Anthony Moser
@anthonymoser.com
(He/Him) Folk Technologist • [email protected] • N4EJ • http://www.BetterDataPortal.com • baker in The FOIA Bakery • http://publicdatatools.com • http://deseguys.com • #1 on hackernews when you search for "hater"
I ended up drafting an email that didn't really lean on research specific to grade school education, but expressed my concerns in the most basic terms.
I removed the personal details and have shared it as a template here for folks who might find it useful:
bit.ly/TeacherEmail...
I removed the personal details and have shared it as a template here for folks who might find it useful:
bit.ly/TeacherEmail...
![Dear [TEACHER],
I want to make sure we're on the same page for the rest of the year, because I was surprised and disappointed to hear that you uploaded student projects to ChatGPT.
We have always found [SCHOOL] to be a place that encourages students to express themselves creatively, to be responsible and aware of how their actions affect others, and to be intellectually honest – doing their own work, rather than copying from others.
I know ChatGPT has been heavily marketed as an educational tool, but everything about it is the opposite of those values. AI tools are built by training models on stolen work. They have huge and terrible environmental costs, because their data centers generate enormous amounts of pollution and are cooled with drinking water. They're also incredibly dangerous: tools like ChatGPT have taught children how to start fires and even encouraged them to commit suicide.
And in a classroom setting, it teaches students that a machine can express their ideas better than they can. I told [ CHILD ] I was interested in seeing what they had to draw, and my heart sank when they told me "but I can't draw that pretty." Children deserve to draw what they imagine.
These environmental, ethical, and pedagogical concerns are why I don't want [ CHILD ] to use AI tools (or for you to use them on their behalf). For the same reasons, I respectfully ask that you stop using them in your classroom.
If you do plan to use AI this year, please send home a permission slip requesting consent. There are important privacy concerns when you upload student work into a for-profit service like ChatGPT.
Thank you,
[ PARENT ]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:c2xl6zaxo623jzbjb43urymd/bafkreiesldew7oebm4hg2gymd4cftvwmrpbdw6m7eil2buiphw7db4ror4@jpeg)
December 2, 2025 at 4:39 PM
I ended up drafting an email that didn't really lean on research specific to grade school education, but expressed my concerns in the most basic terms.
I removed the personal details and have shared it as a template here for folks who might find it useful:
bit.ly/TeacherEmail...
I removed the personal details and have shared it as a template here for folks who might find it useful:
bit.ly/TeacherEmail...
Like does their model account for the way "I'm running to represent my community where I live" reads as authentic
whereas "I'm running to represent a district I don't live in bc the computer said i would win" reads like a soulless hack controlled by consultants
whereas "I'm running to represent a district I don't live in bc the computer said i would win" reads like a soulless hack controlled by consultants
![The AI also informs where a candidate is best placed to win.
Brandon points to one instance where a candidate was poised to run in their home district. The AI showed the district next door is a better bet.
"Thirty minutes way, perfect fit," he said. "And that's what [that person's] going to do, because we found they matched up perfectly."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:c2xl6zaxo623jzbjb43urymd/bafkreiegxy3i6zfrwoqcmzkemqwt7wmwtgcoefuugw5pmpha4ejmyfc3ui@jpeg)
December 1, 2025 at 2:33 PM
Like does their model account for the way "I'm running to represent my community where I live" reads as authentic
whereas "I'm running to represent a district I don't live in bc the computer said i would win" reads like a soulless hack controlled by consultants
whereas "I'm running to represent a district I don't live in bc the computer said i would win" reads like a soulless hack controlled by consultants
Btw I had guessed ai here meant "an algorithm to turn polls and voting data into predictions" and it does include that but also much funnier and more nonsensical things
December 1, 2025 at 2:28 PM
Btw I had guessed ai here meant "an algorithm to turn polls and voting data into predictions" and it does include that but also much funnier and more nonsensical things
btw i love the order of the sections here: takeaways, motivation, and results all come before methodology
November 28, 2025 at 3:39 AM
btw i love the order of the sections here: takeaways, motivation, and results all come before methodology
ok this time i double checked and the source for this claim is an AI company.
Motivation: we are financially invested in narratives of inevitability
Results: we find AI everywhere
Motivation: we are financially invested in narratives of inevitability
Results: we find AI everywhere
November 28, 2025 at 3:30 AM
ok this time i double checked and the source for this claim is an AI company.
