Thomas Arnold
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thomasarnold.bsky.social
Thomas Arnold
@thomasarnold.bsky.social
560 followers 530 following 340 posts

HRI, AI, religious studies, pragmatism, ethics | Researching and teaching ethics at Tufts Institute for AI/Human-Robot Interaction Laboratory | He/him | realism: visceral | writing rhythm: corpseflower

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Philosophy 23%
History 22%
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Reposted by Elizabeth Sharrow, Tom Shakespeare, Rosemary A. Joyce , and 6 more

sesmith.lol
s. e. smith @sesmith.lol · 12d
‘Death remains my intimate shadow partner. It has been with me since birth, always hovering close by. I understand one day we will finally waltz together into the ether. I hope when that time comes, I die with the satisfaction of a life well-lived, unapologetic, joyful, & full of love.’
—Alice Wong

thomasarnold.bsky.social
Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 13d
Massholes can be difficult, painful, yet necessary channels of care, like asbestos remediation (a good frame of AI critique, btw, as the podcast bros come and go/talking of abundance and AlphaGo).
olivia.science Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 13d
Love to see community action against this AI nonsense! neighborhoodview.org/2025/11/13/d...
As one Massachusetts school administrator recently said; this moment with AI is remarkably like the moment when we were introduced to asbestos. Yes, it had some remarkably promising characteristics – fireproofing! – and had some real utility in science, research, and industrial applications. But a profit-driven industry bullied us into inserting it everywhere; into our homes and schools and public spaces, before we really understood the risks. This resulted in decades, if not centuries, of illness, injuries, deaths, and the astronomical financial burden of trying to remove the stuff. As you, the leaders and policymakers in our schools, craft an AI policy for our district, we the undersigned call on you to: 1. Ban AI tools into the classroom, protect our students and teachers from de-skilling and allow them the space and time to engage in assignments themselves. 2. Resist any direct financial relationship or contracts with AI providers, as well as the “training” they might offer. 3. Provide a digital literacy curriculum to help students navigate the current digital landscape, and promote critical engagement with technology. 4. Guarantee that anywhere generative AI has already entered our classrooms or curriculum, an opt-out will allow students and teachers to refuse the use of these products at no risk to their grades, progress or employment.

Reposted by Mark Petticrew, Thomas Arnold, Dolly Jørgensen , and 1 more

olivia.science
Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 13d
Love to see community action against this AI nonsense! neighborhoodview.org/2025/11/13/d...
As one Massachusetts school administrator recently said; this moment with AI is remarkably like the moment when we were introduced to asbestos. Yes, it had some remarkably promising characteristics – fireproofing! – and had some real utility in science, research, and industrial applications. But a profit-driven industry bullied us into inserting it everywhere; into our homes and schools and public spaces, before we really understood the risks. This resulted in decades, if not centuries, of illness, injuries, deaths, and the astronomical financial burden of trying to remove the stuff. As you, the leaders and policymakers in our schools, craft an AI policy for our district, we the undersigned call on you to: 1. Ban AI tools into the classroom, protect our students and teachers from de-skilling and allow them the space and time to engage in assignments themselves. 2. Resist any direct financial relationship or contracts with AI providers, as well as the “training” they might offer. 3. Provide a digital literacy curriculum to help students navigate the current digital landscape, and promote critical engagement with technology. 4. Guarantee that anywhere generative AI has already entered our classrooms or curriculum, an opt-out will allow students and teachers to refuse the use of these products at no risk to their grades, progress or employment.

thomasarnold.bsky.social
Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 18d
Rhymes with freon

thomasarnold.bsky.social
Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 25d
November in Boston is here, changing my username to a clever seasonal affective disorder nickname (just my username).

thomasarnold.bsky.social
Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · 29d
"affected, they said, by influenza" might exceed "picnic, lightning" in parenthetical brilliance, especially read in 2025.

thomasarnold.bsky.social
Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · Oct 26
The late Peirce's comments on "logical machines" suggest he saw the whole problem of reasoning without sensory encounter with the world (which was, yeah it can do a lot but it's not logic in the full pragmatic sense) before both GOFAI and FAUXFAI.

