Lauren Woolsey
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cgsunit.bsky.social
Lauren Woolsey
@cgsunit.bsky.social
740 followers 450 following 670 posts
Earthling, she/her, teacher of science, reader of books, player of board games, and more. Avatar by Corinne Roberts :) These days, I post a lot about how AI sucks, see zines and info at padlet.com/laurenUU/antiAI
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cgsunit.bsky.social
"The predator is the idea that we can somehow live our lives without being in relationship to the Earth [...]used by a predatory idea, the spiritual weight of that is unbearable. We think the whole societal crisis is the result of falling out of a relational way of seeing the world" (amb, Ancestors)
Text from adrienne maree brown's ANCESTORS book giving me context for the sections pulled in the bluesky post. The text reads as follows: "Wow, Leonard, I get this. I get this. Because basically what happened here is that Black people experienced what the Anishinaabe experienced before us." "Exactly. Now We sit together as creatures who have survived being hunted by he same predator. And the predator is not the body, the white body, the white man. The predator is the idea that we can somehow live our lives without being in relationship to the Earth. And this predator hunts us from within, you know, It allows for this violent dehumanization. To get to the place where someone takes the time and uses their intelligence to create a method for killing others-not for food, not for honor, just for some sense of domination-that is always tragedy. But then to specify that a lot of people, because of where they were born, because of what their skin makes you feel, that those people don't deserve access to life to just try at life like anyone else. Becausc it's not like being alive is easy or in any way a guaranteed good thing. But it is a chance at a good thing, it is a chance for moments of beauty and connection and miracle. When you take that away from people based on their race, or their ethnicity, that means you have completely disconnected yourself from the good river of life." "You're saying the tragedy is within the one doing the harm?" "Yes. And again, not to diminish the impact. It hurts, it is devastating and dangerous to be preyed upon by your own species. But to become a predator, to be used by a predatory idea, the spiritual weight of that is unbearable. We think the whole societal crisis is the result of falling out of a relational way of seeing the world. Everything is out of balance." Leonard's hands had been up and wide for some time, but Dawud only noticed now how it felt like all of existence was in Leonard's hands.
November 15, 2025 at 3:51 PM
cgsunit.bsky.social
This part feels too central to summarize so here's a longer clip with extended discussion from Abeba Birhane's "Algorithmic Injustice: A Relational Ethics Approach" (in Patterns 2, 2021)
Earlier, I contested the prioritization of mathematical evidence of bias and discrimination over the human testimonies of harm. When you rely on mathematical evidence of bias, you legitimize algorithmic decision-making as the only available form of informed action. Framing the problem of AI as one of bias and discrimination constrains possibilities for redress to "fairness" within systems that remain unquestioned and unexamined. The idea that something can be "fixed" implies that the premise of the system itself is not deeply flawed (Benjamin 2019). The endless pursuit of methodological fixes to technological harms is dependent upon a conviction that ethics and justice are static and that there is some endpoint at which we will "arrive" and no longer have to critically evaluate the contexts and consequences of our work. Complex social and political issues have been claimed by Technosolutionists as mere "mathematical problems with a technical solution (Birhane 2021a). Abeba Birhane advocates tor tech developers, "builders," to understand ethics in algorithmic work not as something which can be rationalized into more layers of math, but as a relational practice (Birhane 2021a). Relational ethics centers concrete and material conditions for individuals and com- munities rather than abstract and decontextualized notions of "ensuring fairness" or advancing "the public good." Data work. in all its forms, involves constant micro and macro ethical and moral decision-making. Even if you are not consciously reflecting on the possible consequences of your actions, everyday decisions have material influence on the world.
November 13, 2025 at 10:42 PM
cgsunit.bsky.social
Williams also discusses responsibility gaps when trying to determine who is liable when a system fails. They quote Shannon Vallor and Bhargavi Ganesh "Artificial Intelligence and the Imperative of Responsibility: Reconceiving AI Governance as Social Care" (and ask who will be deemed worthy of care?)
Text from Disabling Intelligences, by Rua M. Williams. The text reads as follows: Vallor and Ganesh write: "When taken as complete sociotechnical systems, the agential powers of AI systems appear" (Vallor and Ganesh 2023, 398). Put another way, AI systems do not act in any absence of an operating individual, organızatıon, or society, When exploring why we have trouble tracing the moral culpability for harm enacted by an AI (socio-technical) system, Vallor and Ganesh note that Ehe perception of an AI system's interior inscrutability makes it compelling to ascribe fuzzy kind of responsibility onto an AI system as though t were at least partial or...
November 13, 2025 at 10:14 PM
cgsunit.bsky.social
I pulled Let This Radicalize You (by Hayes and Kaba) from my shelf and found three of the four quotes that @fractalecho.bsky.social used were already some of my favorites! (Page 5 for the first, page 227 for the other two)