Motivation: we are financially invested in narratives of inevitability
Results: we find AI everywhere
Motivation: we are financially invested in narratives of inevitability
Results: we find AI everywhere
QR codes are also just some text encoded visually. People now associate them with websites, because a lot of times the text is a URL. but it's just text. like this
November 27, 2025 at 4:13 AM
QR codes are also just some text encoded visually. People now associate them with websites, because a lot of times the text is a URL. but it's just text. like this
like we know the answer here, they *work by harming communities*
![If the city cannot see, study or share the data private firms collect from the city, then it cannot evaluate [highlighted text] whether the technologies work or whether they harm communities. [end highlight] The ShotSpotter saga shows that meaningful debate and reform hinge on independent scrutiny. Without access,
there's no accountability.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:c2xl6zaxo623jzbjb43urymd/bafkreie6k6o7pcfvfov5ssbfbvof6onmcsy5hnqzzwg2ugiya35wri5u7e@jpeg)
November 24, 2025 at 2:53 PM
like we know the answer here, they *work by harming communities*
"technologies meant for local policing can be used for political repression and persecution"
local policing is also political repression and persecution, Bob
local policing is also political repression and persecution, Bob
![We already know from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s recent actions in Chicago that [highlighted text] technologies meant for local policing can be used for political repression and persecution. [end highlight] At a moment when an authoritarian president is seeking every tool possible to target his perceived political enemies, there is no better time for Chicago to rethink how it does business with technology firms.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:c2xl6zaxo623jzbjb43urymd/bafkreiepapjumcsrjyhkylv5pv7cknxcqxvobrkxkkws3zk7pxshzm5bsy@jpeg)
November 24, 2025 at 2:49 PM
"technologies meant for local policing can be used for political repression and persecution"
local policing is also political repression and persecution, Bob
local policing is also political repression and persecution, Bob
we open with a false binary: that it is either
1) a crime-fighting tool
2) an expensive failure
both of these accept the frame of the city and vendor: that the product is meant to prevent crime to support safety
1) a crime-fighting tool
2) an expensive failure
both of these accept the frame of the city and vendor: that the product is meant to prevent crime to support safety
November 24, 2025 at 2:37 PM
we open with a false binary: that it is either
1) a crime-fighting tool
2) an expensive failure
both of these accept the frame of the city and vendor: that the product is meant to prevent crime to support safety
1) a crime-fighting tool
2) an expensive failure
both of these accept the frame of the city and vendor: that the product is meant to prevent crime to support safety
in a musty old hall in detroit they prayed
in the maritime sailors' cathedral
the church bell chimed 'til it rang twenty-nine times
in the maritime sailors' cathedral
the church bell chimed 'til it rang twenty-nine times
November 23, 2025 at 3:22 AM
in a musty old hall in detroit they prayed
in the maritime sailors' cathedral
the church bell chimed 'til it rang twenty-nine times
in the maritime sailors' cathedral
the church bell chimed 'til it rang twenty-nine times
new teaser from @ifbookspod.bsky.social just dropped
November 20, 2025 at 2:13 PM
new teaser from @ifbookspod.bsky.social just dropped
like yeah i would believe a dog can communicate FOOD FOOD WALK TREAT. love? later? idk idk.
is there a button for ennui, or is that one just for cats
is there a button for ennui, or is that one just for cats
November 19, 2025 at 3:10 AM
like yeah i would believe a dog can communicate FOOD FOOD WALK TREAT. love? later? idk idk.
is there a button for ennui, or is that one just for cats
is there a button for ennui, or is that one just for cats
ghost. bad news. jackass
November 18, 2025 at 4:44 PM
ghost. bad news. jackass
ghost. bad news. jackass
November 18, 2025 at 4:27 PM
ghost. bad news. jackass
ghost. bad news. jackass
November 18, 2025 at 4:18 PM
ghost. bad news. jackass
ghost. bad news. jackass
November 18, 2025 at 4:04 PM
ghost. bad news. jackass
ghost, bad news, jackass
November 18, 2025 at 3:56 PM
ghost, bad news, jackass
ghost, processing bad news, jackass
November 18, 2025 at 3:49 PM
ghost, processing bad news, jackass
sam altman only has three looks: i see a ghost, processing bad news, and jackass
November 18, 2025 at 3:43 PM
sam altman only has three looks: i see a ghost, processing bad news, and jackass
"When we charge an algorithm with processing these images, it can only tell us with some probability what lies on their surface, and it is frequently wrong even about that."
