight of the bigleaf maples turning yellow and…

theresakishkan.com

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staring blankly into the abyss @ianmosby.bsky.social · 10h

Thinking about the academic promoters of AI who criticize kneejerk anti-AI sentiment—often by promoting very specific technical use cases— all while ignoring the fact that we are all pretty fucking familiar with actually existing AI and the way it is destroying entire fields of knowledge production.

Steve Rattner @steverattner.bsky.social · 11h

Wow — new AI-made articles online are already outnumbering human-generated content.

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Richard @rwpickard.bsky.social · 1d

Some of DDG's features don't work that well for me (words in a sequence, for example), but I only ever use Google when DDG has let me down conclusively.

Pretty common, though, to see AI-type results towards to the top of DDG's results (as we did with SEO and related puppetry)

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Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 1d

Before making duck with chanterelles for our Thanksgiving dinner, I am spending time with the proofs of my forthcoming book: thornapplepress.ca/books/the-ar...
I love the page design! I love the cover! So much to be thankful for...

computer screen showing most of a page of text

a book cover featuring a detail from a portrait

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Richard @rwpickard.bsky.social · 2d

Isn't that a good piece? I'm really appreciating when I find people working hard to articulate the horrors

Richard @rwpickard.bsky.social · 2d

I missed this news from 23 days ago. My bad: I'd assumed that Oxford intended to remain Oxford, rather than whatever trash its current administration is seeking. #againstAI

University of Oxford @ox.ac.uk · 25d

NEW: Oxford will be the first UK university to give all staff and students free ChatGPT Edu access, from this academic year.

ChatGPT Edu is built for education, with enhanced privacy and security.

Graphic from the University of Oxford, featuring an image of a glowing, digital brain with the text: 'Generative AI at Oxford'. Highlights that ChatGPT Edu is now available to all staff and students. Includes a link for more information: ox.ac.uk/gen-ai

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Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 3d

theresakishkan.com/2025/10/11/a...

Alt text: a grainy black and white photograph of fields, trees.

“All the cars go by all along down the ancient highway” (Van Morrison)

Last Sunday John and I walked the path around Rithets Bog in Victoria. When I was a girl in Royal Oak, in the late 1960s, early 1970s, I’d ride my horse above the bog on the fields of Broadme…

theresakishkan.com

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Richard @rwpickard.bsky.social · 3d

Also: by definition, OpenAI cannot help Canada grow "homegrown AI." It doesn't grow, and it's a corrosive metaphor, plus OpenAI isn't Canadian (and at this point is basically one of the evil empires)

Reposted by Richard

Marv Beatty @marvbeatty.bsky.social · 3d

"... requiring roughly the same amount of electricity needed to power eight million to 10 million homes in Canada ... use up to a billion gallons of water per year to keep cool because they generate so much heat."

Don't allow this, @mark-carney.bsky.social.

www.cbc.ca/news/busines...

#againstAI

ANALYSIS | Why OpenAI wants to help Canada build homegrown artificial intelligence | CBC News

OpenAI wants to help Canada build a sovereign digital infrastructure for artificial intelligence, putting the country in a tough spot as it tries to distance itself from overreliance on U.S. tech comp...

www.cbc.ca

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Reposted by Richard

Matt Zoller Seitz @mattzollerseitz.bsky.social · 4d

"'You have to admit, AI is here to stay.' Well, no, I don’t. Not unless you say what you actually mean. What’s the claim you’re making? Herpes is here to stay too, but you probably wouldn’t brag about it."

Tyler @electriceden92.bsky.social · 4d

@davidgerard.co.uk already had the best piece on this pivot-to-ai.com/2025/07/10/a...

‘AI is here to stay’ — is it, though? What do you mean, ‘stay’?