Let us dream of our interconnectedness as we finish up this book thread. 💜
Three selected boxes of text from the book Let This Radicalize You by Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba. 1. When we try to change the world, when we create containers for work, initiate relationships, or chart strategic paths forward, we are always battling assumptions. What myths underlie those assumptions? How can those myths be ripped out from under the lies they prop up? How can inevitability–a construct of the wicked–be ripped apart? The restoration of possibility amid despair is an act of destruction paired with a call to imagine-which is a call to arms. The armament of knowing you have not been defeated. The armament of knowing that the present and the future will have histories that have not been written yet. Possibility is the hope we wear when we charge into battle, It is stronger than assumption or reaction because it is intentional. It is an awareness that cannot be snatched away 2. So, as bad as this is, it's not the only thing. It's so important to remember this message during difficult times, lest we become despairing. Despair is a thief. It saps your energy, depletes your time, and robs you of your ability to dream. And we need lots of dreamers and doers right now. 3. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a courageous and profoundly decent man, passed away in late 2021. Tutu helped to popularize the Zulu concept of Ubuntu as the understanding that "a person is a person through other people' He used to say that Ubuntu can best be understood as "me we." I love that term–"me we." He wrote that the "solitary, isolated human being is a contradiction in terms. All humanity is interconnected and interdependent. Tutu wrote that "the only way we can ever be human is together. The only way we can be free is together."
November 13, 2025 at 9:38 PM
cgsunit.bsky.social
Red Cup Day is Nov. 13! Get your free Starbucks reusable holiday cup To help spread the cheer, customers who order a handcrafted holiday beverage at participating U.S Starbucks coffeehouses on Nov. 13 Wif receive a free 2025 limited-edition reusable red cup, while supplies last.
November 13, 2025 at 1:40 PM
cgsunit.bsky.social
Social stratification features prominently when schools and educators fall for Ed Tech. Williams highlights U of M's promise of AI personal assistants as well as this segment from an episode of MAIHT3K (www.dair-institute.org/maiht3k/)
Text from page 99 of "Disabling Intelligences" by Rua Williams. The text reads: Adrienne Williams is a community researcher and former educator studying labor exploitation in AI and big tech. In an interview with Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna on Mystcry AI H ype Theater 3000, Williams described in detail the differences between how technology is used in wealthy schools versus how it is deployed in low-income schools: But [wealthy schools'] way of dealing with technology is they teach these things. Here's digital literacy. Here's how to build game ...like a real curriculum ... Versus low-income schools, it's, we're just going to use technology to basically deal with you. We're not going to teach you how to do anything with it. We're Just going to use to kind of police you and keep you in this box. And we're going to take the data and the information. We're going to use it to build more products so we can get rich. (Episode 45. Billionaires, Inflencers, and Ed Tech (Feat. Adrienne Williams) 2024) Education technology becomes a mechanism for social stratification...
November 12, 2025 at 7:15 PM
cgsunit.bsky.social
Ch4 begins with discussion of digital servants. Ruha Benjamin (@ruha9.bsky.social) shared this 1957 advertisement here with commentary on cultural beliefs in "Race After Technology" (2019).

