robin manley
@robinmanley.bsky.social
phd candidate @ berkeley rhetoric // editor @ qui parle // cybernetics in intellectual history, post-kantian philosophy, media theory
Pinned
robin manley
@robinmanley.bsky.social
· Nov 30
imo it should be illegal for men in their 20s to quote the freakonomics podcast at me
Reposted by robin manley
My paper, “Species-Being, Metabolism, and Natural Limits” is now out in Qui Parle
Species-Being, Metabolism, and Natural Limits, Qui Parle (2025)
This essay explores two key concepts in the work of Karl Marx and argues for their essential interconnection: species-being and natural limits. The first section provides a general account of the idea...
www.academia.edu
July 2, 2025 at 1:39 PM
My paper, “Species-Being, Metabolism, and Natural Limits” is now out in Qui Parle
Reposted by robin manley
an honor to be interviewed by Robin Manley for @jhideas.bsky.social - come for the spicy takes on critical AI and media history, stay for the stuff on Saussure and dialectics
Leif Weatherby (@leifw.bsky.social) discusses his new book, Language Machines, with Robin Manley (@robinmanley.bsky.social). The interview covers similarities between structuralism and Large Language Models, Saussure's relationship to Marxism, and theories versus histories of the present.
“Language and Image Minus Cognition”: An Interview with Leif Weatherby
by Robin Manley
web.sas.upenn.edu
June 11, 2025 at 2:39 PM
an honor to be interviewed by Robin Manley for @jhideas.bsky.social - come for the spicy takes on critical AI and media history, stay for the stuff on Saussure and dialectics
I had the pleasure of interviewing @leifw.bsky.social about his exciting new book, Language Machines! If you’ve ever wondered whether the unconscious is structured like a large language model, you’ll get a lot from Leif’s reflections here — and from the book, out soon from @uminnpress.bsky.social
Leif Weatherby (@leifw.bsky.social) discusses his new book, Language Machines, with Robin Manley (@robinmanley.bsky.social). The interview covers similarities between structuralism and Large Language Models, Saussure's relationship to Marxism, and theories versus histories of the present.
“Language and Image Minus Cognition”: An Interview with Leif Weatherby
by Robin Manley
web.sas.upenn.edu
June 11, 2025 at 3:46 PM
I had the pleasure of interviewing @leifw.bsky.social about his exciting new book, Language Machines! If you’ve ever wondered whether the unconscious is structured like a large language model, you’ll get a lot from Leif’s reflections here — and from the book, out soon from @uminnpress.bsky.social
Reposted by robin manley
trying to explain to normies that the state has been captured by a technofascist apocalyptic AI death cult
verging dangerously close to "humans need to go extinct in order to birth the machine god"
Elon Musk is reaching new levels of unhinged.
April 2, 2025 at 2:51 PM
trying to explain to normies that the state has been captured by a technofascist apocalyptic AI death cult
putting this out once more: my attempt to demonstrate that Foucault seriously misrepresents Nietzsche's philosophy of history in his account of the genealogical method. perhaps of interest to Foucault scholars, as well as those in lit/media/science studies thinking about historicism & its limits!
March 24, 2025 at 7:40 PM
putting this out once more: my attempt to demonstrate that Foucault seriously misrepresents Nietzsche's philosophy of history in his account of the genealogical method. perhaps of interest to Foucault scholars, as well as those in lit/media/science studies thinking about historicism & its limits!
the vice president of research at google citing Jane Bennett to argue that AI systems are alive... who could have possibly seen this coming
March 21, 2025 at 7:59 PM
the vice president of research at google citing Jane Bennett to argue that AI systems are alive... who could have possibly seen this coming
have you ever thought: I don't know Foucault, maybe knowledge isn't only for cutting? or: I'm not sure it's true that Nietzsche has two different concepts of origin in the preface to the Genealogy of Morals? you might be interested in my new article, open access from @theoryculturesociety.org!
March 21, 2025 at 4:20 PM
have you ever thought: I don't know Foucault, maybe knowledge isn't only for cutting? or: I'm not sure it's true that Nietzsche has two different concepts of origin in the preface to the Genealogy of Morals? you might be interested in my new article, open access from @theoryculturesociety.org!
Reposted by robin manley
New as Online First in Theory, Culture & Society: Robin Manley, 'The Disunity in Genealogy: Foucault’s Anti-Nietzschean Reading of History'. (Open Access) journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
journals.sagepub.com
March 19, 2025 at 2:28 PM
New as Online First in Theory, Culture & Society: Robin Manley, 'The Disunity in Genealogy: Foucault’s Anti-Nietzschean Reading of History'. (Open Access) journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Reposted by robin manley
Look, folks, this is it. The entire ballgame. Either we're a Republic of laws & the Constitution, or we have a dictator. This is fascism, & the impeachment vote should be happening today. Every single university president in the country should be out, in front of microphones, condemning this.
Trump takes credit for Mahmoud Khalil's arrest by ICE:
March 10, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Look, folks, this is it. The entire ballgame. Either we're a Republic of laws & the Constitution, or we have a dictator. This is fascism, & the impeachment vote should be happening today. Every single university president in the country should be out, in front of microphones, condemning this.
Reposted by robin manley
re the previous repost: if they can disappear permanent residents they can disappear citizens
March 9, 2025 at 10:25 PM
re the previous repost: if they can disappear permanent residents they can disappear citizens
Reposted by robin manley
"Aligned to" is a way of saying that they have no proof that he provided anything that could be legally construed as material support to Hamas, or showed allegiance to Hamas in any way, but he said some things they decided are vaguely in alignment with Hamas and they're imprisoning him for it.
