Against the uncritical spread of AI Hype

I don't work in academia but I'm seeing a lot of uncritical adoption of AI hype, both in tertiary education and libraries, spreading with much concern. 

The use and spread (in many ways the forced adoption) of these corporate, for profit tools, and of AI hype in general, have serious consequences for cognitive development and our values in education, information gathering and management. Skills in critical evaluation of information are essential to what we do. AI tools don't assess the quality of the information and are, in fact, by their own design unconcerned with truth. 

Going along with the forced roll out of AI tools and the widespread, uncritical use of these tools also has an enormous environmental cost and obliterates any gains made in environmental sustainability. In fact, it goes totally against all purported values and aims towards sustainability. 

Finally, these corporate AI LLMs, chabtbots, etc. are being embedded in software widely used in education, libraries, and workplaces. They are being pushed by companies whose only motive is profit and who are unconcerned about data privacy and democracy. This is an assault on human dignity and society.

We have seen the disturbing consequences of social media in the last decade. We have seen the total degradation of the Internet by profit motives and corporation. We have seen how the fossil fuels and tobacco lobbies, fought for so many decades (in fact, they still continue) to defend their destructive business models, unconcerned by consequences, only concerned by profit. 

This 'AI hype' bubble will burst. We will have to reckon with the consequences. But I refuse to be complicit and it's great to see academics who work in the AI field raising their voices and communicating their concerns. This is not anti-technology. It's not anti-progress. In fact, it's the opposite. It's for technology and progress with integrity, that serves all of humanity. Not just the sharks seeking immediate profit and market share. 

This is an important, powerful and necessary read. Please follow the link for a brief article: https://www.ru.nl/en/research/research-news/opposing-the-inevitability-of-ai-at-universities-is-possible-and-necessary

Or read the full paper here: https://zenodo.org/records/17065099 

Or the open letter signed by more than a thousand academics here: https://openletter.earth/open-letter-stop-the-uncritical-adoption-of-ai-technologies-in-academia-b65bba1e 

My Top 10 books of this century so far

It took a lot of thinking and wrangling but I, finally, have a list of ten books. There were so many books that I wanted to include and had to leave out though 😵‍💫

I cannot claim that these are the best ten books of this century so far, but they're the ten books that today, right now, I feel like they had the biggest impact. Books that challenged me, that made me reflect deeply, that I go back to, that I keep recommending.

Also. I couldn't resist including Axiomatic by Maria Tumarkin. She was my history tutor at Deakin University back in 2004. She was thoughtful, wonderful, generous and incredibly inspiring. I'm not sure she knows how much of an impact she had in me. I though I'd mention that, but her book is not in the list because of all that, it's in the list because it's an incredible book.

Please note: They are in no particular order. Participate and vote here: https://top100books.abc.net.au/