![When I look at Eckhout's and Amaral's paintings,
[highlighted text] I see bananas. But what I also see are contexts that lie beneath and to the side of the subjects that they represent. When we charge an algorithm with processing these images, it can only tell us with some probability what lies on their surface, and it is frequently wrong even about that. [end highlight]
Instead of being enthralled by its wan superficiality, we would be better off looking beside and beneath it at the extractive project that machine learning serves in its expansion into humanistic research and education.2° It is only sight blinkered by a narrow focus on what computer vision does that cannot perceive this truth.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:c2xl6zaxo623jzbjb43urymd/bafkreiddrllaalkjdzlhnfmd7xovzmju25actrrpxer2gql3afbgpojsm4@jpeg)
November 17, 2025 at 3:19 PM
"When we charge an algorithm with processing these images, it can only tell us with some probability what lies on their surface, and it is frequently wrong even about that."
"Advocates of computer vision have adopted the position that, even in error – especially in error – computer vision can revise the way we see the objects of our study [....]
This framing posits the algorithm as a form of alterity, an otherness that aids in self-knowledge."
This framing posits the algorithm as a form of alterity, an otherness that aids in self-knowledge."
![[highlighted text] Advocates of computer vision have adopted the position that, even in error-especially in error-computer vision can revise the way we see the objects of our study. [end highlight]
"I have become more attentive to my own habits of looking, with a sharpened awareness that my perception is inflected by both disciplinary and personal biases," art historian Elizabeth C. Mansfield concluded in her CV-assisted analysis of John Constable's cloud studies, published in 2022.
"Do I believe computer vision has the potential to serve as a kind of prosthetic 'period eye'? Not exactly. But I do think there's potential for computer vision to aid art historians in gaining a better understanding of perception as well as vision."18
[highlighted text] This framing posits the algorithm as a form of alterity, an otherness that aids in self-knowledge. [end highlight]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:c2xl6zaxo623jzbjb43urymd/bafkreie5wuem5k77r7kpac4rvs6vgafoiiasxmk2ttyf7kasncs5afb4ty@jpeg)
November 17, 2025 at 3:05 PM
"Advocates of computer vision have adopted the position that, even in error – especially in error – computer vision can revise the way we see the objects of our study [....]
This framing posits the algorithm as a form of alterity, an otherness that aids in self-knowledge."
This framing posits the algorithm as a form of alterity, an otherness that aids in self-knowledge."
this piece is so good it's bananas
![Developmentally, generative Al is in a moment similar to the one described by Streeter, when the "cultural expectations of the Internet shaped the development of and thus [became] part of the artefact itself."5
[Highlighted text] Scholars have focused on what computer vision does (asking how accurate it is, how efficiently it works, and how it might aid art-historical research and teaching) but not on the material conditions upheld or advanced by the rhetoric of its potential use. This is a banana problem: It is as if scholars have been fixated on the piece of fruit itself and not on the worlds that Eckhout and Amaral show us, which were made and destroyed by the harvesting and consumption of that fruit. [End highlight]
Instead of focusing on what computer vision can achieve in processing images, I want to offer a historical account of the language and the feelings used to frame its imagined role in art-historical practice.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:c2xl6zaxo623jzbjb43urymd/bafkreif57gem3vmfbaovm4glxhnhmzx4fliodxaiaisjs7lx6ot2r5pxpe@jpeg)
![Computer vision, however, is not an extension of photography.
[highlighted text] It does not show us a banana. It shows us that a digitized image is highly likely to represent a banana, [end highlight]
based on the similarities between the way its data is configured and the way that of millions of other digitized images is arranged.
Computer vision is better described as a form of information management and prediction, as configurations of data with which probabilistic applications have been made, based on human instructions of varying degrees of clarity or specificity. A more productive way to think about](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:c2xl6zaxo623jzbjb43urymd/bafkreic53comjouerdxzdcrrbepcyuinoz5hd74zmacuhykul7vqhuioyy@jpeg)
November 17, 2025 at 2:53 PM
this piece is so good it's bananas
