elisa freschi
@elisafreschi.bsky.social
Sanskrit (and) philosophy. Permanently in beta phase. Blogging at http://elisafreschi.com and http://indianphilosophyblog.org. Articles at PhilPapers Here to learn & share
Reposted by elisa freschi
Here’s how to opt out.
“Google seems to be opting you in to these features without your permission. Second, the company doesn't seem to have notified its users about this. As a Gmail user, I don't recall seeing any notifications about this change.”
“Google seems to be opting you in to these features without your permission. Second, the company doesn't seem to have notified its users about this. As a Gmail user, I don't recall seeing any notifications about this change.”
Google's AI is now snooping on your emails - here's how to opt out
A new change quietly rolling out allows Google to access your private messages and attachments to train its AI models - likely without your knowledge. Opting out takes just moments.
www.zdnet.com
November 22, 2025 at 2:46 AM
Here’s how to opt out.
“Google seems to be opting you in to these features without your permission. Second, the company doesn't seem to have notified its users about this. As a Gmail user, I don't recall seeing any notifications about this change.”
“Google seems to be opting you in to these features without your permission. Second, the company doesn't seem to have notified its users about this. As a Gmail user, I don't recall seeing any notifications about this change.”
I usually fill my empty hours w either reading Sanskrit or doing something teaching-related (prepping, reading assignments…). Today I spent the whole afternoon doing no research at all but only answering emails/organising workshops and the like. But, unsurprisingly, I am far from done:-( #academia
November 21, 2025 at 10:36 PM
I usually fill my empty hours w either reading Sanskrit or doing something teaching-related (prepping, reading assignments…). Today I spent the whole afternoon doing no research at all but only answering emails/organising workshops and the like. But, unsurprisingly, I am far from done:-( #academia
"Recently, the American Historical Association […] asserts that “banning generative AI is not a long-term solution; cultivating AI literacy is.” One of their suggestions is to assign students an AI-generated essay & have them assess what it got right, got wrong or if it even understood the text"
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“We live in an era where personal expression is saturated by digital filters, hivemind thinking is promoted through endless algorithms and academic freedom itself is under assault by the weakest minds among us. #AI has only made this worse. It is a crisis.” #HigherEd www.huffpost.com/entry/histor...
I Set A Trap To Catch My Students Cheating With AI. The Results Were Shocking.
"Students are not just undermining their ability to learn, but to someday lead."
www.huffpost.com
November 21, 2025 at 8:32 PM
"Recently, the American Historical Association […] asserts that “banning generative AI is not a long-term solution; cultivating AI literacy is.” One of their suggestions is to assign students an AI-generated essay & have them assess what it got right, got wrong or if it even understood the text"
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Let's add ChatGPT being allowed to this mess, what could possibly go wrong?
One of the most upsetting articles I've read in a long time www.theargumentmag.com/p/when-grade...
UCSD report senate.ucsd.edu/media/740347...
We are failing a generation of kids.
UCSD report senate.ucsd.edu/media/740347...
We are failing a generation of kids.
When grades stop meaning anything
The UC San Diego math scandal is a warning
www.theargumentmag.com
November 20, 2025 at 3:58 AM
Let's add ChatGPT being allowed to this mess, what could possibly go wrong?
Meanwhile, there is still no automatic system to debug my LaTeX files, but I can do it while an AI watches movies for me, composes music for me, writes poems for me…
We have arrived at the stage of the GenAI grift where we pay to outsource pleasure. It will be quantified and reported back to us on a scale from meh to mind-blowing.
Just what I’ve always wanted: a bot to watch a season for me and tell me what happened.
November 19, 2025 at 6:56 PM
Meanwhile, there is still no automatic system to debug my LaTeX files, but I can do it while an AI watches movies for me, composes music for me, writes poems for me…
Reposted by elisa freschi
LLMs give people with delusional belief systems a way to organise those beliefs. The model fills in gaps, supplies connective tissue, and wraps the madness in formal language.
It doesn't make the claims more credible to us, it just tidies them up.
It doesn't make the claims more credible to us, it just tidies them up.
November 19, 2025 at 2:22 PM
LLMs give people with delusional belief systems a way to organise those beliefs. The model fills in gaps, supplies connective tissue, and wraps the madness in formal language.
It doesn't make the claims more credible to us, it just tidies them up.
It doesn't make the claims more credible to us, it just tidies them up.
Did someone like @olivia.science ever compile a list of journals/publishing houses that do not send our work to LLMs?
November 19, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Did someone like @olivia.science ever compile a list of journals/publishing houses that do not send our work to LLMs?
Reposted by elisa freschi
Relevant paper: the more people understand AI, the less they want to use it.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
The authors' conclusion: don't explain your AI tech too much to your customers.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
The authors' conclusion: don't explain your AI tech too much to your customers.
Lower Artificial Intelligence Literacy Predicts Greater AI Receptivity - Stephanie M. Tully, Chiara Longoni, Gil Appel, 2025
As artificial intelligence (AI) transforms society, understanding factors that influence AI receptivity is increasingly important. The current research investig...
journals.sagepub.com
November 19, 2025 at 8:41 AM
Relevant paper: the more people understand AI, the less they want to use it.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
The authors' conclusion: don't explain your AI tech too much to your customers.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
The authors' conclusion: don't explain your AI tech too much to your customers.
