Ryne VanKrevelen
@rynevank.bsky.social
I teach statistics, watch birds, read books, listen to music, and enjoy baseball/basketball.
Reposted by Ryne VanKrevelen
the way that ai is being advertised now is that everyone has to pretend to be incompetent and incredibly incapable and useless at everything
Jimmy Fallon: "And do you use ChatGPT when raising your baby?"
Sam Altman: "I cannot imagine figuring out how to raise a newborn without ChatGPT."
Sam Altman: "I cannot imagine figuring out how to raise a newborn without ChatGPT."
December 9, 2025 at 5:09 PM
the way that ai is being advertised now is that everyone has to pretend to be incompetent and incredibly incapable and useless at everything
Reposted by Ryne VanKrevelen
This is so gross. Anyone who has lived in Minnesota (Minneapolis/St. Paul specifically) will tell you that the Somali population there is among the kindest and hardest-working people you'll ever meet.
Trump on Minnesota's Somali community: "They contribute nothing. I don't want them in our country, I'll be honest with you."
December 2, 2025 at 8:58 PM
This is so gross. Anyone who has lived in Minnesota (Minneapolis/St. Paul specifically) will tell you that the Somali population there is among the kindest and hardest-working people you'll ever meet.
Absolutely this. But taking the easy way out does such a disservice to our students and undermines the point of education.
One is that teaching university students *well* requires much more work (and frankly, compassion) now than it did when I started nine years ago. 2/
November 29, 2025 at 6:42 PM
Absolutely this. But taking the easy way out does such a disservice to our students and undermines the point of education.
Reposted by Ryne VanKrevelen
this is just gutter racism
Stephen Miller is now arguing that assimilation is fundamentally impossible and that certain cultures are not compatible with Western civilization
November 28, 2025 at 12:59 PM
this is just gutter racism
Reposted by Ryne VanKrevelen
I don't understand how anyone can watch how blatantly Grok is manipulated to answer the way ownership desires it to and then act like the other LLM chatbots couldn't possibly be similarly but less obviously compromised to produce responses in whatever way corporate interests and priorities dictate.
November 23, 2025 at 7:13 PM
I don't understand how anyone can watch how blatantly Grok is manipulated to answer the way ownership desires it to and then act like the other LLM chatbots couldn't possibly be similarly but less obviously compromised to produce responses in whatever way corporate interests and priorities dictate.
There are few places I feel better spending my money than a worker owned site that produces deeply researched and important articles alongside deeply silly ones. It’s a bargain at full price and you’re supporting the people doing the work instead of a CEO’s fourth yacht.
Today is the FINAL DAY of Defector's subscription sale. Get three months for just $5! defector.com/products
September 8, 2025 at 4:48 PM
There are few places I feel better spending my money than a worker owned site that produces deeply researched and important articles alongside deeply silly ones. It’s a bargain at full price and you’re supporting the people doing the work instead of a CEO’s fourth yacht.
I just started reading The AI Con by Emily Bender & Alex Hanna. Highly recommend it based on what I’ve read so far.
August 21, 2025 at 2:50 AM
I just started reading The AI Con by Emily Bender & Alex Hanna. Highly recommend it based on what I’ve read so far.
Reposted by Ryne VanKrevelen
I'll say it again: it's amazing how many Americans who enjoy dystopian science-fiction media are also proving themselves to be 100% on board for signing over most of their cognitive function to technological tools run by sinister, giant corporations.
It really does feel like a lot of formerly reasonable people have been infected by some sort of terrifying brain parasite when it comes to unthinking and total acceptance of using AI tools
Absolute worst part, imo, is the pressure from school administrators to "welcome our new overlords" by adopting AI. It's also happening in elite universities, to my utter bafflement & horror. Anyone who calls bullshit on AI is treated as if only ignorance could explain their perspective.
August 11, 2025 at 4:56 PM
I'll say it again: it's amazing how many Americans who enjoy dystopian science-fiction media are also proving themselves to be 100% on board for signing over most of their cognitive function to technological tools run by sinister, giant corporations.
Reposted by Ryne VanKrevelen
I went through the trouble to make this image for the above caption but then I saw the bowl of kibble by itself and that just seemed funnier to me as a “meme a dog would make“
June 10, 2024 at 10:42 AM
I went through the trouble to make this image for the above caption but then I saw the bowl of kibble by itself and that just seemed funnier to me as a “meme a dog would make“
Reposted by Ryne VanKrevelen
I think the use of chatbots for stuff like this is intended to train people to use it to avoid everything that’s painful or hard. It can write the obituary, the breakup text, the complaint letter. It’s meant to separate humans from their difficult feelings. Seems bad.
