justine zhang
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tisjune.bsky.social
justine zhang
@tisjune.bsky.social
600 followers 640 following 120 posts
assistant professor in information, university of michigan. i have big intellectual feelings about language and technology.
https://tisjune.github.io/
she/her
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tisjune.bsky.social
justine zhang @tisjune.bsky.social · Dec 4
a thought I've been sitting on for a while is that AI researchers have conspicuously thin ideas about how language works, and have participated in violent reshapings of the world to make these ideas, and the technologies premised on them, make sense.

more here: tisjune.github.io/papers/cscw_...
tisjune.github.io
Reposted by justine zhang
bigdatasoc.bsky.social
Join us for BD&S 2026 Colloquium, Panel 1: Constructing Alternatives through Community Data & Data Activism
Jan 21 | 16:00–18:00 GMT (11:00 AM–1:00 PM EST)
uky.zoom.us/j/85254638887

#DataActivism #CriticalDataStudies #DataJustice
January 15, 2026 at 8:30 PM
Reposted by justine zhang
doggo.al2.in
thought we might need photos of dog
a german shepherd in a forest clearing smiling a german shepherd facing away from the camera and looking back. in the background is a person out of focus, wearing a coat a german shepherd running toward the camera on a walkway covered in leaves. in the background is a woman out of focus a woman in a green coat walking up a leaf-covered path toward a bench. she's looking back at the camera and the sun is striking her face as she looks back. ahead of her is a german shepherd sniffing the ground
January 9, 2026 at 12:44 AM
tisjune.bsky.social
"That’s why I hate these New Year’s that fall like fixed maturities, which turn life and human spirit into a commercial concern with its neat final balance, its outstanding amounts, its budget for the new management. They make us lose the continuity of life and spirit."
January 1, 2026 at 1:38 PM
tisjune.bsky.social
henlo
a pointy eared brown dog with a black snout and orange eyes staring into the camera against a sunlit background. he is trying very hard to look serious despite the fact that he is very silly.
December 25, 2025 at 5:05 PM
tisjune.bsky.social
high-minded appeals to the sanctity of education under the present conditions aside...this is the terrain!! academic workers getting fired for dumb shit is the terrain!!!
ali-alkhatib.com ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · Dec 24
i know academia is bad everywhere and faculty are generally feckless cowards with no moral integrity, but i'm stunned by the faculty here; almost as stunned as i am by the media misrepresenting the student's essay as "citing" the bible when she didn't cite the bible, or read the article, or anything
nkalamb.bsky.social Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social · Dec 24
The University of Oklahoma fired an instructor for failing a student who wrote a reaction paper without having read the text she was supposed to react to.

By definition she failed to satisfy the requirements of the assignment—which she publicly disclosed before the decision to fire the instructor.
December 25, 2025 at 12:27 AM
Reposted by justine zhang
techpolicypress.bsky.social
Considering developments in Michigan as a case study, Nathan Kim and Ira Anwar say current state incentives for data centers reflect a false binary between new jobs and detrimental community impacts.
Michigan Offers Handouts for Data Centers Promising Jobs. Will Those Jobs Come? | TechPolicy.Press
Nathan Kim and Ira Anwar say current state incentives for data centers reflect a false binary between new jobs and detrimental community impacts.
www.techpolicy.press
December 10, 2025 at 4:45 PM
Reposted by justine zhang
stopthedata.bsky.social
Are you a UM student or worker? DEMAND a better world!! We will not be the war machine!!

