Pavel A. Samsonov

@PavelASamsonov
4.9K Followers
906 Following
3.9K Posts

Design is the rendering of care.

💼Problem design, user experience, product, decision-making, software development 🎓CMU MHCI, YSDN 🔵Sick of rectangles.

designing at the intersection of 0 and f(x)=1/x

#ux #design #uxdesign #servicedesign #hci #tfr

Where?🇨🇦 Toronto →🇺🇸 Bklyn
Who?He/him
What?https://www.pavelsamsonov.com
Why?🤷
the name "godzilla" implies an even more enormous lizard monster called a godza

> Refusal is just one choice a person might make in relation to generative AI, and it strikes me as deeply sexist and anti-feminist to misrepresent and stigmatize a position that emphasizes the importance of informed agency, choice, and consent.

https://refusal.blog/2026/04/07/why-abstinence-only-sex-education-is-a-bad-metaphor-for-generative-ai-refusal/

Why Abstinence-Only Sex Education is a Bad Metaphor for Generative AI Refusal

Maggie Fernandes, University of Arkansas Image by Yasmin Dwiputri & Data Hazards Projecto on Better Images of AI If I’m being honest, nothing in the conversation about generative AI and ed…

Refusing Generative AI in Writing Studies

"-le" is a forgotten suffix in English - it's integrated so far into words that we no longer register it. It indicates continuousness: to sparkLE is to repeatedly spark, to scribbLE is to continuously scribe, etc.

So it's very fitting that a company named Apple continuously makes apps.

LLMs have no concept of "true" or "good." But they are trained to signal high-quality work. Meanwhile, bosses are pressuring workers: go faster, produce more, let the AI cook.

Study after study documents what this does to the human brain: cognitive surrender. We're "in the loop" but the bot calls the shots.

Read more in this week's issue of the Product Picnic newsletter:

#LLM #AI #UXDesign #tech #softwaredevelopment #software

https://productpicnic.beehiiv.com/p/ai-mandates-are-a-demand-for-cognitive-surrender

AI mandates are a demand for cognitive surrender

Studies show that reducing our scope of judgment to checking AI outputs leads to abandoning critical thinking altogether.

The Product Picnic

I like the web and I like people learning new things.

So we're running a free 10 week web development bootcamp online, starting April 24th.

📍Really free and not selling/pushing anything
📍Livestreamed lessons with Q&A
📍Expert guest speakers
📍Chill vibes
📍Kind learner community
📍I bet my cats will show up

https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/bad-website-club-bootcamp-based-on-freecodecamp-rwd-cert/

The Bad Website Club is Running a Free Responsive Web Design Bootcamp Based on freeCodeCamp

Hi everyone! We (Jess, Carmen, and Eda) are excited to announce the next installation of our free and online bootcamp. We support learners as they work their way through the freeCodeCamp Responsive We

freeCodeCamp.org

Thanks to @jenniferplusplus @samaaron @designfactotum @peterme and everyone else not yet on Fedi for the links and writing featured in this week's Product Picnic!

I usually publish these over the weekend, and post about it on Monday. Want to get it before the rest of this website? Subscribe for weekly emails, or use the RSS feed: https://rss.beehiiv.com/feeds/aoQVhPNHQP.xml

LLMs have no concept of "true" or "good." But they are trained to signal high-quality work. Meanwhile, bosses are pressuring workers: go faster, produce more, let the AI cook.

Study after study documents what this does to the human brain: cognitive surrender. We're "in the loop" but the bot calls the shots.

Read more in this week's issue of the Product Picnic newsletter:

#LLM #AI #UXDesign #tech #softwaredevelopment #software

https://productpicnic.beehiiv.com/p/ai-mandates-are-a-demand-for-cognitive-surrender

AI mandates are a demand for cognitive surrender

Studies show that reducing our scope of judgment to checking AI outputs leads to abandoning critical thinking altogether.

The Product Picnic
When users paint χ on their Easter eggs, it's to celebrate the death and resurrection of UX design
When users paint χ on their Easter eggs, it's to celebrate the death and resurrection of UX design

One of the lessons I learned from going back to school for CS was to be suspicious of code that worked as intended the first time.

Writing unit tests before or concurrently was critical to discovering ways the code might fail and in the process understand how the program was operating.

The meta goal became to automatically distrust things that worked without anyone knowing why.

Why?

Because if you don’t know why it worked before you have no idea if it will continue working.

All of the above was, “Everyone knows” status.

And then LLMs came along and everyone seemed to say, “Actually, forget all that and throw your integrity away.”

The transformation was invasive and pernicious.