And so....

Press conference in Minnesota.

No Kings demonstrations around the country and around the world today, counterpoint to North Korea lite in DC.

Open thread.

Comments

[nous]

Live coverage for MN assassination from the local newspaper of record:

https://www.startribune.com/brooklyn-park-police-searching-for-suspect-in-multiple-targeted-shootings/601372993

Fractious times...

[nous]

Star Tribune claiming the suspect's targets on his list were MN politicians who supported abortion rights.

[wj]

No Kings (or, several homemade signs had it: No Faux-Kings) rally in Dublin CA. mother Nature weighed in: it was beautiful weather. 70 degrees -- about 25 lower than usual for June. Plus upwards of 50% cloud cover -- clouds in California in June?!?!?

I'm no expert at crowd counting. But I'd say closer to 10,000 than 5,000. And this is suburbia. Lots and lots of American flags waving -- eat your hearts out, reactionaries.

[russell]

Ok, this made my day.

That's more than the actual population of Boston, FWIW. Just a bunch of trouble-making Massholes, us. Warms my heart.

My wife and I are both down with COVID (and we're doing fine) so could not participate in person. Sorry to have missed it.

[JanieM]

russell -- it made mine too. Wow.

I was in the crowd in this picture, which I have seen estimated at anywhere from 100,000 to 250,000 people. A million people...wow.

I am so proud that New England is my adopted home.....compatibility is a powerful motivator. ;-)

Sorry about the covid -- hope you get better quickly.

[wj]

While the rally I was at was way smaller a) it was in a medium size town, and b) it was one of at least 6 within 20 miles of home. (If you go with 40 miles, so as to include San Francisco and San Jose, there were over a dozen or more.)

This raises an interesting question: which is more effective, one humongous rally or a profusion of medium and large ones?

[nous]

This raises an interesting question: which is more effective, one humongous rally or a profusion of medium and large ones?

That's mostly a question of what the organizers/participants hope to achieve. That's always the first question we ask as union officers when we are planning some sort of collective action.

Smaller actions are good for getting new people involved and making it feel personal. It's a great way to start building identity and networks and motivating further collaboration. Smaller actions are lower stakes and easier to arrange. They are also really good for forging community ties. It puts a friendly local face on big, anonymous, demonizable movements, making them harder to dismiss.

Bigger actions are there to make bullies count the cost of their bullying.

Smaller actions are there to build strength. Bigger actions are there to apply that strength to move the situation.

Good organizers know how and when to use both. Both are necessary elements in a successful campaign.

[Michael Cain]

I'm guessing that Trump was enormously disappointed by his parade. So far as I can tell, what he wanted was Bastille Day, only bigger and flashier. Don't know if he'll fire Hegseth on Monday, or if the US Army will suddenly be acquiring many different distinctive regimental ceremonial uniforms and units that practice precision drill all the time to wear them.

[GftNC]

Watching them marching the opposite of in step made me laugh. I hope it gave Ubu dyspepsia.

nous, given your frequent comments on students using AI to write essays, I wonder whether you saw this, and if so, what you think of it?

https://x.com/j_amesmarriott/status/1930335137893359646

It's years since I read the book, but I must say I did think this review fairly impressive.

[CharlesWT]

After viewing the troops march a Marine Corps drill instructor would have been apoplectic.

Here's hoping Trump doesn't try to mandate the goose step.

[nous]

nous, given your frequent comments on students using AI to write essays, I wonder whether you saw this, and if so, what you think of it?

I had not seen it, but I find no surprises there, and I don't disagree that it might easily find a home someplace as a review.

LLM's can absolutely nail a book report.

What I would say to this person, though, is "so what?."

Hooray, you have given me a synopsis of the book and a description of the style. If I had read the book, I'd likely nod my head. If I had not read the book, I'd have a good idea of what to expect. But you have not yet begun to give me anything new to think about or any insights that give me a deeper appreciation of what the book is trying to do - what it has to say and how it speaks to our shared world.

There's nothing there that cannot be better gleaned from reading the book itself. And if one has read the book, there is nothing there that might prompt a rereading to give any aspect of the book deeper consideration.