"Every site of automation is a site of labor devaluation, displacement, and exploitation." (Williams, p75)
Speculative advertisement titled "You'll Own 'Slaves' by 1965" and featured in Mechanics Illustrated magazine in 1957
November 12, 2025 at 6:36 PM
cgsunit.bsky.social
"Our current public fascination with these systems stems largely from a deliberate refusal companies to explain and describe how they were built, how they work, and what they actually do." There are multiple studies now that show people's enthusiasm for genAI diminishes as they learn how it works.
A photo of text in the book. The text reads as follows: Our current public fascination with these systems stems largely from a deliberate refusal companies to explain and describe how they were built, how they work, and what they actually do. While we don't know the provenance of most individual points in a dataset, We do know that vast amounts of human-generated content were scraped from the internet, public archives, and private collections, without any form of notice, let alone consent. Further, the necessary human labor of tagging, classifying, and training models from this stolen data has continued the Tech industry's foul tradition of exploiting human labor in inhumane conditions at poverty wages (Gray and Suri 2019). AI hypers would have you believe that LLMs produce answers to questions, or even engage in complex reasoning (more on that later) ( Unravel Technologies 2024). They may claim that AI art democratizes the artistic process by allowing anyone to generate an image from their own thoughts. None of this is true. LLMs and Stable Diffusion-driven art generators differ in their data: one is built from and reproduces the form of text, and the other built from and reproduces the form of images. Yet they operate under similar premises. By collecting larger and larger volumes of representations...
November 12, 2025 at 12:35 AM
cgsunit.bsky.social
This section ends with mention of ELIZA, but unlike with Binet's concerns about misuse of his IQ test, Weizembaum's own warnings for how to interpret or use this "first AI chatbot" aren't included in Williams' commentary.

To supplement, here's a snippet from Ch1 of "The AI Con" by Bender and Hanna.
An exerpt from The AI Con by Emily Bender and Alex Hanna. The text reads: In the late 1960s, Joseph Weizenbaum, a German émigré, protessor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and contemporary of Minsky, was alarmed by how quickly people attributed agency to automated systems. Weizenbaum developed a chatbot called ELIZA, named for the working-class character George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion who learns to mimic upper-class speech. ELIZA was designed to carry on a conversation in the style of a Rogerian psychotherapist; that is, the program primarily repeated what its users said, reframing their thoughts into questions. Weizenbaum used this form for ELIZA, not because he thought it would useful as a therapist, but rather because it was a convenient setup for the chatbot: this kind psychotherapy is one of the few conversational situations where it wouldn't matter if the machine didn't have access to other data about the world. Despite its grave limitations, computer scientists used ELIZA to celebrate how thoroughly computers could replace human labor and heralded the entry into the artificial intelligence age. A shocked Weizenbaum spent the rest of his life as a critic of AI, noting that humans were not meat machines, while Minsky went on to found MIT's AI laboratory and rake in funding from the Pentagon unhindered.
November 11, 2025 at 10:55 PM
cgsunit.bsky.social
Besides manufacturing automation (related to the original Luddite movement!), this first type/category includes decision-making algorithms built on procedural logic.

For this whole "Automators" type, Williams warns us to check for human agency and accountability in its application.
Text from page 23. It reads as follows: Automation and Automators are motivated primarily by ideals such as efficiency, productivity, and safety. But whether an Automator has positive or negative impacts on individuals and society can usually be determined by the context of its design and the reversibility or changeability of its actions. When people directly and indirectly impacted by a system have control over its features, processes, and actions; when they have the ability to verify and validate those actions; and when they have the power to stop, reverse, or alter those actions, Automators can support human agency while protecting human life and socicty. However, when the primary motivation for an Automator design is to profit- to rapidly scale production, reduce human labor hours and wages, or withhold public expenditures, the conditions of agency and accountability are rarely met.
November 11, 2025 at 10:18 PM
cgsunit.bsky.social
Before they get into their "taxonomy of AI" in ch2, the author mentions an interesting resource from www.aiaaic.org where harms are grouped into categories: autonomy, physical, psychological, reputational, human rights and civil liberties, social and cultural, political and economic, environmental.
A complex image showing a Taxonomy of AI, algorithmic, and automation harms. The categories are listed in the post, and the full text descriptions can be found as an accessible table in the report at the website https://www.aiaaic.org/ - a complete listing of all text on this image would not be usefully legible in this alt text box. Apologies!
November 11, 2025 at 9:56 PM
cgsunit.bsky.social
I'm introduced on page 10 to a new term, metaeugenics. Williams quotes one of their earlier papers to define and then contrast this concept with necropolitics, as this is an internalized collection of beliefs while necropolitics is an external regime/power structure (see Mbembé and Meintjes 2003).
Page 10 of the book, the text in the image reads as follows: Metaeugenics are the undercurrent of cultural norms, ideals, values, and demands that warp and twist deviant bodies into conformity via a desperate drive for survival and future. Metaeugenics are deployed in the justification of curative, normalizing therapies for sexual, gender, and behavioral "deviance." Once overt eugenics have failed, or have been deemed unpalatable, metaeugenics take over to ensure the purity and propriety of the hegemony. Racialized, queer, disabled, or otherwise unsightly, unruly, uncanny bodies are cataloged, captured, quarantined, incarcerated, sanitized, and rehabilitated (or not). Bodies that escape sequestration and cure do so by internalizing metaeugenic demands for conformity, respectability, and exceptionalism. An institution of one. (Rua M. Williams 2019)
November 11, 2025 at 2:41 AM
cgsunit.bsky.social
This is only page 3 and I'm so invested in learning more from this author. Luddite as an insult certainly gets thrown around a lot these days, and I'm happy to have their concise clarification on what side of history that movement was on at the very start of the book.
Text from the book on page 3 reads "[...] other humans. No, this book is not a Luddite treatise--if, by Luddite, you mean a consumate techno-pessimist that believes all technological advancement is an anathema to human flourishing. But if by Luddite you mean a conscientious objection to top-down dictatorial automation of human thought and skill as a capitalist ploy for the devaluation of labor, and therefore the devaluation of laborers and human life in general... Then, yes. This is a Luddite treatise. This book disambiguates the purposes of AI and its conscquences for humanity (and the environment) through descriptions of how AI projects produce, harm, and even kill disabled people. Through these stories, this book also provides a guide to the various and confusing meanings, methods, and impacts of "AI" in terms that are clear and relevant to everyday [...]"
November 11, 2025 at 2:02 AM
cgsunit.bsky.social
This will be my thread for thoughts while reading Disabling Intelligences by @fractalecho.bsky.social this week.

