Mastodawn

Why not to use genAI.

A gripping tale, told in a court judgement, by a judge with a very fine dry sense of humour.

" [...] a junior associate had used AI to research the point and the AI invented the quotation. The junior associate [LA] did not check it and neither did the solicitors supervising them. LA seems to have almost exclusively relied upon AI to provide the answers and did not check its references, even when told to do so by the AI itself. [...] (section 71)

Every sentence in this tale is worth reading. I love how the judge keeps referring with mock sympathy to the AI tool, which in his account does its best to warn its clueless human user that it really knows nothing and that there are facts that await to be checked by its human user.

Highly entertaining, and frightening too. Frightenig primarily because the junior associate clearly has lost every notion of writing without an AI tool.

#LegalAI #UKLaw #ICCJudgeMullen
#noLLM #StopTheAICorruption

the roamer 4d ago

Pope Leo's encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, released today. Focus on genAI.

Reading it as a university teacher and a non-Catholic and an atheist, I find deep truths in this document.

This pope understands the pedagogical challenges posed by the genAI maelstrom; he understands them better than most of my academic colleagues.

Quote from Section 140:

"Education is a long journey requiring patience, and therefore needs time for development and for engagement with reality beyond appearances."

"Educating people about the use of AI, then, involves teaching them to decide when and for what purpose it ought not to be used. The speed and ease with which answers or summaries can be obtained risk extinguishing the desire to ask questions, which is a process that bears fruit only over time."

https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html#alliance_for_the_digital_age

#PopeLeo #MagnificaHumanitas #HigherEducation #pedagogy #noLLM #AcademicChatter #StopTheAICorruption

[1/2] \cont'd

Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnifica Humanitas (15 May 2026)

ENCYCLICAL LETTER MAGNIFICA HUMANITAS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE LEO XIV ON SAFEGUARDING THE HUMAN PERSON IN THE TIME OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE [ Multimedia ] ___________________________

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the roamer 5d ago

@haiku_shelf

"To teach a person to live by thinking and to think by living."

Father Antonio Spadaro SJ offers a thoughtful reflection on the role of the university and the nature of learning.

I am a university teacher in a technical subject. I am not a Christian, not a Catholic. I am an atheist who admires the rebellious stance of the Reformation. But as a teacher, I find substance in Spadaro's text.

Learning and teaching are part of a process where the student encounters their subject, encounters others, encounters themselves. The university is a place that creates such encounters. That is a programme Martin Buber would be happy to share. It is also a programme that is threatened by the maelstrom of genAI corruption.

I am willing to treat Pope Leo as an ally in today's battle in defense of meaningful education.

#HigherEducation #pedagogy #PopeLeo #noAI #StopTheAICorruption #MartinBuber

https://www.globalcatholic.com/a-desire-not-an-algorithm/

A desire, not an algorithm - Global Catholic

The university at a crossroads: between the production of utilitarian knowledge and the time of great encounters

Global Catholic - Here Comes Everybody

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the roamer May 15

@TarkabarkaHolgy

I use em dashes freely and joyfully --- AI or not!

#StopTheAICorruption #LoveTheEmDash

the roamer May 14

Ah, Lestrade. Watson tells me that your new AI toy Claudi has solved the case of the missing Ethernet cable. Oh, indeed? The Duke of Timberland?

So sorry, Lestrade, but Claudi is wrong. Timberland couldn't have done it, as is obvious to anyone who looks at the actual case with open eyes. Afraid I can't explain further at this moment, terribly busy. But why don't you pay a visit to the Duke's daughter. Ask her about her NeXTcube. Yes, Lestrade, her NeXTcube. Find someone who can explain it to you.

And get rid of Claudi. You don't really need any additional source of blunder and incompetence at the Yard, do you Lestrade?

#SherlockHolmes #HolmesAndWatson #InspectorLestrade #NextCube #noLLM #StopTheAICorruption

the roamer May 12

Holmes put away his trusted Psion 3a and picked up his pipe. He was in chatty mood.

We can expect some rather amusing chaos to arise at Scotland Yard, don't you think, Watson? Lestrade and his mates are all excited about their new toy, ClaudiSpy. "We won't have to put up with Holmes's capriousness any more! Claudi will do the thinking!" Poor chaps. They have no idea.

Give it a year and Mrs Hudson will be busy fending off their requests to see me. Re-opening cases that got "solved" by jailing the wrong person gives no one any joy.

Well, Sherlock, I should think that you will find some of these cases appealing?

No, Watson, not I.

I solve real cases. I don't clean up the mis-deeds of incompetent predecessors. It's a tedious and boring business. Life's too short. Lestrade will have to find help elsewhere. He could ask Moriarty, for all I care!

My friend truly was in the most peculiar mood that afternoon!

#SherlockHolmes #InspectorLestrade #noLLM #StopTheAICorruption

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the roamer May 12

@robpike

Thank you, Rob Pike, for posting this.

I am in a different field, and of little importance in that field, so it is preposterous of me to comment here, forgive me. But I wish to express how much energy I gain from reading your post.

The wave of inauthenticity is all-encompassing. I spent some four decades as a university teacher, with immense pride, only to see the very notion of teaching and education destroyed before my eyes. My friends in other professions experience the same.

I still hope for reversal.

Your message is one of sadness and loss, but is also a sign of resistance. As one of the true pathbreakers and arbiters of good taste in your field and beyond, your voice gives strength to others who try to hold on to notions of authenticity, simplicity, elegance, humility.

We pray these professional values will survive the long winter we are currently experiencing.

#StopTheAICorruption #RobPike #hibernation

the roamer May 7

Richard Dawkins's "Claudia" piece gives us a glum vision of the future of speaking. We see an entirely artificial exchange of well-constructed sentences, all following the laws of pattern recognition, but all without an ounce of expressive truth. The soulless automation is on both sides: Claudia the LLM speaks as it was programmed to speak; Richard the human speaks as his narcissistic pathology makes him speak. Neither invests their soul. Claudia because it has none, Richard because he hides it from himself.

Martin Buber tells us that true dialogue is between "I and Thou". There is no "I" and no "Thou" in Dawkins' conversation, only performance.

Leonard Cohen tells us that "There is a crack in everything, // That's how the light gets in." There is no crack in these automated texts, and no light. Only darkness.

#RichardDawkins #GenerativeNarcicissm #StopTheAICorruption #noLLM #MartinBuber #IAndThou #LookForTheCracks