Give me a reason to go back and read the book with a more critical eye to its construction and a deeper understanding of how it interacts with our world.

LLMs cannot do that. At best they can parrot what others have said or do a remixed composite of a few.

What do you have to say that is new and is relevant to what Amis has written? I'm not interested in articulate book reports from precocious high schoolers. Give me something to consider. When you can do that we can start to talk about calling you a thinker and a writer.

(This sort of assessment always aimed at a model text, not at a student sample - no shaming of writers. At most they will get a "Yeah, this is a bit book-report-y as feedback if they bring up their worries. Otherwise, they get questions based in what they have written that prod them to move out of summary into analysis and application.)

[russell]

Boelter has been captured.

[liberal japonicus]

Following up on nous' comment, I think an increasing amount of reviews are going to be, if they they are not already, farmed out to AI. I'm pretty sure that all of the Facebook posts about particular topics are AI written and I suspect that they are being created within facebook, if not by people who are trying to monetize something. I try to hide them, but looking at my feed now, I see one thing for one minute animals 'The stunning mexican alligator lizard') and another thing for Jazz musicians. You open it and it has some information about whatever the topic is. I wouldn't be surprised if someone dumped all of Martin Amis' books and interviews and generated a 'Martin Amis fans' group, with an anecdote a day.

As one might expect, it's a bit of a different problem here with EFL. The writing is supposed to show that students can organize the ideas, so when everyone starts using it to write, the whole teaching thing become meaningless.

This breathlessly titled Guardian article is part of the problem

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/jun/15/thousands-of-uk-university-students-caught-cheating-using-ai-artificial-intelligence-survey

Thousands of university students in the UK have been caught misusing ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence tools in recent years, while traditional forms of plagiarism show a marked decline, a Guardian investigation can reveal.

But you go down and you have students saying things like this
Harvey* has just finished his final year of a business management degree at a northern English university. He told the Guardian he had used AI to generate ideas and structure for assignments and to suggest references, and that most people he knows used the tool to some extent.

“ChatGPT kind of came along when I first joined uni, and so it’s always been present for me,” he said. “I don’t think many people use AI and then would then copy it word for word, I think it’s more just generally to help brainstorm and create ideas. Anything that I would take from it, I would then rework completely in my own ways.

“I do know one person that has used it and then used other methods of AI where you can change it and humanise it so that it writes AI content in a way that sounds like it’s come from a human.”

Now, it may be that the bulk of the students are misusing AI, but given there is so little instruction on how to use it, I wouldn't blame the students. But the article also had this

Technology companies appear to be targeting students as a key demographic for AI tools. Google offers university students a free upgrade of its Gemini tool for 15 months, and OpenAI offers discounts to college students in the US and Canada.

Worthwhile to see how China is dealing with it

https://www.theverge.com/news/682737/china-shuts-down-ai-chatbots-exam-season

I have a class this afternoon where I've asked students to make a pdf of all their written work this term and we are going to drop it into Gemini and I'm going to have them ask the AI how they can improve their writing. (The written work they do has them write their own paragraph and then submit it to AI to make it more academic, as a check on just using AI. I suppose the students would ask AI for a badly written student version and then a polished AI version rather than having to write themselves, but I haven't seen that)

[wj]

writing is supposed to show that students can organize the ideas, so when everyone starts using it to write, the whole teaching thing become meaningless.

I rather think that what we will see is that university degrees will cease to have any value whatsoever in the job market. (At least degrees in the humanities, and probably the social sciences. Degrees in the physical sciences and engineering may still be useful for seeing if the job applicant knows the basics of the field. Just because AIs can't do lab work.)

Real teaching at universities will actually become easier, I suspect. Removing the unmotivated students seems like a boon -- nous may correct me on that.

This will have obvious impacts on universities, as their market is reduced to those actually interested in learning a subject. Personnel departments (under whatever name) will likewise have to use actual judgement when selecting candidates; just checking resumes for university-granted credentials will no longer be sufficient.**

** Actually, it never was. But that fact will become harder to ignore.

[wj]

Boelter has been captured.

