Shannon McSheffrey

Good to see @blmedieval.bsky.social is now over here!

Yet be well assur’d
You put sharp weapons in a madman’s hands.

okay, Ill bite.
What do you think the point of reading for and writing a literature review is? The process of reading and writing is crucial for THINKING. Your ideas are shaped by all of this, offloading it to gAI, no matter how "good" you think gAI is at it defeats the purpose entirely.

“When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”

Trying to force the return of Jesus seems like a profound misunderstanding of chain of command

Hey @carlovalledfa.bsky.social — good piece!

Why we should care about ChatGPT's accuracy gap I tested ChatGPT on my area of expertise. The results are a problem for future knowledge

If you teach please show your students this. If you're a student, please read this.

The answers LLMs generate are not all alike. They are more likely to hallucinate on topics we don't already know a lot about. Even answers with "sources" shouldn't be trusted.
leahbroad.substack.com/p/chatgpts-a...

As part of an AI committee at my university, I spent this weekend trying out Claude (Opus 4.6) for writing, and I have to say, far beyond its hallucinations and the usual complaints, it is a baffling experience cognitively. I want to be more precise in my evaluation here than I usually am about AI.

You could email Jacqueline Murray: she’s been learning for a few years now

we were probably all up last night staring at the ceiling with our own version of the same thought running on endless loop, but mine looked something like this:

I hate these people to a degree that feels simultaneously corrosive to the soul, and also the only righteous response to this kind of evil

meanwhile Mark Carney, the Canadian PM, like fucking clockwork, offers his full support to the illegal US-Israel strikes on Iran

A selection of books form the Fagel Collection

TCD Library is recruiting a Senior Bibliographer to help catalogue the Fagel Collection! This is a fabulous professional opportunity to work on one of Europe's great early modern private libraries. Closing 10 March at noon. Full details available at www.tcd.ie/hr/vacancies

I have said this before, but eliminating programs that teach a lot of students but don’t have many majors is like a restaurant not buying flour in its grocery delivery because people aren’t ordering flour on the menu.

Assistant Professorship in Medieval Literature (temporary cover) at University of Cambridge Apply now for the Assistant Professorship in Medieval Literature (temporary cover) role on jobs.ac.uk - the leading job board for higher education jobs. View details.

An opportunity for a medievalist to join the team at Cambridge: www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQQ346/a...

Nerd note 🧵... I re-ranked the Winter Games medal table using a weighted system (🥇=3, 🥈=2, 🥉=1) to reward overall podium depth. Then adjusted for population (points per million people) to better compare countries. Not perfect, but arguably a more accurate picture... #MilanoCortina2026

I finally took a look at the Einstein AI Homework Agent that has all of us despairing today. It's so, so much worse than it looks. Like people write sci fi stories about this worse. I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.

My university started sneaking "AI readiness" into faculty evaluation rubrics. Suggested reviewer language for spring post-tenure + contingent faculty review prompts reviewers to assess whether courses are "AI ready." We've had no shared governance discussion about this as far as I know+

It never ceases to confound me just how many folks think the point of essays is to provide teachers with essays. That teachers just like, collect them, or need them for sustenance or something. Rather than the point of them being the *actual fucking act of learning how to think about shit*

what even is the fucking point

BAFTA and BBC Let the N-Word Air on Tape Delay — Michael B. Jordan, Delroy Lindo, the Tourette’s Community and Viewers Deserve an Apology A Tourette’s-related outburst of the N-word aired during the BAFTAs despite tape delay. Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo are owed an apology.

"The BBC and the BAFTAs behaved appallingly, with horrific consequences for Jordan, Lindo, and Davidson" pretty much summed up my reaction to the events of last night before I read this very very good essay that reached similar conclusions in a very thoughtful way.

To: Jeffrey epstein[jeevacation©gmail.com] From: roger schank Sent: Mon 1/4/2010 12:15:13 PM Subject: there is a simpler explanation about women and intelligence intelligence comes about in part from real focus (goal-directed (this is why you have the absent minded professor caricature) it is a rare woman who is not first and foremost focussed on what thinking and feeling about her hard to be brilliant if you are worrying if you look fat or why hates you or why you dont own a kelly bag roger schank http://www.rogerschank.com/

Relevant to today's conversation about AI's inherent sexism, here's an email from cognitive psychologist and early AI theorist Roger Schank, arguing to Epstein that women can't be truly intelligent, because they care too much about what other people think.

This one hits hard.

Search Jobs - University Affairs

TT job in Native Studies, Brandon U: universityaffairs.ca/search-jobs/...

Levying taxes by unilateral executive action is the singular centuries old most fundamental example of something that's absolutely and inherently illegitimate in the Anglo-American constitutional tradition.

The Tumbler Ridge shooter used Sam Altman’s OpenAI to discuss violence & mass killings.

The conversations were flagged & reviewed by employees who wanted to contact law enforcement.

The company refused.

The same company who blamed a teen’s suicide on “misuse of the platform” when his parents sue

Exclusive | OpenAI Employees Raised Alarms About Canada Shooting Suspect Months Ago The ChatGPT maker opted against informing Canadian authorities about Jesse Van Rootselaar’s descriptions of violence last June.

Absolutely wild. WSJ reporting that some OpenAI staffers thought the Tumbler Ridge shooter's use of ChatGPT raised the potential of real world violence but leadership decided not to alert RCMP. www.wsj.com/us-news/law/...

We would def post; I missed it in the CMS newsletter today probably so will look tomorrow!

This is a different group from @canmedievalists.bsky.social so can’t help with information on it! Would be happy to post info about it to our webpage if they send something.

La Retraite de Hugues de Payens, by Georges Mathieu, 1958 (rotated), 📸 by @tiltoncreative