thomasarnold.bsky.social
Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · Oct 17
I Saw Satan's Gradient Descent

Reposted by Thomas Arnold

adriandaub.bsky.social
Adrian Daub @adriandaub.bsky.social · Oct 17
I wrote this a week ago, and *of course* I think of the perfect title now:

“(Anti)Christ, what an asshole”

www.theguardian.com/technology/n...
Peter Thiel’s off-the-record antichrist lectures reveal more about him than Armageddon
Silicon Valley titan desperately tries to detach self from power in amateurish talks attempting to ape his favorite philosopher
www.theguardian.com

thomasarnold.bsky.social
Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · Oct 17
Very disappointed to learn xenobots are named after a frog genus and not the host-guest relationship. Step it up, computational biologists.

thomasarnold.bsky.social
Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · Oct 14
Awesome, I need to watch.

thomasarnold.bsky.social
Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · Oct 14
It is hard not to think about posthumous baptism, taking over the dead's identity to bolster one's tradition (in the name of saving them)-- reanimating them in media for a different kind of canon-formation attains another level of perversity.
disabilitystor1.bsky.social Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · Oct 13
I don't know how many times to point out that is absolutely ghoulish and non-consensual and disgusting behavior.
To exploit the image of a dead woman who was also exploited in real life so you can live out your momentary fantasies of "what is possible" with AI is bad science journalism, also.
Sick.
October 10, 2025 4 min read Marilyn Monroe in Game of Thrones? AI Could Make It Happen Soon Despite early, and familiar, copyright growing pains, Sora may be the prelude to AI-generated on-demand TV and movies Screenshot includes an AI generated image of what looks like a human cross between Daenaerys Targaryen and Marilyn Monroe on the back of a dragon.

Reposted by Philip Nel, Thomas Arnold, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò

disabilitystor1.bsky.social
Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · Oct 13
I don't know how many times to point out that is absolutely ghoulish and non-consensual and disgusting behavior.
To exploit the image of a dead woman who was also exploited in real life so you can live out your momentary fantasies of "what is possible" with AI is bad science journalism, also.
Sick.
October 10, 2025 4 min read Marilyn Monroe in Game of Thrones? AI Could Make It Happen Soon Despite early, and familiar, copyright growing pains, Sora may be the prelude to AI-generated on-demand TV and movies Screenshot includes an AI generated image of what looks like a human cross between Daenaerys Targaryen and Marilyn Monroe on the back of a dragon.

thomasarnold.bsky.social
Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · Oct 6
Adrienne Mayor's "Gods and Robots" discusses this myth and many other ancient robot legends across Europe, Asia, and North Africa. Now I can't wait to read this book as follow up.
blaftrakesh.bsky.social Rakesh Khanna @blaftrakesh.bsky.social · Oct 5
When I was researching my book Ghosts, Monsters, and Demons of India, I learned of a 1000-year-old myth about Roman tech being used to build killer robots to guard the Buddha's remains in Pataliputra, and a Hungarian folklorist read my book & got excited about it, & she managed to dig up a🧵(1/3)
Romanised Pali manuscript of the Lokapannati Ghosts, Monsters, and Demons of India p. 60 Bhoota Vahana Yanta Bhoota Vahana Yanta means “spirit movement machine.” The term is used for several varieties of robot drone assassins and sword-wielding machine- men mentioned in the Lokapannati, a Pali-language text written between 1000 and 1200 CE by Saddhammaghosa of Thaton, but concerning events that took place much earlier, around 500 to 200 BCE. According to the story, robots were first invented by engineers of the early Roman Republic. These robots were used for commerce, in agriculture, as a police force, and as executioners. The secret of how to build these spirit-engines was fiercely protected. If any engineer dared to take the designs out of the city, one of his own executioner robots would come after him and kill him. At that time, in Pataliputra (then in the kingdom of Magadha, now Patna in the state of Bihar), there lived a young man who had heard of the Romans’ magical androids. He became so determined to learn the secrets of their manufacture and share them with the people of Magadha that he arranged his own death. Then, on his deathbed, he vowed to be reincarnated as a Roman. This indeed took place. In his new life, the man grew up to join the Roman guild of engineers. He even married the daughter of the Master Robot-Maker, and had a son by her. Once he learned the secrets of the Bhoota Vahana Yanta, the man resolved to transfer the information back to Pataliputra. But he was well aware that now, since he was a member of the guild, he would be killed as soon as he left. So he cut a gash in his thigh, inserted the plans in his flesh, and sewed the wound back up.

