Post #1765776

2026-04-29 05:12 UTC

“Arizona State University rolled out a platform called Atomic that creates AI-generated modules based on lectures taken from ASU faculty by cutting long videos down to very short clips then generating text and sections based on those clips. Faculty and scholars I spoke to whose lectures are included in Atomic are disturbed by their lectures being used in this way—as out-of-context, extremely short clips some cases—and several said they felt blindsided or angered by the launch. Most say they weren’t notified by the school and found out through word of mouth. And the testing I and others did on Atomic showed academically weak and even inaccurate content. Not only did ASU allegedly not communicate to its academic community that their lectures would be spliced up and cannibalized by an AI platform, but the resulting modules are just bad.” https://www.404media.co/asu-atomic-ai-modules-arizona-state-university/

Replies (9)

@benjamin@piaille.fr 2026-04-29 06:02

@gregeganSF looks like atomic waste to me...

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@Npars01@mstdn.social 2026-04-29 06:30

@gregeganSF The Moneyed genuinely do not want an educated electorate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_A._Freeman_(economist) https://jacobin.com/2018/06/public-education-privatization-koch-brothers-teachers AI is automated information pollution With AI, people can never be sure of accuracy, quality, comprehensiveness, appropriateness, or usefulness AI investment is largely from the fossil fuel industry, for a reason https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-06/saudis-plan-100-billion-ai-powerhouse-to-rival-uae-s-tech-hub https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/27/technology/saudi-arabia-ai-exporter.html One party media monopolies, disinformation & an uninformed proletariat is the goal of fossil fuel funded fascism

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@unfmeghan@dmv.community 2026-04-29 06:33

@gregeganSF ASU is rebranding itself as AI Slop University!

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@mastodonmigration@mastodon.online 2026-04-29 06:52

@gregeganSF That deserves a Stop SLOP

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@jamesh@aus.social 2026-04-29 07:16

@gregeganSF That seems like the kind of thing that would damage the future career of their staff. I guess the university is lucky the videos probably aren't covered by moral rights in the US.

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@Tooden@aus.social 2026-04-29 09:06

@gregeganSF Intelligent people are going to have to set up off-grid, to avoid interference, and AI_slop, or true knowledge will be lost.

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@pattykimura@beige.party 2026-04-29 10:42

@gregeganSF Yes, academia, AI was designed to come for your jobs, too. Do you know how much you enjoy waiting on the phone to talk to an AI receptionist? That human job lost to AI is your future. A future re-branding of top tier universities will be: At MIT, some of our courses are actually led, in person, by human teaching assistants who were once students of the famous academic whose work is digitized. Think I'm kidding? #academia

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@ottomate@noc.social 2026-04-29 14:29

@gregeganSF The last thing I expect from AI is sensitivity to context. Lets see if the AI gets good enough to make acceptable content or ASU regrets and retires this botched attempt to displace salaried professionals with computerized systems that make sausage from lectures.

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@morebento@aus.social 2026-04-30 13:46

@gregeganSF @forestine I reckon I’ve heard of this software used in Australia at a uni. Flinders?

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