I'm all wrapped up in a fleece blanket, I have my highlighter and page flags, and on page 2 I'm already love their writing style.

🧵
A hand holds a book called "Disabling Intelligences: Legacies of Eugenics and How We are Wrong about Al" by Rua M. Williams. The cover is burgundy with orange leaves, and behind the book is a blanket with similar colors.
November 11, 2025 at 1:47 AM
cgsunit.bsky.social
All 3 of these books arrived to me in the past 24 hours 😍📚🥰

1. Disabling Intelligences by @fractalecho.bsky.social (via publisher)

2. Ancestors by @adriennemareebrown.bsky.social (via Cellar Bird Books)

3. Read This When Things Fall Apart by @mskellymhayes.bsky.social (via Pilsen Community Books)
Three books are shown on a table. They are numbered in this caption based on how they appear from left to right. 1. A burgundy cover with orange leaves. Title: Disabling Intelligences: Legacies of Eugenics and How We are Wrong about Al. Authored by Rua M. Williams. 2. A smaller book with an overview of a city scape and a large dog. Title: Ancestors. Written by adrienne maree brown. 3. A blue cover with a drawing of a person in a lake. Title: READ THIS WHEN THINGS FALL APART: Letters to Activists in Crisis. Edited by Kelly Hayes.
November 6, 2025 at 9:17 PM
cgsunit.bsky.social
Hooray Moon!!
The bright waxing gibbous moon seen in the sky before sunset, with buildings and part of a bus in the foreground
November 3, 2025 at 10:19 PM
cgsunit.bsky.social
Learned about the Library of Babel group via @olivia.science and her highlighted quote from @melaniedusseau.bsky.social from the essay "A Psalm for the Analog" - definitely worth reading the whole thing, and this table of contents is so solid.

