Katie (Kathryn) Conrad
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kconrad.bsky.social
Katie (Kathryn) Conrad
@kconrad.bsky.social
2.9K followers 570 following 550 posts
Prof. of English at University of Kansas. Tech and culture. AI ethics. Critical AI literacy. Pandora’s Bot on Substack. #aiethics #criticalailiteracy
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kconrad.bsky.social
A pleasant surprise in our Northern sky here in Lawrence, KS. I've caught auroras through my camera but this was also visible to the naked eye (though not as bright as via my iPhone, here)
Aurora borealis amongst the trees: green/white, pink, and purple
November 12, 2025 at 4:03 AM
kconrad.bsky.social
Halloween choices: potatoes, oranges and raisins, or candy.
November 1, 2025 at 1:57 AM
kconrad.bsky.social
Love that passive voice….
Small rabbit (Bongo) sits in a room surrounded by a huge mess with a looming shadow of an adult rabbit. Bongo’s small speech bubble says “mistakes were made.” Cartoon by Matt Groening.
July 25, 2025 at 12:21 PM
kconrad.bsky.social
We got this new potbelly pig/wildebeest hybrid from the shelter and she's settling in OK
A picture of an upside-down shelter pet. Please DM for accurate description because AI doesn't need to know what this is and I'm too lazy to Nightshade it right now.
July 17, 2025 at 9:17 PM
kconrad.bsky.social
Our town had a drone show last night instead of fireworks. I appreciate the intent, truly. But also feeling the trajectory from fireworks-as-synecdoche-of-historical-military-might to drones-as-synecdoche-of-current-military-might rather acutely given the moment. (Also? 10 minute show. Kinda mid.)
Drone show over Lawrence KS as part of Summerfest, July 3, 2025
July 4, 2025 at 2:28 PM
kconrad.bsky.social
More puppy content. #shelterdogs
Mixed breed puppy in the grass Mixed breed puppy in the grass, close up, sleeping Elderly lab-pyranees mix on carpet with mixed-breed puppy and chew bone
July 3, 2025 at 3:48 PM
kconrad.bsky.social
We interrupt the irregularly scheduled apocalypse with… My birthday! Facebook, who sole value is to facilitate birthday greetings, unceremoniously kicked me off due to a technical glitch so I’m getting my socials birthday dopamine fix from all you friends and randos ❤️ Also, here’s our puppy Arwen
Cake with sunflower and “Bleppy Birthday” with a cake topper that is a cut out picture of our new puppy with her tongue stuck out
July 3, 2025 at 3:42 PM
kconrad.bsky.social
Yup.
Bluesky post by Katie Conrad with "What fresh hell is this" over a screenshot of an Academia.com post that reads "An AI created a podcast of your paper" (paper="What the Digital Humanities Can't Do").
July 2, 2025 at 3:25 PM
kconrad.bsky.social
From two years ago. I feel like maybe I got the idea from Janelle Shane? @janelleshane.com
ChatGPT rendering in response to a prompt to create an ASCII spider. It actually rendered a cat. The description after the fact does not describe the image rendered.
June 8, 2025 at 3:00 AM
kconrad.bsky.social
From 11 months ago.
ChatGPT rendering of an ASCII spider. The image is actually an ASCII rendering of a pie.
June 8, 2025 at 2:59 AM
kconrad.bsky.social
What fresh hell is this
Academia.edu email telling author that “an AI created a podcast of your paper”
May 30, 2025 at 3:56 AM
kconrad.bsky.social
Love that piece. And I co-sign on the final line above. From the Xitter site:
Repost/quote tweet by Katie Conrad of Ethan Mollick. Mollick suggest that we no longer criticize Anthropic for their LLM creating dangerous outputs, because they might not share details with the public if we do. Conrad reposts and writes “Or maybe we could, I dunno, NOT leave regulation to the companies who are first beholden to financial interests and instead to governments ostensibly beholden to the people? Then we wouldn’t have to kiss ass when companies reveal oops they’ve made unregulated weapons?”
May 26, 2025 at 9:14 PM
kconrad.bsky.social
Gripping reading so far! @karenhao.bsky.social
Book cover, Empire of AI by Karen Hao
May 24, 2025 at 3:32 AM
kconrad.bsky.social
you're living my beautiful Mother's Day shirt
Tshirt with Syril Karn from Andor, lying on his bed, with the word "MOOD" below it
May 14, 2025 at 3:50 AM
kconrad.bsky.social
Let us eat tripe
The Simpsons’ Ralph Wiggam says “when I grow up, I’m going to Bovine university” while standing with a handful of (literal) tripe.
May 10, 2025 at 6:15 PM
kconrad.bsky.social
Meat Council film, industry-led AI webinar. Potato, potahto.
Screen capture from the Simpsons episode where a “Meat Council” “educational film” is shown at Springfield Elementary. Young Timmy in the film says “Wow, Mr McClure, I was a grade-A moron to ever question eating meat.”
May 10, 2025 at 6:13 PM
kconrad.bsky.social
Happy May Day.
Hatch Show Print letterpress print that reads "Luddites Unite!" over a vintage etching of an arm holding a mallet surrounded by two stars. Printed in black on an old letterpress test print (white, orange, and red) over "Hatch Show Print / American Letterpress since 1879"
May 1, 2025 at 6:35 PM
kconrad.bsky.social
$125 bn, Winter 2025 = Draw the Rest of the Fucking Owl except that assumes we'll get an owl
Meme, "How to draw an owl": First part is two circles with the text instruction "Draw some circles'; the second is a fully-drawn detailed owl with the text instructions "draw the rest of the fucking owl"
April 23, 2025 at 6:30 PM
kconrad.bsky.social
but....this is a thing, right?
April 23, 2025 at 2:00 PM
kconrad.bsky.social
I needed this.
April 15, 2025 at 6:28 PM
kconrad.bsky.social
This from X suggests it was quite deliberate
Sam Altman on X, on using Ghibli: “believe it or not we put a lot of thought into the initial examples we show when we introduce new technology”
March 29, 2025 at 12:10 PM
kconrad.bsky.social
Are you aware that Sam Altman said that the use of Ghibli as an example was deliberate?
Sam Altman on X, in response to someone saying it was fortunate that Ghibli was one of the first uses of the new model to go viral: “believe it or not we put a lot of thought into the initial examples we show when we introduce new technology”
March 29, 2025 at 12:07 PM
kconrad.bsky.social
Good evening, Bluesky!
Orange and pink sunset with blue clouds on a suburban street with white-flowering trees
March 27, 2025 at 1:01 AM
kconrad.bsky.social
Not new, alas, and not just OpenAI. Here are examples from Midjourney and Flux from this week. From last year, see eg spectrum.ieee.org/amp/midjourn...
Midjourney generated image from prompt “Witcher wielding sword” showing barely-altered still from Netflix series of Henry Cavill Flux generated image from prompt “original video game plumber character” showing Nintendo’s Mario in a forest of pipes
March 26, 2025 at 7:58 PM
kconrad.bsky.social
A little reminder of Miyazaki’s opinion of genAI (especially those inclined to use a Ghibli AI filter….)
Hayao Miyazaki responds to video game designers who created a clip with genAI: “I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself”. Screenshot from documentary with translated caption.
March 26, 2025 at 7:48 PM