New: A few weeks ago, when my father-in-law died, the funeral home asked if we wanted to use AI to write his obituary. So I dug into it and found that it's the biggest new trend in "death care." Tens of thousands of AI obits have been made already. Often the families don't even know wapo.st/4okuxIg
The rise of AI tools that write about you when you die
Families and funeral directors are using AI obituary generators to more efficiently memorialize the dead. What happens when they get it wrong?
wapo.st
August 3, 2025 at 2:28 PM
I think the use of chatbots for stuff like this is intended to train people to use it to avoid everything that’s painful or hard. It can write the obituary, the breakup text, the complaint letter. It’s meant to separate humans from their difficult feelings. Seems bad.
In a world of terrible royalty payments from platforms like Spotify, @bandcamp.com Friday is a great way to support artists. Attention Bird Utopia (check them out if you like Wilco) and Sincere Engineer (catchy pop punk from Chicago) were my picks today.
It's Bandcamp Friday!!! This is the magical day when artists get *100 percent* of the profit from anything you purchase on Bandcamp. That's right, it all goes to the artists. It's a wonderful day to buy some music and I just spent (checks notes) a small fortune.
Here are some recommendations!
Here are some recommendations!
August 1, 2025 at 7:09 PM
In a world of terrible royalty payments from platforms like Spotify, @bandcamp.com Friday is a great way to support artists. Attention Bird Utopia (check them out if you like Wilco) and Sincere Engineer (catchy pop punk from Chicago) were my picks today.
Reposted by Ryne VanKrevelen
Does the training begin "everything these tools were built on was stolen, this is fledgling tech and anything it produces has the potential to be catastrophically wrong, and using it is destructive to the environment and to our ability to reason. Here's why we're gonna do this anyway"?
Today we launched the National Academy for AI Instruction with UFT, Microsoft, OpenAI & Anthropic to offer free, high-quality AI training to educators. Some of you have expressed legitimate reservations about AI and tech companies. I want to speak to you directly. 🧵
July 9, 2025 at 12:51 PM
Does the training begin "everything these tools were built on was stolen, this is fledgling tech and anything it produces has the potential to be catastrophically wrong, and using it is destructive to the environment and to our ability to reason. Here's why we're gonna do this anyway"?
Reposted by Ryne VanKrevelen
I'm not going to repost any of the insane antisemitic conspiracy bullshit that grok is spewing today, but it highlights how absolutely essentially is that we not let LLMs become a form of epistemic grounding for our society.
July 8, 2025 at 10:40 PM
I'm not going to repost any of the insane antisemitic conspiracy bullshit that grok is spewing today, but it highlights how absolutely essentially is that we not let LLMs become a form of epistemic grounding for our society.
Reposted by Ryne VanKrevelen
In Feb. on Velshi I said Trump won due to racial anxiety not economic anxiety, as evidence by his policies. The bill Republicans passed is the proof. Months of stoking racial fears through anti-DEI mandates, ICE raids, to push through a bill that takes food and healthcare from struggling Americans.
July 3, 2025 at 7:36 PM
In Feb. on Velshi I said Trump won due to racial anxiety not economic anxiety, as evidence by his policies. The bill Republicans passed is the proof. Months of stoking racial fears through anti-DEI mandates, ICE raids, to push through a bill that takes food and healthcare from struggling Americans.
Apropos of nothing, the best book I've read so far this year was "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This" by Omar El Akkad
The cafe, one of the few businesses to continue operating during the 20-month war, was a gathering spot for residents seeking internet access and a place to charge their phones.
74 killed in Gaza as Israeli forces strike a cafe and fire on people seeking food
The cafe, one of the few businesses to continue operating during the 20-month war, was a gathering spot for residents seeking internet access and a place to charge their phones.
n.pr
July 1, 2025 at 2:13 PM
Apropos of nothing, the best book I've read so far this year was "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This" by Omar El Akkad
Reposted by Ryne VanKrevelen
It's easy to forget now but we had decades of steady advancement on trans rights. The 2016 bathroom bills invited huge backlash! It was only after the media constructed sports and youth medications as 'debates' that opposition moved from the far right to the polite center.
The repression of trans people is not, by and large, a grassroots outpouring of hatred from the American people. It's something that's been carefully planted and tended over years by a handful of media people and their pet reporters.
Heightened Scrutiny, a very good doc about the Supreme Court case that was just ruled on, does an impeccable and infuriating job laying out just how culpable the NYT and Atlantic are for the nation’s transphobia www.avclub.com/sundance-202...
June 18, 2025 at 10:11 PM
It's easy to forget now but we had decades of steady advancement on trans rights. The 2016 bathroom bills invited huge backlash! It was only after the media constructed sports and youth medications as 'debates' that opposition moved from the far right to the polite center.
Reposted by Ryne VanKrevelen
So, per the DHS Secretary, the Trump Regime has deployed troops to Los Angeles to overthrow the duly elected government of Los Angeles and of the State of California. bsky.app/profile/just...
Kristi Noem: "We are not going away. We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city."
Sen. Alex Padilla is then forcibly removed!
