Jim Kosmicki
LightNews LightNews
banner
jkosmicki.bsky.social
Jim Kosmicki
@jkosmicki.bsky.social
310 followers 330 following 1.1K posts
English instructor at Central Community College in Nebraska
Posts Replies Media Videos
jkosmicki.bsky.social
for Caturday - two feral kittens rescued (with their mother) from our porch on this snowy, strong cold wind, day at the end of November. Humans are not the only ones who can give or receive thanks.
two feral kittens - one all black, one mixed black and white, sleeping in a box after feeding - they were brought inside today from the porch where they were born (along with their mother) because it's snowy with very strong cold winds. my wife and I are suckers that way.
November 29, 2025 at 10:55 PM
Reposted by Jim Kosmicki
olivia.science
CAIL = prerequisite knowledge for a critical perspective, such as to tell apart nonsense hype from true theoretical computer scientific claims. For example, the idea that human-like systems are a sensible or possible goal is the result of circular reasoning and anthropomorphism. olivia.science/ai

🧵
October 23, 2025 at 12:03 PM
jkosmicki.bsky.social
passing thought: should anyone who argues for AI generated art be required to watch the movie Big Eyes before proceeding with their arguments? obviously it's not about AI, but it is about taking credit for someone else's artistic abilities and creative effort...
poster for the movie Big Eyes
November 24, 2025 at 7:35 PM
Reposted by Jim Kosmicki
irisvanrooij.bsky.social
You think LLM-based chatbots can help students learn? Think again.

Take a few minutes to listen to Dr. @drtanksley.bsky.social clear explanation why this is very bad, harmful idea, especially for Black students.

#Critical_AI_Literacy

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mtc...
Howard University AI Panel
YouTube video by Tiera Tanksley
www.youtube.com
November 22, 2025 at 7:56 PM
jkosmicki.bsky.social
Interesting infographic
jacob.gold Jake Gold @jacob.gold · 10d
Wow!

This is actually *really* useful as a teaching tool.
November 20, 2025 at 6:18 PM
jkosmicki.bsky.social
Our local Childcare Association is sponsoring a Christmas movie this Saturday afternoon: Home Alone - you know, the movie about a young child left alone for a week over the Christmas holidays when his family forgets about him. Somebody did not think this one through entirely.
November 19, 2025 at 6:22 PM
jkosmicki.bsky.social
This may find its way into my class readings about AI
November 18, 2025 at 6:21 PM
jkosmicki.bsky.social
Love that title
irisvanrooij.bsky.social Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · May 14
NEW paper! 💭🖥️

“Combining Psychology with Artificial Intelligence: What could possibly go wrong?”

— Brief review paper by @olivia.science & myself, highlighting traps to avoid when combining Psych with AI, and why this is so important. Check out our proposed way forward! 🌟💡

osf.io/preprints/ps...
Table 1 Typology of traps, how they can be avoided, and what goes wrong if not avoided. Note that all traps in a sense constitute category errors (Ryle & Tanney, 2009) and the success-to-truth inference (Guest & Martin, 2023) is an important driver in most, if not all, of the traps.
November 15, 2025 at 11:23 PM
jkosmicki.bsky.social
This is a great comparison
olivia.science Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 17d
Love to see community action against this AI nonsense! neighborhoodview.org/2025/11/13/d...
As one Massachusetts school administrator recently said; this moment with AI is remarkably like the moment when we were introduced to asbestos. Yes, it had some remarkably promising characteristics – fireproofing! – and had some real utility in science, research, and industrial applications. But a profit-driven industry bullied us into inserting it everywhere; into our homes and schools and public spaces, before we really understood the risks. This resulted in decades, if not centuries, of illness, injuries, deaths, and the astronomical financial burden of trying to remove the stuff. As you, the leaders and policymakers in our schools, craft an AI policy for our district, we the undersigned call on you to: 1. Ban AI tools into the classroom, protect our students and teachers from de-skilling and allow them the space and time to engage in assignments themselves. 2. Resist any direct financial relationship or contracts with AI providers, as well as the “training” they might offer. 3. Provide a digital literacy curriculum to help students navigate the current digital landscape, and promote critical engagement with technology. 4. Guarantee that anywhere generative AI has already entered our classrooms or curriculum, an opt-out will allow students and teachers to refuse the use of these products at no risk to their grades, progress or employment.
November 14, 2025 at 11:18 PM
Reposted by Jim Kosmicki
sesmith.lol
I'm raising funds to support Scarleteen and y'all got me to my initial $1,000 goal so quickly that I want to push for $1,500! Thanks to a donor matching overall donations up to $10,000 if we GET to $10,000, your dollars will count twice if you help us reach our goal.