Reposted by Thomas Arnold

blaftrakesh.bsky.social
Rakesh Khanna @blaftrakesh.bsky.social · Oct 5
When I was researching my book Ghosts, Monsters, and Demons of India, I learned of a 1000-year-old myth about Roman tech being used to build killer robots to guard the Buddha's remains in Pataliputra, and a Hungarian folklorist read my book & got excited about it, & she managed to dig up a🧵(1/3)
Romanised Pali manuscript of the Lokapannati Ghosts, Monsters, and Demons of India p. 60 Bhoota Vahana Yanta Bhoota Vahana Yanta means “spirit movement machine.” The term is used for several varieties of robot drone assassins and sword-wielding machine- men mentioned in the Lokapannati, a Pali-language text written between 1000 and 1200 CE by Saddhammaghosa of Thaton, but concerning events that took place much earlier, around 500 to 200 BCE. According to the story, robots were first invented by engineers of the early Roman Republic. These robots were used for commerce, in agriculture, as a police force, and as executioners. The secret of how to build these spirit-engines was fiercely protected. If any engineer dared to take the designs out of the city, one of his own executioner robots would come after him and kill him. At that time, in Pataliputra (then in the kingdom of Magadha, now Patna in the state of Bihar), there lived a young man who had heard of the Romans’ magical androids. He became so determined to learn the secrets of their manufacture and share them with the people of Magadha that he arranged his own death. Then, on his deathbed, he vowed to be reincarnated as a Roman. This indeed took place. In his new life, the man grew up to join the Roman guild of engineers. He even married the daughter of the Master Robot-Maker, and had a son by her. Once he learned the secrets of the Bhoota Vahana Yanta, the man resolved to transfer the information back to Pataliputra. But he was well aware that now, since he was a member of the guild, he would be killed as soon as he left. So he cut a gash in his thigh, inserted the plans in his flesh, and sewed the wound back up.

thomasarnold.bsky.social
Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · Oct 4
This is Boston coffee nerd excellence
Map of Somerville divided into 21 "coffeehoods," each named after coffee shop in that area. Massive debates to ensue, but I like "Tamper Hillside."

thomasarnold.bsky.social
Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · Oct 2
Liaising between religious studies and computer science has only become more fraught as tech claims religious connossieurship with the unblinking assuredness of Zuckerberg with Sweet Baby Ray's, making me all the more grateful for pieces like this.

Reposted by Fabián Muniesa, Thomas Arnold

laurabullard.bsky.social
Laura Bullard @laurabullard.bsky.social · Sep 30
Taking a brief break from sporadically posting photos of my pitbull to shout this into the void:

I’ve spent the last seven months thinking about the Antichrist, and now those thoughts are published over at @wired.com.

www.wired.com/story/the-re...
The Real Stakes, and Real Story, of Peter Thiel’s Antichrist Obsession
Thirty years ago, a peace-loving Austrian theologian spoke to Peter Thiel about the apocalyptic theories of Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt. They’ve been a road map for the billionaire ever since.
www.wired.com

thomasarnold.bsky.social
Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · Sep 29
Faculties kept inside during recess

thomasarnold.bsky.social
Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · Sep 25
Build It Or Not, You Are Still Going To Die: Ernest Becker's Chaplaincy To AI Ethics

thomasarnold.bsky.social
Thomas Arnold @thomasarnold.bsky.social · Sep 3
And Eco echoes