Zine is linked: www.law.georgetown.edu/privacy-tech...
Screenshots from the zine "LOOMING" Issue 1. The left side has a table of contents with the following highlighted: "Melanie Dusseau, A Psalm for the Analog: Why Creative Writing Matters in the Age of AI". Then, on the left is a portion of text. The following three fragments are highlighted: 1) "It puts morally bankrupt, techno-fascist billionaires in the driverless seat." 2) "Here's a simple fact that those making an AI inevitability argument do not want to reckon: it's not too late." and 3) "It is a thieving, hallucinating, biased, data-scraping, eco-destroying, surveillance bot that will never be able to reconcile the receipts of its unethical origins."
November 2, 2025 at 6:28 PM
cgsunit.bsky.social
The David Hockney exhibit at GRAM was excellent and I'm glad I got to see it before it leaves this weekend! (My work colleagues also enjoyed the cat ears when we met virtually)
A woman in cat ears taking a selfie in front of several colorful lithographs A woman in cat ears smiling in front of a giant drawing of El Capitan in Yosemite
October 31, 2025 at 11:26 PM
cgsunit.bsky.social
I'm in the middle of reading Radical Hope by @thetattooedprof.bsky.social, which has been a source of strength this semester even if I already align with what I'm reading in it, and my signed copy of Lies My Teacher Told Me from @natepowell.bsky.social just arrived! An excellent book day 😍🤩😍
Two books next to each other on the table: Radical Hope by Kevin Gannon and Lies My Teacher Told Me, graphic novel adaptation by Nate Powell.
October 25, 2025 at 4:17 PM
cgsunit.bsky.social
Congrats to Ireland and Catherine Connolly! Many folks definitely need a reminder of what is possible. www.catherineconnollyforpresident.ie/about
A screenshot from the linked website for Connolly from a page titled Why I Stand and a section called Raising Your Voice. The text reads: I believe the President should be a unifying presence—a steady hand, yes, but also a spark. A reminder of what is possible. A moral compass in a world increasingly driven by profit and spectacle. A voice for those too often silenced. That is the role I seek to play.
October 25, 2025 at 3:06 PM
cgsunit.bsky.social
Oh absolutely, I read it in November 2022 and gave it 5 stars on The StoryGraph. Definitely broadly applicable!
A photo of the book On Repentance and Repair opened to page 77 showing a page flag pointing to a passage and dozens of more visible along the edge of the book
October 22, 2025 at 5:33 PM
cgsunit.bsky.social
Here's a blank version if you'd like to take it for your own use in conversations with your peers. Note: I reposted this thread to add clear indicators in the graph labels that this is related to AI discussions. [2/3]
A graph with a vertical axis that goes from Awareness of AI at the top to Ignorance of AI at the bottom and a horizontal axis that goes from Embracement of Use on the right to Refusal of Use on the left. Below the graph is the text "Axes of AI by Lauren Woolsey is licensed under CC-BY 4.0 (10/22/25 Version 1)"
October 22, 2025 at 5:29 PM
cgsunit.bsky.social
I have been mulling over the reductive post from days ago that could only imagine "Aware + Embraces" or "Ignorant + Refuses" as the two stances in debate about AI. If we need a simple model, here's a suggestion for Axes of AI including where I self-report for transparency. [1/3]
A graph with a vertical axis that goes from Awareness of AI at the top to Ignorance of AI at the bottom and a horizontal axis that goes from Embracement of Use on the right to Refusal of Use on the left. A star with the label "Me" is all the way on the left (refusal) and near the top (awareness). Below the graph is the text "Axes of AI by Lauren Woolsey is licensed under CC-BY 4.0 (10/22/25 Version 1)"
October 22, 2025 at 5:29 PM
cgsunit.bsky.social
They couldn't even be bothered to do the paperwork. Why do people (here, the demolition folks) keep saying yes to this angry, bitter husk of a man? apnews.com/live/donald-...
Screenshot of article called: Trump directs demolition on part of White House for ballroom despite lacking construction approval. The article continues as follows: At President Donald Trump’s direction, crews on Monday started tearing down part of the White House’s East Wing to build a new ballroom Trump has championed, despite lacking approval for construction from the federal agency that oversees such projects. Although Trump said in July the ballroom would not interfere with the mansion itself, dramatic photos of the demolition work Monday showed construction equipment tearing into the East Wing façade and windows and other building parts in tatters on the ground. The White House has moved ahead despite not yet having sign-off from the National Capital Planning Commission, which approves construction work to government buildings in the Washington area. Its chairman, Will Scharf, who is also the White House staff secretary and one of Trump’s top aides, said that the agency does not have jurisdiction over demolition work for buildings on federal property, only construction.
October 21, 2025 at 4:15 AM
cgsunit.bsky.social
Feeling a lot today, so looking back through my creativity notebooks. Found one of the fill-in prompt poems I made from "The Magic Words" by @josephfasano.bsky.social back in January.

It was good sit with it a while, so I made a little Canva image of it. Oh, how we all glowed together on Saturday ❤️
A poem written out in text with many tea lights in an image in the background. The text reads as follows: Today I feel like / a flickering flame burning in the dark. // Sometimes I am a guide / sometimes I am an inferno / but always I am alight. // I ask the world, / "what lies in the darkness?" / And the answer is / a flickering flame burning in the dark. End of poem. Under the poem, the credit reads: Lauren Woolsey following prompt by Joseph Fasano's book "The Magic Words"
October 20, 2025 at 4:52 PM