Susie Protschky

Academics suggesting someone be fired because they have defined the use of AI as deskilling is such an own goal. Who needs management in these conditions?

And, the other taxpayer funded role of universities is teaching. Students and teachers, in our relationship with each other and with knowledge, do expect some ‘self actualisation’ there. Curious about how that plays out in future with AI.

If we think in terms of universities being for the common good, then workers (professors) who get enjoyment, dignity and fulfilment from their work remains important. Working with AI may not preclude that - but what if it does?

The Problem With AI Is the Problem With Capitalism Workers’ fear of new artificial intelligence technology makes sense: that technology has the potential to eliminate their jobs. But if we didn’t live under capitalism, AI could be used to liberate us ...

This is still a pretty good piece, if you accept that deskilling is the fear actually driving a lot academic reactions

jacobin.com/2023/03/ai-a...

Probably not. But the fact is we hugely enjoy all the elements of research that we consider specialised skills, and that is part of our identity, as a guild or profession, and as individuals who like our jobs. AI can now do some of those elements. Now what? Boycott it? I don’t think that will work.

I hope you’re right. The ‘can’ and ‘will’ question to me is open, and I’m worried about it.

Why is it right-wing to say, ‘look at all the elements of academic work that AI can now do too, and faster, even if imperfectly’? Thinking about how we produce knowledge is exactly what he’s pushing us to do. Rejecting it is not an option. Finding ethical ways to use it is our actual job.

Judgment, I agree Kim, is what we hopefully do better.

You can drop your sources into AI and get it working with them in ways that cuts substantially what it takes for you to ‘know’ your archive.
And polishing good thoughts expressed ‘badly’ is a massive equaliser for ESL writers

‘I get the desire for artisanal, hand-crafted research, with the matrices hand-inverted. But our job is to move the frontier of knowledge, not self-actualization.’ This hurts because I love my job and as a class of workers, we face deskilling. But denial won’t save us.

The baseline of what we can read has still shifted upward enormously now.

The tools are so revolutionary, though, that it does indeed shift the focus onto putting more energy into questions, approaches, ideas. Being a good writer, reading 5 languages, and knowing your archives is not a special skill anymore.

What about translation? It’s pretty good with that. He’s also right that AI can organise and do things with sources that it once took a human research assistant weeks or months to do, but now in matter of hours. The apprentice model of academic research is indeed over.

Delighted to have talked about a new research topic of mine with Anne van Mourik at NIOD Amsterdam, for the terrific Rewind podcast

Congratulations, Josh!

‘… an IDIOCRACY, in which low-grade pleasures (such as the capacity to buy cheap goods, pay low or no taxes, carry guns into Starbucks, and maintain the right *not* to help each other) displace all other forms of FREEDOM …’

- Maggie Nelson, The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning

All the people calling for prosecuting the individual ICE agent and not ALSO the abolition of ICE … 🤔

Point of order - Greenland is not the world’s largest island. Australia is 4 times larger.

Well, that answers that.

Are you saying Europe doesn’t actually need to ‘ be prepared for the scale of war our grandparents and great grandparents endured.’ (NATO Chief Mark Rutte, 11 dec 2025) - ?

It means no alliance with the US anymore, but there will be no war with the US either, and Greenland will be American. So it’s a grumpy capitulation, because what else can be done?

Ranking colonisers when many Greenlanders want full sovereignty is missing the point.

It’s not a sovereign nation. It’s Denmark’s colony. Greenlanders are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

That new episode of The Diplomat with Keir Starmer in it was trite

Coming up online on 6 December -

extremely interesting inaugural lecture, I encourage everyone to read it - by @susieprotschky.bsky.social

research.vu.nl/ws/portalfil...

Thanks Boyd!

Unfit Nazis are still Nazis

“The law of the #ICC was born out of European crimes but only applied so far to crimes committed outside of Europe...our request is simple: to apply the law impartially, also upon European nationals.”

Omer Shatz excoriated the international legal order's EU-blindness to @apnews.com

Coming to the VU Amsterdam! Anthony Bogues on Fanon at 100, and a public lecture on ‘Illiberalism, violence and the politics of a new conjuncture’!