When some huge and stupid public chatbot disaster hits the news, the AI pumpers will Kramer into the mentions to say stuff like “you have to admit, AI is here to stay.” Well, no, I don’t. Not unles…

pivot-to-ai.com

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Richard @rwpickard.bsky.social · 3d

Ok, it's almost certainly a waste of time, because the LLM/AI cadres will auto-respond in an attempt to outnumber the wise, but we can't cede the ground entirely. #againstAI

Ness 🎃🇨🇦 @vriccithode.bsky.social · 4d

hey canadian friends you can tell the govt what you think about AI (🚮)! survey closes at the end of the month. it's a tad long but worth it. #CanPoli
ised-isde.canada.ca/site/ised/en...

Help define the next chapter of Canada's AI leadership

Current status: Open from October 1 to October 31, 2025 Canada helped invent modern AI. To stay a leader—and protect our digital sovereignty—we're running a 30-day national sprint to shape a renew...

ised-isde.canada.ca

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Richard @rwpickard.bsky.social · 3d

This article is such a good, terrible read, but on the positive side, it's full of wisely critical comrades.

Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 4d

“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

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Richard @rwpickard.bsky.social · 3d

That's what I kept saying, but with different phrasing.

Reposted by Richard

Theresa Kishkan @fishgottaswim.bsky.social · 4d

theresakishkan.com/2025/10/10/r...

Alt text: two striped winter squash and an oyster shell on a chipped yellow plate, a flowered jug holding pink flowers alongside

redux: “five suns from a flying heaven”: Thanksgivings 1991 and 2020

Note: I posted this five years ago, remembering a Thanksgiving weekend nearly 30 years before that. Yesterday as I shopped for groceries, I realized that another Thanksgiving has come around. We we…

theresakishkan.com

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Richard @rwpickard.bsky.social · 4d

"post-collapse liveability": speaking my language!

Richard @rwpickard.bsky.social · 4d

Like, how can you POSSIBLY include this as a survey question when I'm 92% finished: "What are the emerging security risks associated with AI, and how can Canada proactively mitigate future threats?"

Richard @rwpickard.bsky.social · 4d

Me: Many responses will come from boosters "using AI to write and submit their responses. If you're incapable of recognizing this, and that's what happens, then AI-manipulated survey results will be what ensures the government develops a doomed strategy that'll fail this nation."

Richard @rwpickard.bsky.social · 4d

I did the Canadian government's AI survey this week: good times. My fave question (by which I mean the one that pushed me closest to the brink) was maybe "What are the key barriers to AI adoption, and how can government and industry work together to accelerate responsible uptake?" #againstAI

a cartoon character with an angry look on his face and the words freetopsticker below him

Alt: Anger, the cartoon character from the movie Inside Out, looking angry and then having flame shoot out from the top of his head while he screams in rage

media.tenor.com

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Richard @rwpickard.bsky.social · 4d

This is what I mean, a story that was released RIGHT before their higher-ed AI slidedeck/report started getting puffed. www.cantechletter.com/newswires/kp...

KPMG in Canada recognized as a leader in Canadian AI services by IDC MarketScape

TORONTO, Oct. 10, 2025 /CNW/ – KPMG in Canada has been recognized as a leader in the IDC MarketScape: Canadian AI Services 2025 Vendor Assessment*. The IDC MarketScape said “KPMG’s approaches to…

www.cantechletter.com

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Richard @rwpickard.bsky.social · 4d

I considered not linking at all to KPMG's 'splainer page and download. No one should read this stuff except to build a counter-argument. But for my comrades who want to do just that, maybe it's okay to bury a link this far down the thread. Stay strong, friends. 10/10 kpmg.com/ca/en/home/i...

Generative AI and the future of education

Why higher education leaders are leaning into technology to drive student and employee success to build stronger institutions

kpmg.com

Richard @rwpickard.bsky.social · 4d

All across this country, though, it'll be getting flagged for overwhelmed administrators. In the same way that I blame my students' AI use on billionaires hunger for cash, not my students, I blame consultants for this situation, not the too-busy staff. KPMG's "report" should be ignored. Period. 9/