DHS cites Trump’s executive orders and then makes the absolutely meaningless statement that “Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization,” as a justification for the arrest.
March 10, 2025 at 5:28 AM
"Aligned to" is a way of saying that they have no proof that he provided anything that could be legally construed as material support to Hamas, or showed allegiance to Hamas in any way, but he said some things they decided are vaguely in alignment with Hamas and they're imprisoning him for it.
My review of the excellent Code: From Information Theory to French Theory by @bernarddionysius.bsky.social is out now in the new and very exciting @histsocialscience.bsky.social! Available open access here~~
muse.jhu.edu/article/952248
muse.jhu.edu/article/952248
Project MUSE - Code: From Information Theory to French Theory by Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan (review)
muse.jhu.edu
March 3, 2025 at 7:02 PM
My review of the excellent Code: From Information Theory to French Theory by @bernarddionysius.bsky.social is out now in the new and very exciting @histsocialscience.bsky.social! Available open access here~~
muse.jhu.edu/article/952248
muse.jhu.edu/article/952248
Reposted by robin manley
i have come to feel that both of them (and 'pundit genre' they are a part of) are eating off of a fundamental revulsion not so much at the technology but the habits of mind of the people pushing them.
as an LLM skeptic, it is pretty annoying that two of the biggest LLM skeptics in the media (Ed Zitron and Brian Merchant) neither know anything about LLMs nor are particularly interested in them
December 21, 2024 at 2:17 PM
i have come to feel that both of them (and 'pundit genre' they are a part of) are eating off of a fundamental revulsion not so much at the technology but the habits of mind of the people pushing them.
Reposted by robin manley
This is a really specific engagement with @annakornbluh.bsky.social 's work from Jensen. I don't always agree with it, but I found it provocative and enjoyable to read. It's the kind of criticism that makes us all better interlocutors. I hope Anna will respond?
nonsite.org/the-theory-o...
nonsite.org/the-theory-o...
The Theory of Immediacy or the Immediacy of Theory?
At a crucial juncture in her reconstruction of Marx’s account, Kornbluh claims that “labor makes things useful, while exchange and its hypostasis in the concept of value and the medium of money is …
nonsite.org
December 13, 2024 at 4:40 PM
This is a really specific engagement with @annakornbluh.bsky.social 's work from Jensen. I don't always agree with it, but I found it provocative and enjoyable to read. It's the kind of criticism that makes us all better interlocutors. I hope Anna will respond?
nonsite.org/the-theory-o...
nonsite.org/the-theory-o...
look i know this is not the point but a 90% error rate is sort of impressive? surely it takes some skill to get the numbers that low. plus, just invert your decisions and suddenly you've got a half-decent system
“The algorithm in question, known as nH Predict, allegedly had a 90 percent error rate — and according to the families of the two deceased men who filed the suit, UHC knew it.”
Murdered Insurance CEO Had Deployed an AI to Automatically Deny Benefits for Sick People
Before United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was murdered, a lawsuit filed against the firm revealed just how bad its claims-denying was.
futurism.com
December 6, 2024 at 10:10 PM
look i know this is not the point but a 90% error rate is sort of impressive? surely it takes some skill to get the numbers that low. plus, just invert your decisions and suddenly you've got a half-decent system
staring in awe at endnotes from an Eminent Scholar in which the URLs that are provided in place of proper bibliographic reference have been shortened with ellipses
November 30, 2024 at 8:09 PM
staring in awe at endnotes from an Eminent Scholar in which the URLs that are provided in place of proper bibliographic reference have been shortened with ellipses
imo it should be illegal for men in their 20s to quote the freakonomics podcast at me
November 30, 2024 at 5:47 PM
imo it should be illegal for men in their 20s to quote the freakonomics podcast at me
Reposted by robin manley
already prefigured here is late Marcuse’s concept of “New Science” (a communist Scienza Nuova: universal participation in the fusion of natural science & art, conscious membership in the living history of matter) is that it’s an incredible anticipation of degrowth, &, imo, requires nothing less!
November 20, 2024 at 6:59 PM
already prefigured here is late Marcuse’s concept of “New Science” (a communist Scienza Nuova: universal participation in the fusion of natural science & art, conscious membership in the living history of matter) is that it’s an incredible anticipation of degrowth, &, imo, requires nothing less!
Marcuse would like a word with the neo-Luddites
November 20, 2024 at 5:11 PM
Marcuse would like a word with the neo-Luddites
This is good — but a key thing to reckon with in this discussion is the way that the neural network model implemented by LLMs has also been used to transform our scientific and even philosophical accounts of human thought in the first place
An excellent piece from @melaniemitchell.bsky.social on our struggle to find appropriate metaphors to think about what Large Language Models *are*.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
The metaphors of artificial intelligence
A few months after ChatGPT was released, the neural network pioneer Terrence Sejnowski wrote about coming to grips with the shock of what large language models (LLMs) could do: “Something is beginning...
www.science.org
November 15, 2024 at 10:13 PM
This is good — but a key thing to reckon with in this discussion is the way that the neural network model implemented by LLMs has also been used to transform our scientific and even philosophical accounts of human thought in the first place
lots of incorrect marx takes flying around over on twitter this morning
September 30, 2023 at 3:58 PM
lots of incorrect marx takes flying around over on twitter this morning