Sign the petition @ bit.ly/UMNoDataCenterPetition
Flyer text: Say no to the umich - Los Alamos Data Center! UMich is building the world’s “biggest, baddest, fastest” supercomputer for the US military-industrial complex, in conjunction with Los Alamos National Labs. It will consume more power than all of the homes in Ypsi Township combined and more than 40 times the power draw of UM’s existing computing facilities. This facility will primarily be used for nuclear weapons development and production. The good news? Community activism works. We forced the University to push back construction of the data center two years, to 2028 – let’s keep going and shut down the data center project forever. Sign the petition today! DOWN WITH THE WAR MACHINE! PROTECT THE HURON! FIGHT FOR YPSILANTI! INVEST MONEY RESPONSIBLY! TAKE BACK OUR UNIVERSITY! STOP THE DATA CENTER!
December 5, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Reposted by justine zhang
doggo.al2.in
he's so close to starting a newsletter.
a german shepherd perched on a computer desk, looking at a glass of water. i'm also looking at the glass of water, intently a german shepherd perched on a computer desk, looking at the desk with ears perked up. i'm looking at the dog tentatively a german shepherd booping me in the face. i'm closing my eyes a german shepherd perched on a computer desk, looking in the direction of the camera, but off into the distance. i'm in the middle of asking if he wants to get off
December 5, 2025 at 12:51 AM
tisjune.bsky.social
AI companies claim that AI can do everything by having substantive commitments to absolutely nothing; an omnidirectional blob that mass produces shit.
annakornbluh.bsky.social Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · Dec 2
still waiting for intelligent longform cultural criticism with psychomarxist explanation of the "everything is butthole" logorrhea in the AI space
infinity of butthole logos
December 3, 2025 at 2:16 AM
Reposted by justine zhang
adamquinnphd.com
December 4 at 10am @ UMich and on Zoom, I'll be talking about the labor & environmental impacts of AI in historical context. Computing's long history of automation & pollution reframes how we understand capitalism in the digital age.

Register for free: sessions.studentlife.umich.edu/track/event/...
Flyer for event with QR code (main details all in the above post)
November 30, 2025 at 3:09 PM
Reposted by justine zhang
nathanckim.bsky.social
Did you know that the university of Michigan is building the world’s largest supercomputer for Los Alamos National Labs’ nuclear weapons production programs, and paying for $830 million of it despite not being able to use >90% of it?

I wrote about it here:

www.michigandaily.com/opinion/umic...
UMich says the Ypsi Data Center won’t “manufacture nuclear weapons.” What does Los Alamos think?
University administration must make a choice: Will it side with the public and live up to its stated ideals of serving the public good and public interest? Or will it side with LANL and spend hundreds...
www.michigandaily.com
October 9, 2025 at 12:40 AM
Reposted by justine zhang
techworkerscoalition.org
management pushing dumb ai policies and tools on you?

twc and friends have launched workersdecide.tech to pool resources, stories and strategies to organize and push back.

don’t let the bubble drag your job down with it!
November 26, 2025 at 8:17 PM
tisjune.bsky.social
i read this essay as a wonderful unpacking of the material and political conditions that undergird relational, caring ways of doing language together, that underlines the need to collectively fight for these conditions
November 26, 2025 at 7:51 PM
Reposted by justine zhang
ali-alkhatib.com
did someone write a paper on the anti-politics of AI projects? was that something i told someone they should write and then i just imagined they went and did it? if you know of this paper, please point me in the right direction.

