"dismiss whatever insults your own soul" I write about AI and higher education here: https://xitter.cf/t.co/EC6RTcrCwY
Joined November 2006
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George Siemens retweeted
I was on a podcast last week - when we launched Jaali. An excellent conversation with Kai Campbell, CEO of Jaali.ai and the excellent hosts at @Edtech_Insiders during #EdTechWeek; from minute 37 onwards.
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas…
George Siemens retweeted
I am going to say something that very few people want to hear, but I think it's true. The only way to "save the Humanities" is through serious gen ed reform that most universities don't want to undertake.
The hour is very late.
The number of people writing dissertations in the humanities has collapses, now the same thing is happening in the social sciences.
I'd wager that we will see a similar trend in psychology and other fields before long. Cuts in funding, the tight academic job market, and AI are rapidly changing the university and cratering graduate programs.
George Siemens retweeted
Wake up.
Every profession deemed white-collar, the middle class dream, is about to be decimated by AI, at a much faster pace than anticipated, with monstrous social consequences.
This is such a complex question. We have tied identity and meaningful life to work. What will “purpose” be when that connection severs?
Been a long long time Gruber reader. He’s right.
I’m sure this one won’t make anyone angry. (But probably not here.)
daringfireball.net/2026/10/x…
The “got rich” part isn’t accurate. The “return to Twitter in droves” seems to be.
The only group more insufferable than tech people is anti-tech bluesky users, who have been coming back to X in droves the last few weeks.
And they’re just discovering that the entire world got rich over the last two years while they were busy arguing with each other about politics and AI.
And they’re very, very angry.
Why no viable option emerged to Twitter (outside of small clusters of conversations in the fediverse, which might as well have been Signal chats given limited participants) will be a case study for the ages. Especially as more people return.
Yes. This is the most predictable movement in history - you can’t say AI will take most jobs, might kill us all, and ignore legit data center concerns and expect public support. The people in the AI camp offer much fodder for the anti-AI camp.
The anti-AI movement is going to be massive in the near future, and the model providers are walking right into it (and encouraging it). Their PR/comms strategy is so horrendous it’s indistinguishable from sabotage.
On one side you’ll have philosophers trying to give AI rights and AI researchers claiming AI is conscious (whatever that means.)
The Lesswrong/Yud/Stop AI/polycule folks claiming it’s going to kill us all.
Luddite protests around employment, schools fighting brain rot/cheating, “water usage” and data center claims.
Data usage and privacy battles popping up all over.
Regulatory capture and the fight for open models, fighting the US Government and Department of War on how it must use the models in ways approved by the model providers, Chinese companies distilling and open sourcing models.
And you’ll have trough of disillusionment hitting from enterprises that suck at using AI and are spending a fortune but aren’t seeing ROI (most of them).
Right as the AI companies will require more money, data, and compute to win a market they will claim is bigger than the entire US economy today.
Buckle up.
George Siemens retweeted
I was invited to address the @UN Security Council this afternoon to discuss the unprecedented threat posed by uncontrolled frontier AI agents.
Humanity has summoned the courage and wisdom to manage catastrophic risks before. This is one of those moments, far bigger than any personal, commercial, or national interest. The choices we make about this technology today will shape generations to come. We must act now.
A pretty significant shift. For higher education, it's a great opportunity. But most systems don't have the engineering expertise.
Today's a record day for open weight share of tokens on Vercel AI Gateway.
Aug 22 (today)
🟦 Open: 62%
🟨 Closed: 38%
Jun 24 (~2 months ago)
🟦 Open: 28.4%
🟨 Closed: 71.6%
This is very likely just the start, because enterprise adoption is still early, and harnesses, CLIs, IDEs, SDKs, etc need to be adapted to be model agnostic.
Interesting discussion. I think it’s more than they just left for bluesky. They kinda scattered to all platforms. And many to small signal or WhatsApp channels. End result though is a very different public discourse.
George Siemens retweeted
This is the best obituary written by a partner that I've ever read.
writings.stephenwolfram.com/…
Take time to read this beautiful reflection of a brilliant mathematician. A life beautifully lived. It's stories like this that really matter.
This isn’t really new because phd students often get these opportunities with industry research funding, but broadening it as an expectation with funding attached is going to help drive that work - especially in engineering domains
Today, roughly the same amount of basic research is done in industry as in academia. It’s time our doctoral training reflected that.
@NSF is launching a first-of-its-kind 4-year PhD program at more than 30 universities. Students will spend a year+ embedded with industry partners doing research that informs their dissertation.
