Of all the AI buzzwords out there, “model” would seem to be free of hyperbole. Yet this innocuous-seeming word is being pressed to mean two contradictory things. A recent Harvard/MIT study of simulating planetary orbits illustrates the contrast between what scientists consider a “world model” and what AI enthusiasts think transformers are generating.
Ptolemaic Thinking in the Age of AI Read More »
How many AI videos equal watching a Netflix movie? A tool launched last week by the Still Water lab lets students compare the hidden costs of digital habits across both AI and non-AI activities.
New app helps students compare the environmental cost of AI and everyday tech Read More »
This April’s teleconference from UMaine’s Digital Curation program looks at the practical and ethical issues of integrating AI into archival workflows—and how human crowdsourcing can fill in the gaps.
Should you let AI manage your collection? Read More »
When he died last Wednesday, artist Mel Bochner left a body of work that’s gained in relevance in a half century defined by information—even more so in the age of AI. The artist’s death holds special meaning for me because he was a mentor when I was in graduate school at the Yale School of
Mel Bochner and the bridge from words to worlds Read More »
What happens to ground truth when finding a factoid or photo no longer means consulting an archive but generating one from scratch? That’s the question that drives “Honey, AI Shrunk the Archive,” an essay I wrote for the forthcoming anthology New Directions in Digital Textual Studies.
AI as miniature archive Read More »
Diversity without cacophony Group discussions on controversial subjects can open students to more viewpoints, but they can also result in the usual suspects—sometimes the most thoughtful students, but often just the loudmouths—dominating the conversation. So I was intrigued when Greg Nelson and Rotem Landesman, my collaborators on a course that examines in-depth the impact of
Pooling ideas for an AI ethics policy Read More »
What’s the connection among happiness, women’s empowerment, and sustainable living? This week a UMaine course in permaculture hosted a lively discussion on this question with the director of an award-winning documentary.
Award-winning director screens film for permaculture class Read More »
When a tech reporter for the NY Times outsourced her decisions for a week to ChatGPT, she complained that “AI made me basic.” But it turns out the math behind generative AI can lead to results that are blandly average or wildly inaccurate.
“AI made me basic” Read More »
A new tool hopes to drive more students to the polls, and it uses AI under the hood to help.
Can AI help democracy? This app hopes it can Read More »
AI advocates have expressed frustration at Ted Chiang’s critique of AI in The New Yorker, where he argued that large language models “take an average of the choices that other writers have made.” Yes it’s a simplification, but it’s also correct at a fundamental level.
Why your AI outputs feel “average” Read More »
