Anna Holmes

YEP.

The post Dr. Flowers is responding to seems to assume asylum seekers will have access to devices compatible with LLMs. Same deal. It’s not a great equalizer if it relies on historically marginalized folks having the cash or generous benefactors. Especially in this climate.

Oh my god.

I’m not shocked at all, and yet.

Ask my Scottish classmates who can’t use voice to text features or auto captioning because computers can’t handle an accent stronger than a posh BBC presenter’s.

Goes for every ism and phobia across the board, but LLMs? Extra terrible for this.

There are automatic doors in places in my university. They aren’t calibrated for the height of a wheelchair user, and they frequently are left switched off.

Technology is only as inclusive as the people who implement it, and right now, they’re extremely…not.

Can a piece of technology be made with the intent to help ease barriers? Sure. But until you address things like pay gaps and resource deserts and malevolent bureaucracy, all you’re doing is inventing a reason people will claim discrimination is over.

Once on a panel for a professional conference, someone asked me if technology gives me hope for access.

I said let’s get ramps on every building first, and the tech bro manager was PISSED. People want to believe that they invented the answer to systemic issues…without understanding the issues.

So, uh. In disability studies we call this a "disability dongle" or a techno-utopian solution to a problem that appeals to the able-bodied imagination rather than the actuality of disabled life itself.

Deploying a LLM to translate a legal notice for an asylum seeker functions similarly.

Oof, I’m sorry, Mar. I hope their socks are always damp.

And god help you if you use a mobility aid! 😭

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Oh, watch out—the magpies are cheeky. They will absolutely mock you!

Sincerely. One adjustment for her was the difference between a life she loves and a very bad situation.

She did use a regular bike for a long time, but her job is extremely physical and she was getting ill having to ride so far. The judgment is ridiculous!

It’s really important to me that she get to live her life just as fully as someone whose neurological makeup allows for driving, because if she doesn’t, she has to live with horrible family members in the ass end of nowhere. I love that she can get to the job she loves in an apartment she can afford

E-bikes allow my friend to live independently in a car-centric city. If she didn’t have that, she’d be relying on begging for rides, which is degrading and doesn’t make for great relationships (and also has meant she ended up in dangerous situations)!

I want to fistfight these ableists.

A magpie on a brick wall visible through large windows.

A visitor.

Antibodies go hard.

Well. Not mine.

The shingles vaccine is incredible #learnsomethingnew #sciencefacts #vaccineswork TikTok video by Alex Falcone

This video is imparting genuinely amazing news about the shingles vaccine, but also contains a description of vaccines that made me laugh so hard I had to sit down. “We inject the dead version so that when the live one shows up it knows we’ve killed before” is both accurate and SO FUCKING FUNNY

A table with a black banner for Authors Against Book Bans, with copies of many books on top. Many of the books contain bookmarks listing where they have been banned, including my own books Everything I Never Told You (banned in FL, IA, and VA) and Little Fires Everywhere (banned in VA)

At the Mass Statehouse with @aabbri.bsky.social, talking to reps about MA's proposed Freedom to Read bill.

1. Are you currently using an AI tool for work-related tasks or projects? * Yes * No, but I would like to (PLEASE SKIP TO QUESTION 7)

My employer asks me to complete a survey on AI usage for which this is the first question (required):

Pixar deliberating avoiding gay storylines is unequivocal homophobia, and any Pixar representative defending that decision is being homophobic.

We don't need 1000 word essays on it, just call it what it is.

We're far too afraid to call bigots bigots because we like their creative work.

My coworker was excited about a two week vacation. That was very much not my experience.

Good words of warning here. AI models are generally designed to read and incorporate (and, in a sense, believe) virtually everything they find online, with very few guardrails. The information can get divorced from its original source, context, & rebuttals or retractions. That's a really big problem

Shortly after this picture was taken, we just removed the whole board. People were still optimistic it would only be two weeks.

Six years of hell for me, and much as COVID is a global trauma, there are very different experiences involved.

In 1983, Ruth Schwartz Cowan published a book called More Work for Mother where she argued that modern household tech (washing machines/vacuums) didn't reduce women's housework time, it just raised standards of domesticity. Household work is never shortened by tech & you can extrapolate that out.

Stop 👏 having 👏 unrealistic 👏 body 👏 standards 👏 for 👏 camels 👏

A bright red cardinal sits on top of the Sideview mirror of a car

The Cardinal jumps down to look at himself in the mirror

The cardinal begins furiously attacking his reflection in the mirror

“Look at that bird”

A Play In Three Acts

"Not bored and unreasonably pleased" is some of my favorite kind of media.

Pedantry is one of my least favorite attributes.

I think there's a neurodivergent factor here that comes in, but if the spirit of a message is there and you are choosing to ignore it so that you can correct a small point where it's obvious a person misspoke, you are not a helper.