Sen. Alex Padilla is then forcibly removed!
June 12, 2025 at 6:32 PM
So, per the DHS Secretary, the Trump Regime has deployed troops to Los Angeles to overthrow the duly elected government of Los Angeles and of the State of California. bsky.app/profile/just...
Reposted by Ryne VanKrevelen
63% of American adults had unfavorable views of Martin Luther King Jr in August 1966, per Gallup surveys
46% of Mississippi GOP voters said interracial marriage should be illegal in a 2011 PPP poll
to push w/e is popular instead of trying to popularize justice is to admit you lack moral leadership
46% of Mississippi GOP voters said interracial marriage should be illegal in a 2011 PPP poll
to push w/e is popular instead of trying to popularize justice is to admit you lack moral leadership
EXCLUSIVE: A top Democratic strategist has launched new policy research and messaging hub, called Searchlight, with a goal of pushing the party toward the most effective, broadly popular positions.
Dems are quietly forming a think tank to help them win again
Searchlight, a name inspired by the birthplace of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, comes at a precarious moment for a Democratic Party.
www.politico.com
June 4, 2025 at 11:50 AM
63% of American adults had unfavorable views of Martin Luther King Jr in August 1966, per Gallup surveys
46% of Mississippi GOP voters said interracial marriage should be illegal in a 2011 PPP poll
to push w/e is popular instead of trying to popularize justice is to admit you lack moral leadership
46% of Mississippi GOP voters said interracial marriage should be illegal in a 2011 PPP poll
to push w/e is popular instead of trying to popularize justice is to admit you lack moral leadership
Reposted by Ryne VanKrevelen
May 7, 2025 at 1:49 PM
Reposted by Ryne VanKrevelen
Even accepting the premise that AI produces useful writing (which no one should), using AI in education is like using a forklift at the gym. The weights do not actually need to be moved from place to place. That is not the work. The work is what happens within you.
April 15, 2025 at 2:56 AM
Even accepting the premise that AI produces useful writing (which no one should), using AI in education is like using a forklift at the gym. The weights do not actually need to be moved from place to place. That is not the work. The work is what happens within you.
Reposted by Ryne VanKrevelen
Politicians should be saying "trans people have always used public spaces alongside everyone else, there's never been an issue, this whole thing is made up nonsense, banning them would be a human rights abuse, which is why I'm introducing primary legislation to protect them"
I'm seeing certain politicians appearing to be standing up for trans people, but always stop well short of saying we shouldn't be barred from facilities of our sex/gender.
Making someone like me use the men's is obviously cruel and a human rights abuse, but nobody in politics will say it. Why?
1/3
Making someone like me use the men's is obviously cruel and a human rights abuse, but nobody in politics will say it. Why?
1/3
April 30, 2025 at 11:49 AM
Politicians should be saying "trans people have always used public spaces alongside everyone else, there's never been an issue, this whole thing is made up nonsense, banning them would be a human rights abuse, which is why I'm introducing primary legislation to protect them"
Reposted by Ryne VanKrevelen
How did we get from "Do not use Wikipedia as a source" to "ask hallucinating chatbot everything"?
April 22, 2025 at 11:45 AM
How did we get from "Do not use Wikipedia as a source" to "ask hallucinating chatbot everything"?
Reposted by Ryne VanKrevelen
Just because someone isn’t deemed a functional or contributing member to society, doesn’t make them any less valuable as a human being. Someone’s worth isn’t measured by their ability to pay taxes.
April 17, 2025 at 12:27 PM
Just because someone isn’t deemed a functional or contributing member to society, doesn’t make them any less valuable as a human being. Someone’s worth isn’t measured by their ability to pay taxes.
Reposted by Ryne VanKrevelen
It's actually wild. There's literally no mention of why Jackie Robinson is important in the MLB press release. At all. Just that he "played his first Major League game on April 15, 1947."
April 14, 2025 at 6:55 PM
It's actually wild. There's literally no mention of why Jackie Robinson is important in the MLB press release. At all. Just that he "played his first Major League game on April 15, 1947."
There is no way to support this with a clean conscience. The administration has admitted he legally should not have been sent there and then actively worked to keep him from being returned. It’s slavery. (The other people also should not be sent to prison camps in foreign countries)
Bukele said he wouldn’t be returning Abrego Garcia in today’s appearance with President Trump.
It’s clear that anyone sent there cannot be given due process as guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.
Trump, meanwhile, again floated the idea of sending American citizens to the CECOT prison.
It’s clear that anyone sent there cannot be given due process as guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.
Trump, meanwhile, again floated the idea of sending American citizens to the CECOT prison.
April 14, 2025 at 8:44 PM
There is no way to support this with a clean conscience. The administration has admitted he legally should not have been sent there and then actively worked to keep him from being returned. It’s slavery. (The other people also should not be sent to prison camps in foreign countries)