You want to study #SanskritPhilosophy (etc.) at
@utoronto.ca, Dept of Philosophy, for yr PhD but you studied in a South Asian studies department (or a Religious Studies depart.)? Consider studying philosophy for one year at UofT or anywhere else, so as to have enough Philosophy classes
#students
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@utoronto.ca, Dept of Philosophy, for yr PhD but you studied in a South Asian studies department (or a Religious Studies depart.)? Consider studying philosophy for one year at UofT or anywhere else, so as to have enough Philosophy classes
#students
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November 19, 2025 at 12:15 AM
You want to study #SanskritPhilosophy (etc.) at
@utoronto.ca, Dept of Philosophy, for yr PhD but you studied in a South Asian studies department (or a Religious Studies depart.)? Consider studying philosophy for one year at UofT or anywhere else, so as to have enough Philosophy classes
#students
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@utoronto.ca, Dept of Philosophy, for yr PhD but you studied in a South Asian studies department (or a Religious Studies depart.)? Consider studying philosophy for one year at UofT or anywhere else, so as to have enough Philosophy classes
#students
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Reposted by elisa freschi
It's amazing the way technology has worked to free us from creative intellectual labour so that we can devote more time to more important things, like gravedigging
November 18, 2025 at 2:35 PM
It's amazing the way technology has worked to free us from creative intellectual labour so that we can devote more time to more important things, like gravedigging
Reposted by elisa freschi
What can go wrong? Pitt what are you doing? Maybe we should worry more about education and research
Pitt is teaming up with Anthropic and AWS to create an AI-enabled Campus of the Future
The University is the first to launch institution-wide Claude for Education integrated with Amazon Web Services, empowering a new era of learning and innovation across Pitt’s five campuses.
www.pittwire.pitt.edu
November 18, 2025 at 12:21 AM
What can go wrong? Pitt what are you doing? Maybe we should worry more about education and research
Is "Colourless ideas sleep furiously" false or non-sensical? In the case of Mīmāṃsā authors, I think it should be non-sensical (because it lacks semantic fitness 'yogyatā'). Some of my students insist it is false, because it can be embedded in sentence that can have truth value ("Sam thinks that…")
November 17, 2025 at 10:27 PM
Is "Colourless ideas sleep furiously" false or non-sensical? In the case of Mīmāṃsā authors, I think it should be non-sensical (because it lacks semantic fitness 'yogyatā'). Some of my students insist it is false, because it can be embedded in sentence that can have truth value ("Sam thinks that…")
According to Mīmāṃsā authors, there are no INDEPENDENT non-prescriptive statements. All non-prescriptive statements have to be construed together with a prescriptive statement. E.g. "Vāyu is the swiftest deity" does not tell us anything about a given deity, it's a supplement to "Sacrifice to Vāyu"
November 17, 2025 at 7:20 PM
According to Mīmāṃsā authors, there are no INDEPENDENT non-prescriptive statements. All non-prescriptive statements have to be construed together with a prescriptive statement. E.g. "Vāyu is the swiftest deity" does not tell us anything about a given deity, it's a supplement to "Sacrifice to Vāyu"
I had no idea that this was a thing in the US.
Child marriage is heinous, but one thing I never see brought up in those discussions is that if you are under 18, you cannot file for divorce. If you are under 18 and married to an adult, they are your legal guardian and make decisions for you. That is not a partnership.
Most Minors Who Are Married Can't File for Divorce — Even if They Want To
The final installment of Wedlocked, our series about child marriage in the U.S., explores divorce.
www.teenvogue.com
November 17, 2025 at 6:59 PM
I had no idea that this was a thing in the US.
In its Customer Privacy Notice, Tesla explains that if a customer agrees to share data, “yr vehicle may collect the data & make it available to Tesla for analysis. […].” It also states that the data may include “short video clips or images,”
www.reuters.com/technology/t...
www.reuters.com/technology/t...
Tesla workers shared sensitive images recorded by customer cars
Between 2019 and 2022, groups of Tesla employees privately shared via an internal messaging system sometimes highly invasive videos and images recorded by customers’ car cameras.
www.reuters.com
November 16, 2025 at 11:16 PM
In its Customer Privacy Notice, Tesla explains that if a customer agrees to share data, “yr vehicle may collect the data & make it available to Tesla for analysis. […].” It also states that the data may include “short video clips or images,”
www.reuters.com/technology/t...
www.reuters.com/technology/t...
Reposted by elisa freschi
AI in education is treated as the future of education when it actually represents very old ideas of individualized learning
November 15, 2025 at 12:47 AM
AI in education is treated as the future of education when it actually represents very old ideas of individualized learning
All our colleagues who have to spend hours discouraging the use of AI, spotting for it, discussing it with students, having them "confess" etc. etc. know how true this is:
AI in education is not saving time but the subject of unbelievably time-consuming efforts, paperwork and rule-setting
November 15, 2025 at 11:04 PM
All our colleagues who have to spend hours discouraging the use of AI, spotting for it, discussing it with students, having them "confess" etc. etc. know how true this is:
Reposted by elisa freschi
Open AI loses copyright case in Germany.
