Excited for Annette Vee’s visit. My journalism students have to submit a story by midnight tonight. @setonhilluniversity

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Is it okay to say clanker?

Clanker is a derogatory term used to insult AI and its products and services such as delivery robots, therapist chatbots and automated customer service. Why try to hurt the feelings of something that, oh wait, has no feelings? Like most slurs, it has more to do with the speaker using it than the object of…

‘Tentacles squelching wetly’: the human subtitle writers under threat from AI

Artificial intelligence is making steady advances into subtitling but, say its practitioners, it’s a vital service that needs a human to make it work […] AI is unable to decide which sounds are important. “Right now, it’s not even close,” Deryagin says. He also stresses the importance of the broader context of a film, rather…

Have you been “workslopped” by a bot?

If you have ever experienced this, you might recall the feeling of confusion after opening such a document, followed by frustration—Wait, what is this exactly?—before you begin to wonder if the sender simply used AI to generate large blocks of text instead of thinking it through. If this sounds familiar, you have been workslopped. —Harvard Business Review

Peer Review Paranoia: The system is built on trust between scholars. AI is undermining that.

From an essay that includes a reflection on discovering AI-fabricated quotes while peer-reviewing a scholarly essay for potential publication. (Academics don’t get paid for the labor of pre-reading scholarly drafts for potential review. An author who uses AI is squandering the resources of human peer-reviewers.) Humanistic study once promised — and for many, still delivers…

Blaze of Glory #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 23) Sisko needs imprisoned traitor Eddington’s help stopping a war

Rewatching ST:DS9 At dinner with the Siskos, Cadet Nog reluctantly reveals that the B-plot will involve his difficulty getting respect from Klingons. Because this is TV, General Martok shows up at that very moment with this week’s plot-starter: an intercepted message for “Michael” about a terrorist missile launch which threatens to trigger a devastating war.…

Someone seems to have slipped this over my transom. Thank you, #foodsubstitutefairy whoever you are!

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Air miles be damned. I say the best way to find out about the joy and complexity of our world is through novels

Essays like this remind me why I picked my English major. There are other ways to get facts. Newspapers are full of them, as are podcasts and documentaries. Travel shows proliferate, take your pick. But even then, there is nothing like the view of the world via a novel. Novels can go beyond merely being…

Overflow seating for the 50th anniversary of the canonization of #elizabethannseton @setonhilluniversity

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Children of Time #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 22) Defiant crew meets happy colony of their own descendants (it’s complicated)

Rewatching ST:DS9 In the Defiant mess hall, Kira and Dax chat about Kira being single again, and don’t notice Odo’s reaction. Sisko reluctantly lets Dax talk him into a detour to study a random planet’s plot contrivance particle field, and of course things Go Wrong. Instead of staying on the ship to unflabbergast the Defiant’s…

I’m a High Schooler. AI Is Demolishing My Education.

AI has transformed my experience of education. I am a senior at a public high school in New York, and these tools are everywhere. I do not want to use them in the way I see other kids my age using them—I generally choose not to—but they are inescapable. During a lesson on the Narrative of…

Soldiers of the Empire #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 21) Worf joins General Martok as first officer on a Klingon bird-of-prey

Rewatching ST:DS9 Bashir scolds Martok for injuring himself (again) during a holosuite training program. (He’s being reckless and self-destructive, even for a Klingon.) On the Defiant, Nog stealthily pantomimes strangling Worf for ordering him to download an operating system “one file at a time.” (The intended comedy in this scene is a bit awkward; Nog’s…

Humans are being hired to make AI slop look less sloppy

The illustrations clients bring to her are commonly littered with unclean lines and nonsensical text, and they look like a mess of pixels when blown up beyond a certain size. “There’s people that are aware AI isn’t perfect, and then there’s people that come to you angry because they didn’t manage to get it done…

Today’s lunarbaboon… there might be something in my eye.

Hey! Want me to take her for a bit? In a few hours we’ll be heading to the airport to send the girl to her MFA program at the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art. Similar:What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2015?If the pre-1978 laws were still in effec…BooksMore…

AI crawlers destroying websites in hunger for content

Traffic on my website has plunged over the past few years. In 2019, my site attracted almost 1.5 million visitors. The content on my site has not gotten this bad, this quickly! Back in 2016, a single popular page on my website attracted almost 1 million visits — about as many visits as my entire…

Wired and Business Insider remove articles by AI-generated ‘freelancer’

Journalists who can’t verify their sources, or their own humanity, face consequences. Multiple news organisations have taken down articles written by an alleged freelance journalist that now appear to have been generated by AI. On Thursday, Press Gazette reported that at least six publications, including Wired and Business Insider, have removed articles from their websites…

Blessing the “American sweet gum tree” that grew from a seed that Artemis I carried around the moon in 2022

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August Wilson Trifecta (Two Trains, Ma Rainey and Fences on the same day)

Fences was performed in the backyard of August Wilson’s boyhood home.

Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company

Support the arts in your community!

My 1951 day DuoLingo streak was fun, but…

Ever since DuoLingo announced it was pivoting away from human workers to AI, I’ve enjoyed my visits with the spunky little owl less and less. Today’s switch from the “hearts” system to “energy” was just too much. It used to be, you could keep doing lesson after lesson as long as you answered correctly…

Students Are Using ChatGPT to Write Their Personal Essays Now: AI can replicate the shape of a narrative, but not the struggle that makes it meaningful

Students say they appreciate AI’s ability to organize ideas and improve flow, but many also recognize that what comes out often feels “robotic,” emotionally flat, or uncanny in tone. Still, convenience almost always wins. Reflection is hard, and AI makes things easy. I don’t fault students for wanting help. Writing about your life, especially the…