What if there are no "best practices" when using generative AI for research? What if all use of genAI is inherently harmful? What if I don't want to participate in research using generative AI? These questions seem to be completely off the table now. This feels like 2006 all over again, when everyone everywhere seemingly thought they had to use corporate social media for their professional activities.

Pleased to announce that my book, Move Slowly and Build Bridges: Mastodon, the Fediverse, and the Struggle for Democratic Social Media, is now available online, and will be out in print in a couple weeks!

Move Slowly and Build Bridges, by Robert W. Gehl

That site has more stuff, too -- links to related articles, some notes about how I researched it, and a contact form in case you want to talk about the fediverse with me! (I'd be happy to chat with journalists about it!) #academicChatter #bookstodon #fediverse #mastodon

certainly been seeing a massive difference as to how people are discovering shows without Twitter. I think that’s because of the algorithm, the Twitter algorithm, would put stuff in front of you.... https://global.oup.com/academic/product/move-slowly-and-build-bridges-9780197776681?cc=ca&lang=en& #MoveSlowlyAndBuildBridges #bot

Wolfgang Messner, writing in @The Conversation U.S. on how generative AI could homogenize culture: "The danger is not that AI will fail us, but that people will accept the mediocrity of its outputs as the norm. When everything is fast, frictionless and “good enough,” there’s the risk of losing the depth, nuance and intellectual richness that define exceptional human work."

The Conversation

Is AI sparking a cognitive revolution that will lead to mediocrity and conformity?

During the Industrial Revolution, craftsmanship retreated to the margins. As AI becomes widely adopted, will the same happen to original thinking?

I talked to @npub1psar...j5uh about generative AI's impact on teaching. Apparently I wasn't alone... not by a long shot. @npub1nn0l...qf5k got a ton of responses about this topic and ran many of them here:

404 Media

Teachers Are Not OK

AI, ChatGPT, and LLMs "have absolutely blown up what I try to accomplish with my teaching."

While it's distressing to read all of them, it's good to see I'm not alone. #generativeAI #higherEducation #teaching #academicChatter

What will the cardinals do this year?

As if I needed more reasons to loathe Elsevier. Lately I've received peer review requests from Elsevier journals. If I decline their request via the email link, it takes me to a website that has an angry red box that says "Action not allowed." Ok, so I will email the editor to say I can't do it. That apparently goes to some IT support system, not the editor. And today I got an email implying I was being unprofessional because I did not respond to their reviewer request. #academicChatter 1/2