evanselinger.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

Notice how Bezos’s take on freedom is “personal liberties,” not collective autonomy. The former can come at the expense of the latter, and it often does when majorities are not interested in how their personal choices restrict the freedom of more vulnerable minorities.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

The attack on universities mirrors our blind spot with supply chains. Because both operate invisibly, misconceptions abound. The profound contributions of universities often go unnoticed—and, just like supply chains, we risk only recognizing their value when they're diminished or fail.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

The main thesis is that the hermeneutic circle (no, they don't use this phrase!) haunts AI consciousness claims. Our theories of mind are built on pre-theoretical experience of consciousness. And yet companies insist they can replicate what they can't even define independently of that experience.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

Please tune in to my conversation with Andrew Keen on the risks of AI companions.

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

Last opportunity to register to Seton Hall Law School's AI Companions online symposium tomorrow, Tuesday, Feb. 18 ,12 pm-2:30 pm EST. You can register here: : bit.ly/40Ztl2j

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

Growing up in the 80s makes me a sucker for underdog stories. I loved reliving Karate Kid vibes with Cobra Kai! Question— Does celebrating beating the odds risk minimizing how stacked the deck is? Or is that view overblown b/c life poses many challenges, and we need many inspirational stories?

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

Hey @evanselinger.bsky.social

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

It's out! You can now access The Cambridge Handbook of the Law, Ethics and Policy of #AI: www.cambridge.org/core/books/t... 20 #openaccess chapters covering topics on AI, ethics, philosophy, legal domains and sectoral applications. Huge thanks to all the authors who made this possible!

submitted 12 days ago • 6 comments

While so many government employees are losing their jobs, Barry Lam’s new book “Fewer Rules, Better People” pushes back against libertarian calls to eliminate or shrink federal bureaucracies. We discuss his call for earned discretion at The Boston Globe. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/02/17/o...

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

Narrating counterfactuals is necessary to make the invisible legible. Tragically, though, I suspect many will find such stories too abstract and hypothetical to resonate. When people are hurting, it's hard to point out that things could have been worse, and much is taken for granted.

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

It’s hard for some to appreciate this because, tragically, they only associate governance with one thing: a scolding headshake. “The second fallacy we’ve heard is that AI requires a tradeoff – between safety and progress, between competition and collaboration, and between rights and innovation.”

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

The top 100 legal scholars of 2024 is in and a woman made number 1–so happy to appear alongside @ariezra.bsky.social @klonick.bsky.social @hartzog.bsky.social @lsolum.bsky.social @micahschwartzman.bsky.social @richschragger.bsky.social @meganstevenson.bsky.social @uvalaw.bsky.social Whoos!

submitted 14 days ago • 8 comments

"If one were to follow the solutionist mindset to its logical conclusions, you’d wind up in some absurd places." Hmmm... Maybe running a country isn't like debugging code. thepostrider.com/musk-doge-an...

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

Two narratives emerging from the Paris AI Summit. Europe is forging its own AI path between US free markets and Chinese state control. Europe is becoming a US cover band playing on a Silicon Valley satellite campus.

submitted 18 days ago • 0 comments

Big news: From February 20 to 28, I’ll be on a North American tour with talks in Toronto, Yale, and Harvard about my latest book, Waiting for Robots. Register here to join 👉 www.casilli.fr/2025/02/10/u...

submitted 18 days ago • 0 comments

Lack of trust in universities has opened the door to the current political attempts to control research. To add to @ibogost.bsky.social’s brilliant insights, for too long too many scientists & engineers acted as if only folks in the humanities had something to prove to the public.

submitted 18 days ago • 0 comments

Companies, organizations, and politicians rushing to AI and blaming "human inefficiency" often ignore an inconvenient truth. Poor working conditions limit human potential. In so many situations, the solution to better work is investing in people, not replacing them.

submitted 18 days ago • 1 comment

Yes, sadly they do. It’s been built and enabled over decades. Techno-social engineering of humans and society at scale, as described at length in 2018 book, Re-Engineering Humanity. @evanselinger.bsky.social