Judge Elke Schwager summarized the case saying that if you want to build something and need components, "then you purchase them and do not use the property of others."
Judge Elke Schwager summarized the case saying that if you want to build something and need components, "then you purchase them and do not use the property of others."
Blow for OpenAI in Germany as court rules song lyrics used illegally
A German court ruled on Tuesday that OpenAI violated copyright on nine popular songs in a lawsuit that marked another attempt to prevent the free use of artists' content online. The Munich Regional Co...
www.yahoo.com
November 14, 2025 at 2:49 PM
Open AI loses copyright case in Germany.
Judge Elke Schwager summarized the case saying that if you want to build something and need components, "then you purchase them and do not use the property of others."
Judge Elke Schwager summarized the case saying that if you want to build something and need components, "then you purchase them and do not use the property of others."
I'm clearly not the target audience of the ads for Dubai, because I find them frighteningly unappealing ("the city that everyone talks about"; "it has everything you want: from world-class hotels to record-breaking skyscrapers"; "museums that display the future, not the past").
November 14, 2025 at 3:15 AM
I'm clearly not the target audience of the ads for Dubai, because I find them frighteningly unappealing ("the city that everyone talks about"; "it has everything you want: from world-class hotels to record-breaking skyscrapers"; "museums that display the future, not the past").
Talking to a monk is fine, as long as one does not think that their opinion will be representative of the whole of the theology they are part of.
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November 12, 2025 at 9:54 PM
Talking to a monk is fine, as long as one does not think that their opinion will be representative of the whole of the theology they are part of.
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The Center for Religious Studies at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (Germany) is advertising a postdoctoral position in the History of South Asian Religions. You can find the full announcement here:
jobs.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/jobposting/f....
The deadline will likely be extended until 10.12
#SanskritJobs
jobs.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/jobposting/f....
The deadline will likely be extended until 10.12
#SanskritJobs
Research Associate (Postdoctoral Position, m/f/x)
jobs.ruhr-uni-bochum.de
November 12, 2025 at 3:11 PM
The Center for Religious Studies at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (Germany) is advertising a postdoctoral position in the History of South Asian Religions. You can find the full announcement here:
jobs.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/jobposting/f....
The deadline will likely be extended until 10.12
#SanskritJobs
jobs.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/jobposting/f....
The deadline will likely be extended until 10.12
#SanskritJobs
Reposted by elisa freschi
"Given the complexity and length of the song text, coincidence can be ruled out as the cause of the reproduction of the song lyrics," the court wrote in a press release.
#AIEthics #digitalGovernance good to see a judicial system NOT in thrall to us tech, unlike the UK, apparently.
#AIEthics #digitalGovernance good to see a judicial system NOT in thrall to us tech, unlike the UK, apparently.
good news
OpenAI loses song lyrics copyright case in German court
OpenAI lost a copyright infringement case in a lower German court for using popular song lyrics in its ChatGPT language model without paying royalties […]
OpenAI loses song lyrics copyright case in German court
OpenAI lost a copyright infringement case in a lower German court for using popular song lyrics in its ChatGPT language model without paying royalties […]
Original post on mastodon.social
mastodon.social
November 11, 2025 at 10:01 PM
"Given the complexity and length of the song text, coincidence can be ruled out as the cause of the reproduction of the song lyrics," the court wrote in a press release.
#AIEthics #digitalGovernance good to see a judicial system NOT in thrall to us tech, unlike the UK, apparently.
#AIEthics #digitalGovernance good to see a judicial system NOT in thrall to us tech, unlike the UK, apparently.
This is one of my favourite icons ever, hence I had to repost it (notice Jesus's right arm)
Icon with Christ and St. Menas
From 8th-century Egypt
Now at the Louvre
Today is the feast day of St. Menas of Egypt
From 8th-century Egypt
Now at the Louvre
Today is the feast day of St. Menas of Egypt
November 11, 2025 at 5:11 PM
This is one of my favourite icons ever, hence I had to repost it (notice Jesus's right arm)
I am really enjoying these threads on the iconography of St. Martin.
Today's the feast of St Martin, 4th Century Roman soldier and later Bishop of Tours born in what's now Hungary. His legend tells of him dividing his cloak to share with a beggar, who then comes to him in a vision as Christ and returns it. A panel of 13th Century glass in Musée de Cluny, Paris.
November 11, 2025 at 3:34 PM
I am really enjoying these threads on the iconography of St. Martin.
According to Kumārila, an injunction (the śabdabhāvanā) motivates one to bring about the action (the arthabhāvanā), through which one brings about the result. The whole process is started by the injunction but it only works on addressees that independently desire the action's result, e.g. heaven.
November 9, 2025 at 11:42 PM
According to Kumārila, an injunction (the śabdabhāvanā) motivates one to bring about the action (the arthabhāvanā), through which one brings about the result. The whole process is started by the injunction but it only works on addressees that independently desire the action's result, e.g. heaven.