I see that he is facing "state, and possibly Federal, charges." I'm guessing that Minnesota will not drop their charges and let him face just the Federal ones. They have to know they Trump would like as not just turn around and pardon him.

[hairshirthedonist]

I've read speculation that the DNC was behind the whole thing. It's never the simplest and most obvious explanation with some people.

[Hartmut]

As usual the usual suspects cannot decide whether to praise the assassin (in essence claiming him as their own) or condemn him (calling him a false flagster). So, the do both at the same time. [/sarcasm]

[nous]

I have some thoughts to share on AI and the future of the public university, but I've been finalizing grades for submission, so those thoughts will probably be forthcoming tomorrow.

[liberal japonicus]

I'm guessing that Minnesota will not drop their charges and let him face just the Federal ones. They have to know [that] Trump would like as not just turn around and pardon him.

Making a prediction, I think Trump will still issue a pardon for federal charges and make noises about the state charges being irrelevant/politically motivated/yada yada. I would not be surprised if there was a push by Trump supporters in the state to have them drop the state charges just to set up this scenario. Whatta world.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

First, Trump will squeeze out an Executive Ordure claiming the power to issue pardons for state criminal charges.

Then, in a few days, he'll pardon himself for his NY felony convictions.

[nous]

wj - I rather think that what we will see is that university degrees will cease to have any value whatsoever in the job market. (At least degrees in the humanities, and probably the social sciences. Degrees in the physical sciences and engineering may still be useful for seeing if the job applicant knows the basics of the field. Just because AIs can't do lab work.)

I recognize this line of reasoning, but from the perspective of my 20 years of university teaching, I think it's wrong to measure the value of higher education in terms of how well a graduate is prepared to enter the professional workforce. I think our values are very much placed in the wrong things. The value of higher education lies in two things: how effectively the that education prepares the individual to confront our big, collective challenges and find ways to build better collective futures, and how well that education is able to give the individual "better equipment" for living a satisfying and meaningful life. I have yet to meet a student who is doing both of these things by focusing solely on STEM (or on the non-quant side of things). I'm watching the outcome of this imbalance play out right now at the university level and it's doing tremendous damage to the institution. Our students are coming in with more qualifications and fewer abilities and they are leaving having demonstrated an ability to achieve educational outcomes, but unable to actually understand much or think critically without guidance. AI will only make these problems worse.

Real teaching at universities will actually become easier, I suspect. Removing the unmotivated students seems like a boon -- nous may correct me on that.

Motivation is multifarious. Motivated to learn? Motivated to find ways to apply that knowledge? Motivated to achieve a particular professional outcome? Motivated to escape a background of generational poverty? Motivated to meet societal expectations?

I don't think either AI or a more narrowly STEM focused institution will help with any of those motivational issues. Actually, I think the current university paradigm is pretty shit at keeping students engaged or helping them to see the value in what they are doing, and I think a more narrowly focused one will only make matters worse.

This will have obvious impacts on universities, as their market is reduced to those actually interested in learning a subject.

I've said things to the effect of what I am about to say many times before on this blog...

Most people think of higher education as a place for students to learn subjects - what Freire called the "banking model" of education. Universities have stores of information and students go to them to have that information deposited in them. But the most valuable and transformative thing that university educations actually do (sometimes, not often enough, and often despite themselves) is to teach students something akin to the dialectical method as a habit of mind, and then train and expand the mind in the use of that dialectic in all areas of life that are important to living. That's not taught by a banking method, it has to be modeled by others, and engaged in, and it has to be unscripted and responsive to the students in the class.

It's not banking, it's mentoring. As Socrates said, it's midwifery of ideas. But those ideas need to be gestated and they need to be delivered through pain and effort.