if i'm going to have to write this, press F in the replies.
November 20, 2025 at 9:12 PM
tisjune.bsky.social
"This work builds on our partnership with the American Federation of Teachers⁠ to support teacher-led innovation [and] our collaboration with Ministries of Education globally, including Estonia⁠ and Greece..." that's some very collaborative grave-digging
November 20, 2025 at 1:58 AM
Reposted by justine zhang
reallandsend.bsky.social
Alice Wong’s legacy is the political horizon she helped articulate. A horizon where disabled knowledge is central, and care is a shared commitment. She taught us to name grief & rage without collapsing under them, to celebrate disabled brilliance without ignoring the material conditions shaping life
November 15, 2025 at 4:16 PM
Reposted by justine zhang
ninamarkl.bsky.social
🔔new paper alert🔔
I argue that language technologies are usefully understood as a type of language management (i.e., ways of changing how people use and think about language) -- especially in the workplace -- connecting critical work on AI with language policy
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Defining language and managing its use: Language technology as language management
Language technologies such as voice user interfaces, large language models and machine translation tools are embedded in an ever-growing range of digi…
www.sciencedirect.com
November 13, 2025 at 1:36 PM
tisjune.bsky.social
that's a shrimp
doggo.al2.in doggo.al2.in @doggo.al2.in · Nov 10
dogs are centuries ahead of us in the study and technological development of being comfortable as fuck
a dog curled up, shrimping (back legs up close to his face while front legs are down) on a bed
November 10, 2025 at 6:38 PM
Reposted by justine zhang
mjgault.bsky.social
Los Alamos and U of Michigan want to build a data center in the small town of Ypsilanti. The city's people don't want to help make weapons of mass destruction. The fight is only just starting
A Small Town Is Fighting a $1.2 Billion AI Datacenter for America's Nuclear Weapon Scientists
Ypsilanti, Michigan has officially decided to fight against the construction of a 'high-performance computing facility' that would service a nuclear weapons laboratory 1,500 miles away.
www.404media.co
November 10, 2025 at 3:13 PM
Reposted by justine zhang
dippedrusk.com
@pranav-nlp.bsky.social and I are surveying researchers about naming and name changes in academia (especially computer science).

If your academic name is / has been / might someday be different from other names you've used, please tell us about it here: forms.cloud.microsoft/e/E0XXBmZdEP
Naming in academia: Fill out our survey! We're surveying scholars about naming and name change experiences in academia. This includes spelling variations, reordering, changing any part of your name, for any reason: gender transition, marriage, divorce, immigration, cultural reasons, or recognition. This surveys takes around 5-10 minutes!
November 7, 2025 at 2:57 PM
Reposted by justine zhang
doggo.al2.in
he is currently zooming around the backyard but imagine him being as chill as he was during our walk 10 minutes ago
a german shepherd mix standing in front of a tree with a lot of red leaves, matching his red harness a german shepherd mix standing in front of a tree with a lot of red leaves, matching his red harness; looking directly at the camera and smiling a german shepherd mix standing, facing partly away from the camera, looking back slightly worried, next to a tree with some dappled red leaves
November 7, 2025 at 10:09 PM
tisjune.bsky.social
unimpressed by the suffocating presentism of what passes as tech critique; glaring at me in the sunlight
a guy in a black sweater and hat, an orange table, a wooden wall, sunny outdoor cafe seating. also there is a shepherd mix dog who is putting on his best intimidating face.
November 1, 2025 at 3:29 PM
tisjune.bsky.social
speaking as someone who in a past life did computer science stuff with social media conversations...the ideas that tech people have about what conversations are need to be studied
ali-alkhatib.com ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · Oct 31
"threads should feel more like conversations you'd have IRL, and that's why we're implementing downvotes, a feature you strongly associate with reddit" is kinda funny.
bsky.app Bluesky @bsky.app · Oct 31
Threads on Bluesky should feel more like conversations you’d have IRL.

We’re testing new systems to improve reply quality. See what’s coming: bsky.social/about/blog/1...
October 31, 2025 at 11:45 PM
tisjune.bsky.social
"Attempts to redress the negative impact of AI adoption in the classroom, while valiant, are something of a rearguard action. This problem was not generated in the classroom, and it can’t be fixed there."
October 23, 2025 at 11:00 PM
Reposted by justine zhang
nathanckim.bsky.social
Are you a UM worker/student and want to hear better takes than the dude below on AI from university of Michigan faculty, students, staff?

then join the mass meeting on 10/28 at 7 to stop the UM-Los Alamos data center and its support of nuclear weapons!

bit.ly/UMichNoAIMeeting
justinwolfers.bsky.social Justin Wolfers @justinwolfers.bsky.social · Oct 17
There are basically only two positions in the debate about AI.
1. I’ve barely invested any time in learning how to use it effectively. AI sucks.
2. I’ve invested in learning how to use this tool. Holy cow, it’s transformational.

Position #1 has lower barriers to entry.
October 17, 2025 at 11:51 PM