Thomas Padilla

Walk in on first day of work and I was greeted by fog. Auspicious!

free breakfast area at a hotel is such a weird, liminal space

Maintaining Truth in a Generative AI Era Earlier this month, I participated in an event organized by Authors Alliance at UC Berkeley focused on DMCA 1202 and Generative AI Attribution Standards.

✍️ New post from me > Maintaining Truth in a Generative AI Era

thomaspadilla.substack.com/p/maintainin...

Piracy vs. Fair Use: How AI Training Intersects With Copyright Law Public Knowledge promotes freedom of expression, an open internet, and access to affordable communications tools and creative works. We work to shape policy.

Must-read new post from @publicknowledge on a distinction that every hustler trying to get paid for AI training is trying to erase: the difference between fair use and piracy. publicknowledge.org/piracy-vs-f...

Our aim at DHNow is to provide as global a view of the DH landscape as possible. In this spirit, we would love to have more feeds and sources from Asia and Oceania. Please submit any sources you rely on: digitalhumanitiesnow... "

The Public Interest Corpus Update – NYC Edition NYU Law School Workshop Participants Last month, a diverse set of stakeholders gathered at New York University Law School to contribute to an implementation plan for The Public Interest Corpus. Thi…

An update from The Public Interest Corpus from
@thomaspadilla.bsky.social on our second workshop held at NYU Law School. Many thanks to @nyuengelberg.org for hosting us!

www.authorsalliance.org/2025/08/13/t...

Too many favorites. The #90s were a great time to be in college, and I made a good choice by going to the Univ of Maryland-College Park.

The one Republican kid in my English lit class dressed in head-to-toe black the day after Bill Clinton was first elected president.

A few others...

#HigherEd

I love that! Oh how time flies my friend.

In an anthro class in undergrad: We watched a doc on Hmong shamanic medicine, and one girl (who was a pill) started making a big fuss about the "savagery" of killing a cow. Another girl calmly interjected that she was Hmong that her mom+gma were shamans and explained the respect to the animal spirit

What is a favorite university memory?

While waiting to deliver a talk at the University of Edinburgh (Fall 2019) I walked a path around a beautiful tree in front of the library. Through the surrounding foliage I noticed a man fully embracing the tree. He looked at peace. I thought that was nice.

Building an AI Model Grounded in Scholarship | The CNI Interviews Podcast YouTube video by EDUCAUSE

In the CNI Interviews podcast episode "Building The Public Interest Corpus for AI & Computational Research" @dancohen.org & @thomaspadilla.bsky.social explain the development of a corpus for AI training using digitized materials from libraries, archives, & special collections. @educause.bsky.social

What is your idea of the most perfect song? For me it might be New Order's "Ceremony" or The Stone Roses "I wanna be adored". Immediately transports me.

I love how much conference usage of Bluesky I’m seeing at #DH2025 from afar! Feels like going back in time, to a better time.

About this Collection | Selected Datasets | Digital Collections | Library of Congress Datasets are increasingly a key digital resource used in a wide range of fields. The Library of Congress selects, preserves, and provides enduring access to datasets with the goal of cultivating a bro...

The Library of Congress is looking for feedback on their amazing/unique "Selected Datasets" collection. You can see the collection here and the survey link is at the top of the page. www.loc.gov/collections/... Anyone interested in working with datasets check out the collection and take the survey.

a woman is talking to a man and the words at what cost are on the screen ALT: a woman is talking to a man and the words at what cost are on the screen

Hey folks, if you can share this far and wide I'd appreciate it!

What articles/white papers/etc. have you seen that document that cost of data releases intended for AI development?

I'm thinking cost info on storage, access, compute, staff time, etc.

Wow big congrats David!

💯

Greetings from San Francisco, where the AI biz dev continues to be drunk on domination and control

Thrilled at the publication of our @uclpress.bsky.social book, co-edited with @lisejaillant.bsky.social, Stephen Downie, Paul Gooding, Claire Warwick, & Katie Aske, with contributions from many great colleagues, incl. @thomaspadilla.bsky.social @nolauren.bsky.social @melissaterras.bsky.social +

After years of waiting, the time has come

am i the only on who with a strong aversion to wait wait dont tell me, every weekend errand, i feel like they are an omnipresent special torture

As someone who cares very much about higher education much of this concerns me. In particular this figure ....

Check out our new paper led by @srishtiy.bsky.social and @nolauren.bsky.social! This work brings together computer vision, cultural theory, semiotics, and visual studies to provide new tools and perspectives for the study of ~culture~ in VLMs.

"Community Stories: The Impact of the IMLS"

Community Stories: The Impact of the IMLS This interview with Thomas Padilla was conducted at the end of May 2025. Because the status of IMLS, as well as many other federally funded institutions, continues to be in flux, while every attemp…

Honored to be interviewed by the SAA Committee on Public Awareness (COPA) for my work on IMLS Matters and my thoughts about the current attack on libraries and higher education.

My short take is: "Ending IMLS would be a multigenerational disaster."

archivesaware.archivists.org/2025/05/29/c...

seems very up @tjowens.bsky.social alley

Best wishes to @alanyliu.bsky.social. A kinder more gracious and brilliant colleague you’d be very hard pressed to find.

Saving grace of that airport imo

Something I think a lot about is variable capacity to experience uncertainty as possibility - not at all an evenly distributed condition!