www.classy.org/fundraiser/6...
scarleteen.com Scarleteen @scarleteen.com · 17d
Our direct services are world-famous, award-winning, and provided by real people who care deeply for the young people visiting us to ask for help. Help us raise $40,000 to support the health care needs of the people doing this work. www.classy.org/campaign/scarl...
Text: "Original, smart, caring, inclusive, shame-free, body-loving, learner-led, holistic, feminist, progressive, independent, pleasure-forward, brave, real & comprehensive. By people, for people (not bots) since 1998," alongside Scarleteen logos.
November 13, 2025 at 8:02 PM
Reposted by Jim Kosmicki
arvinski.bsky.social
The myopic, self-serving tech bro agenda of forcefeeding AI into the public psyche at any & all costs is a simple calculation since the money flows directly into their pockets. For people who appreciate the hazards, it feels more like The State mandating alcoholism, chain-smoking and processed food.
November 13, 2025 at 5:51 PM
jkosmicki.bsky.social
This is consistent with what I see from my students
November 7, 2025 at 12:54 AM
Reposted by Jim Kosmicki
benpatrickwill.bsky.social
New paper just out on how changing sociotechnical systems of knowledge production and access - platforms, the cloud, AI - pose profound challenges to educational practice and research doi.org/10.1080/0305...
Knowledge infrastructure crisis: digital democratic deficits and alternative designs for education
The production and circulation of knowledge in education increasingly depends on large-scale digital infrastructures. In this article we provide a critical review of the transformation of the conte...
doi.org
November 5, 2025 at 12:50 PM
jkosmicki.bsky.social
Good for the MLA
mkirschenbaum.bsky.social Matthew Kirschenbaum @mkirschenbaum.bsky.social · 27d
Very proud to have worked on this statement of the Modern Language Association with @annamillsoer.bsky.social and other colleagues on the MLA’s task force on AI in Research and Teaching. It is a direct call for faculty input into Ed Tech decision-making, especially AI: www.mla.org/Resources/Ad... 🧵
Screenshots of the following text: Statement on Educational Technologies and AI Agents The following statement of endorsement was drafted by the MLA Task Force on AI in Research and Teaching. The Executive Council approved it as an MLA statement in October 2025. Software, specifically learning management systems (LMSs), is as important to teaching and learning as physical classrooms and facilities. The recent and hasty integration of generative AI features into those systems is already redefining student and instructor relationships, evaluative standards, and instructional outcomes—with no compelling evidence that any of it is for the better. At the same time, so-called agentic browsers are becoming widely available to the public. These offer AI “agents” that can navigate LMSs and complete assignments without any student involvement. All of this is unfolding at a time when contractual arrangements between institutions and commercial vendors often lack transparency, with worrisome implications for data collection and student privacy. Screenshots of the following text: The Modern Language Association therefore unequivocally 1. Advocates for full faculty and instructional involvement, including faculty of languages, literatures, and the humanities, at all levels of decision-making in the selection, procurement, and responsible implementation of instructional technology systems and software, including those incorporating AI.

The instructional mission cannot be fulfilled in the absence of faculty expertise, and this expertise extends not only to the “content” of the curriculum but also to the infrastructures and environments—virtual and otherwise—in which learning happens.
  2. Calls upon law- and policymakers, LMS vendors, and companies offering agent-based AI browsers to cooperate in order to prevent misuse and to ensure that academic institutions have the ability and option to block agentic AI when needed.