And, as Chuck Wendig points out with panache, AI is all about the idea of surrogacy and of removing all the effort of the delivery:

And herein lies the problem with the sudden surge and interest in artificial intelligence. AI-generated creativity isn’t creativity. It is all hat, no cowboy: all idea, no execution. It in fact relies on the obsession with, and fetishization of, THE IDEA. It’s the core of every get-rich-quick scheme, the basis of every lazy entrepreneur who thinks he has the Next Big Thing, the core of every author or artist or creator who is a “visionary” who has all the vision but none of the ability to execute upon that vision.

https://terribleminds.com/ramble/2023/02/16/a-i-and-the-fetishization-of-ideas/

Right now there are a whole lot of universities and colleges that are failing and going under, and there are a lot of successful universities that are eyeing this trend and trying to futureproof themselves with an injection of AI - firing instructors and replacing them with AI agents (and hiring AI dev people to teach faculty how to enshitify their pedagogy in order to deal with twice the number of enrollees through more AI implementation).

AI graders grading AI written papers.

Yes, you have seen it before. Welcome to the higher ed version of DOGE, brought to you by the same basket of sun-bleached taints.

Don't look to me for answers here. I'm busy trying to figure out how many more times I'm interested in riding this deteriorating rollercoaster, and at what point I decide that I am done with the enshitification of our future, and take early retirement and go off to bang my head against a different brick wall on behalf of a quixotic environmental non-profit. We're currently holding out mostly for the sake of our pensions because neither of us expect that faculty will win this fight.

Especially when a decent sized chunk of the faculty are on-board with the whole AI thing for everything except the area of their own personal expertise.

C'est la guerre.

[wj]

from the perspective of my 20 years of university teaching, I think it's wrong to measure the value of higher education in terms of how well a graduate is prepared to enter the professional workforce.

I think we're totally on the same page here. My point was that, when AI can allow "students" to get to a degree without actually learning anything, the worth of that degree in the job market drops. Those who attent college to learn will still come. But those who attend merely to improve their job prospects? I expect them to find other ways to spend 4 years and thousands of dollars. For the simple reason that merely having a degree will be reduced to on-line diploma mill worth.

I also agree that we have lost (to the extent that we once had it) an understanding of what is actually worthwhile about a college education. But I think one of the unintended consequences of AI will be to force us to take another, much needed, look. But then, as you all know, I'm a congenital optimist.

[wj]

Being as it's the current Open Thread

I came across an interest podcast on the use of microwaves to deal with drones.
https://www.economist.com/podcasts/2025/06/18/how-microwaves-can-knock-drones-out-of-the-sky

Basically, if focused and pulsed they can fry the circuits of the drone. If I've understood correctly, it may even be effective against drones run via fiber optic threads. Amazing times we live in.

[GftNC]

Open thread, so:

It seems the guy Gor (have deleted the newsletter, so lacking details) who vets personnel appointments for the White House a) has not submitted his own forms for vetting, and b) has said he was born in Malta, but it turns out Malta has no record of someone of that name being born when he said he was. He volunteered, in response to questions, that he definitely wasn't born in Russia.

An interesting story, which may turn out to be nothing much. And apparently he and Musk locked horns a lot, including in the nixing of Musk's buddy from being head of NASA. So there is a possibility that all this is a Musk operation.

No doubt we will find out more in due course.

[russell]

It seems the guy Gor ...

The reality of the moment is that we are governed by incompetents, clowns, and grifters.

And, unlike in Parliamentary systems, we don't really have a mechanism to throw them out.

At some point this sad parade of folly will come to an end. I have no idea what the country or the world will look like when that happens.

Push back where you can and hope for better days. That's all I got.

[nous]

Krebs has pulled his Gor post on stockexchange and seems to be apologizing for it.

At this point all I can conclude is that we are in need of a lot more information and verification.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Somehow I missed hearing about that book "Stockbrokers of Gor".

(probably too obscure a reference, but what the Hel)

[wj]

Snarki, the current lot seem entirely likely to be fans of the whole Gor series. (Or at least potential fans, assuming that they read at all.)

[liberal japonicus]

This daily beast article contains info about the Gor (Trump aide, not the SF series) accusations.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/elon-musk-accuses-trump-aide-sergio-gor-of-federal-crime-as-feud-explodes/

I remember the titles from my dives into second hand book stores, but I always assumed it was fantasy, so never checked it out, just to figure out wj's comment. A wikipedia check points out that John Norman was a pseudonym, he was actually a philosophy professor named John Frederick Lange Jr.