A conversation with Dr. Chris Gilliard, Co-Director of The Critical Internet Studies Institute, about his approach to writing, privacy, and “artificial intelligence.” We are joined by professors Tom Haymes and Bryan Alexander to discuss our experiences teaching and learning, and Chris starts by explaining his stance as an “AI abolitionist.” He shares his critiques of the many aspects of “AI”: their creation, use, and the culture that produces these digital tools. Chris asserts that ideology is built into digital technology, and he quotes Rob Horning: “GenAI is a tool of power that masquerades as a tool of knowledge.” Chris goes on to observe: “Some of the worst people in the world want us to use these tools.” Chris taught rhetoric and composition in community colleges for decades, but left to pursue other opportunities before the explosion of “AI” in academia. This has allowed him to be an absolutist: he hasn’t used LLMs or ”AI” at all. Chris insists that writing must be embodied and cannot be generated by algorithms. He is currently writing “Luxury Surveillance,” defined as “consensual surveillance that users pay for directly, and whose tracking, monitoring, and quantification features are understood by the user as benefits that they are likely to celebrate” on the Critical Internet Studies Institute website. In our conversation, Chris summarized it as “Ankle monitors and Apple watches are essentially the same thing.”

Resources

The Critical Internet Studies Institute https://www.criticalinternet.org/

Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities and The Writer’s Practice: Building Confidence in Your Nonfiction Writing by John Warner

Defining AI by Ali Alkhatib 06 December 2024 https://ali-alkhatib.com/blog/defining-ai

Rob Horning AI - GenAI is a tool of power that masquerades as a tool of knowledge. https://robhorning.substack.com/p/practico-inertia https://robhorning.substack.com/p/artificial-intentionality

David Golumbia https://davidgolumbia.medium.com/chatgpt-should-not-exist-aab0867abace

Brian Merchant https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/openais-studio-ghibli-meme-factory

On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? 🦜 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3442188.3445922

Facebook Has a Genocide Problem by Alex Shephard March 15, 2018 https://newrepublic.com/article/147486/facebook-genocide-problem

Allies and Rivals: German-American Exchange and the Rise of the Modern Research University by Emily J. Levine https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo22804958.html

Talking with machines by Mark Corbett Wilson @mcorbettwilson on social media

A conversation with Dr. Maha Bali about “Intentionally Equitable Hospitality” (IEH) and how this professional development journey emerged from her earlier projects Virtually Connecting and Equity Unbound. A professor of practice at the Center for Learning and Teaching at the American University in Cairo, we were joined by professors Tom Haymes and Bryan Alexander to discuss our experiences teaching and learning with digital technologies. IEH offers opportunities to engage with marginalized perspectives, encourage critical thinking and accessibility, and create more welcoming and equitable learning spaces. We explored the many literacies needed today, including visual thinking, creating and using images, and the use of “AI” models despite their limitations, especially for language translation. Mike Caulfield’s SIFT model to assess information was mentioned and his latest version designed to use with Claude.ai. As always, we approached these issues from both ‘open’ and institutional perspectives, and in the context of our current political climate. Maha’s cake baking and decorating metaphors added the frosting to this episode.

Intentionally Equitable Hospitality 2025 registration https://www.eventbrite.com/e/intentionally-equitable-hospitality-ieh-series-15-april-6-may-2025-tickets-1291237107949 Intentionally Equitable Hospitality Series for May 2024 https://equityunbound.org/ieh-series-may-204/ Intentionally Equitable Hospitality as Critical Instructional Design by Maha Bali and Mia Zamora https://pressbooks.pub/designingforcare/chapter/intentionally-equitable-hospitality-as-critical-instructional-design/ Equity Unbound is hosting MYFest again this year! June through August 2025. The “Mid-Year Festival” (MYFest) is a “recharge and renewal experience” exploring community building, critical pedagogy, socially just education, AI in education, open educational practices, digital literacies, and activities that support wellbeing and joy. https://equityunbound.org/ “Visual language: global communication for the 21st century” by Robert Horn 1998 https://archive.org/details/visuallanguagegl0000horn MyEssayFeedback uses AI to offer students detailed and fast formative feedback on their essays under the guidance of an instructor or tutor. https://myessayfeedback.ai/ SIFT Toolbox for Claude Released: I don’t know how to explain how much this changes everything, so I’m just going to ask you to try it. By Mike Caulfield Mar 31, 2025 https://mikecaulfield.substack.com/p/sift-toolbox-for-claude-and-chatgpt

Talking with machines by Mark Corbett Wilson @mcorbettwilson on social media

This episode of “Talking with machines” features a conversation with Professor Robert Brem from California State University East Bay and the College of Alameda community college. I was joined by Tom Haymes and Bryan Alexander as we discussed recent challenges in higher education, the US Department of Education, and the political factions supporting change. We talked abut the structure and administration of our institutions, how they adapt to new technologies, and then compared our different positions, experiences with learners, viewpoints on recent trends, and what the future of education may hold.

Talking with machines by Mark Corbett Wilson @mcorbettwilson on social media