Without dedicated outside cooperation from lawmakers and technology providers, academic institutions may not have the technical capacity to do so on their own. If we do not act, we risk seeing the development of a fully automated loop in which assignments are generated by AI with the support of a learning management system, AI-generated content is submitted by an agentic AI on behalf of the student, and AI-driven metrics evaluate the work on behalf of the instructor.
November 5, 2025 at 12:22 AM
jkosmicki.bsky.social
When I give my students the choice the majority will choose to not use AI - and as the semester goes on, fewer choose to
sycoraxpine.bsky.social Ariel @sycoraxpine.bsky.social · 29d
This is definitely the sense I am getting from my students. There’s a craving for analog experiences, for presence, for humanity, for a recognition that they have unique value to our future that is irreplaceable by automation. There’s a hunger for time off-screen and uninterrupted by tech.
irisvanrooij.bsky.social Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 29d
‘Study after study shows that students want to develop these critical thinking skills, are not lazy, and large numbers of them would be in favor of banning ChatGPT and similar tools in universities’, says @olivia.science www.ru.nl/en/research/...
November 1, 2025 at 10:44 PM
jkosmicki.bsky.social
Every AI using student in a nutshell
spavel.bsky.social Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · Oct 30
"All those barely literate rubes using ChatGPT are merely being played like a fiddle by the corporations, and producing worthless slop. Only I, with my towering intellect, have figured out how to make it generate greatness." —every GenAI-using asshole out there
When Using AI, Users Fall for the Dunning-Kruger Trap in Reverse - Neuroscience News
A new study reveals that when interacting with AI tools like ChatGPT, everyone—regardless of skill level—overestimates their performance.
neurosciencenews.com
October 30, 2025 at 11:58 AM
Reposted by Jim Kosmicki
ricdesi.dpad.fm
Hey everyone, here's a real simple way to disable "Super Resolution" on your channels:

• YouTube Studio
• Settings
• Channel
• Advanced settings
• Uncheck "Let YouTube enhance visual quality"
• Uncheck "Let YouTube enhance audio quality"
October 29, 2025 at 10:56 PM
jkosmicki.bsky.social
They never get it
plaguepoems.bsky.social Plague Poems @plaguepoems.bsky.social · Oct 28
My coworker
(the one who is committed
to not getting sick this fall)
is still committed
to discovering my secret,
and today while we talked
she looked back and forth
from my air filter
to my masked face
before asking
what vitamins I regularly take.
October 28, 2025 at 9:39 PM
jkosmicki.bsky.social
But yeah, let's sell it to students as a research tool
October 22, 2025 at 2:06 PM
jkosmicki.bsky.social
So damn true
dsquareddigest.bsky.social Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · Oct 21
from my lunch today; "the trouble is not so much AI making you more productive, but that it's tripling the output of the biggest f***ing idiot where you work"
October 21, 2025 at 9:27 PM
jkosmicki.bsky.social
I just lectured on where to do college level research - now I have to incorporate this too?
October 21, 2025 at 5:16 PM
jkosmicki.bsky.social
Good Lord
annabower.bsky.social Anna Bower @annabower.bsky.social · Oct 20
EXCLUSIVE: One Saturday afternoon in October, my phone lit up with a notification.

I glanced down at the message.

“Anna, Lindsey Halligan here,” it began.

So began my text exchange with the woman who is prosecuting the president's perceived political enemies.

www.lawfaremedia.org/article/anna...
"Anna, Lindsey Halligan Here." Anna Bower Monday, October 20, 2025, 5:40 PM Share On: f X inK My Signal exchange with the interim U.S. attorney about the Letitia James grand jury.
October 20, 2025 at 10:40 PM
jkosmicki.bsky.social
Very useful
October 19, 2025 at 10:49 PM
Reposted by Jim Kosmicki
miriamposner.com
If you feel like it, will you show me how you annotate texts you read for research? I thought our first-year undergrads might be interested to see the variety.
October 18, 2025 at 3:56 PM
Reposted by Jim Kosmicki
hypervisible.blacksky.app
“Loyalty programs have really become backdoor laboratories for pricing…There's a lot more happening in the background that is targeting and squeezing each consumer's willingness to pay.”
Column | The hidden way using a rewards card can cost you more
Companies use rewards programs to build profiles of you and figure out exactly how much you’re willing to pay. Two former FTC officials say it’s a trap.
www.washingtonpost.com
October 18, 2025 at 4:49 PM