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

“The AI coup depends on a frame of government efficiency.” - @eryk.bsky.social As always, the decontextualized framing of enhancing efficiency doesn’t just obscure crucial information. It’s a time-tested tool for delegitimating the need to think critically about both the past and future.

submitted 20 days ago • 2 comments

Working on philosophy exams reminded me why we should be wary of AI grading. Appreciating student writing often requires understanding what’s between the lines, e.g., connecting what they said to class discussions or recognizing when they're expressing a sophisticated thought with imprecise wording.

submitted 20 days ago • 1 comment

Maybe institutions would feel less cynical if they directly and consistently admitted, "We follow the money and bend to those with power,” instead of performing ethical theater that touts principles they’re destined to abandon.

submitted 21 days ago • 0 comments

My latest blog roundup, on the lies that Silicon Valley tells itself, and mounting resistance when everything is collapsing everywhere. open.substack.com/pub/davekarp...

submitted 21 days ago • 5 comments

Hey folks, it seems that Nature has selected my book 'Waiting for Robots' (University of Chicago Press, 2025) as one of its best science picks of the week! www.nature.com/articles/d41... PS. Pairs nicely with the excellent review in Science a few weeks ago. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

submitted 22 days ago • 0 comments

I tried something! Let me know if this works for you. This is a handbuilt list of journalists, academics, industry figures, activists et al on Bluesky who are focused on tech — especially online platforms, social media and AI. Click "Pin to Home" if you find it worthwhile: bsky.app/profile/will...

submitted 22 days ago • 13 comments

New BOOK, by the brilliant @michael-p-lynch.bsky.social on truth in politics & why we need truth for democracy. Insightful analysis and helpful forward-looking advice at the end. Destined to be classic, but URGENT reading now. PRE-ORDER, and it will arrive soon! bookshop.org/p/books/on-t...

submitted 24 days ago • 0 comments

Meanwhile in the CA system as education becomes more botified, Sonoma cut grad and undergrad programs and eliminated departments of art history, economics, geology, philosophy, theater and dance, and women and gender studies. Other cuts at other CA schools could happen, too.

submitted 24 days ago • 2 comments

I can’t i just … i can’t www.404media.co/anthropic-cl...

submitted 25 days ago • 28 comments

Passion is the key to great teaching. You need to spend so much emotional energy in class that you feel like you ran a marathon! Tragically, teaching conditions have led to mass, passion-destroying burnout. This is why schools are so vulnerable to adopting mere AI simulations of enthusiasm.

submitted 30 days ago • 0 comments

“Tech companies have pushed industrial values and measures (such as optimizing for efficiency and productivity) into domains of life where they don’t belong. According to Carr, this mismatch keeps giving us the wrong tools for our deepest human needs.”

submitted 33 days ago • 0 comments

Nicholas Carr’s verdict on social media? “Pretty much a disaster for society and culture” that can’t be fixed. His recommendation? “Excommunication”! We discuss his new book “Superbloom” at The Boston Globe. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/01/26/o...

submitted 34 days ago • 1 comment

A tree just drew this! That’s how Paul Bartow and Richard Metzger, two-thirds of an artistic collaboration, described their work at last night’s exhibition—a project tracing nonhuman expressions of time along the Erie Canal from Albany to Buffalo.

submitted 34 days ago • 2 comments

Bad ideas never truly die. Every time you think aha, this time they’re a goner, they rise again hungry for fresh minds. Or opportunists...

submitted 37 days ago • 1 comment

My book 'Waiting for Robots: The Hired Hands of Automation' drops next week! To tide you over, check out this excellent review just out in @science.org. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

submitted 57 days ago • 2 comments

Cleaning the house and found a binder with old grad school papers, including one from a 1997 seminar on Derrida. Looking at “The Danger of Safety: Derrida’s Analysis of Crisis in Husserl,” I have no idea what any of it means. Trying to dialog with yourself across time can be a weird experience. 😦

submitted 40 days ago • 2 comments