#generative-ai-for-academics — Public Fediverse posts

The visibility of academics will be shaped through LLMs as much as social media in future

This observation by the tech journalist Casey Newton got me thinking about how LLMs are increasingly shaping the visibility of academics:

Thinking models have gotten surprisingly good at identifying potential sources — potentially academic ones. When writing about Grok last month, I wanted to talk to someone who had studied relationships between people and chatbots. ChatGPT led me to Harvard’s Center for Digital Thriving, and suggested someone to talk to, along with their email address. I wound up interviewing them for the piece. The fact that thinking models can quickly analyze the academic literature about any subject and identify prominent researchers on the subject, along with their email addresses and phone numbers, is beginning to save me a lot of Googling.

I realised early on that I was more visible in model responses (ChatGPT and Claude) than other academics of a comparable age, career stage and influence* which I assumed was because 6000 blog posts hosted on wordpress.com were gobbled up in training. It could talk at greater length, with more accuracy, about my work then it could about other academics because my online visibility translated into model visibility.

I suspect this also means I’m more prone to being suggested by the model for a topical discussion in the way that Casey points to when looking for experts to interview, though I’m unsure how to go about establishing this. The value of a long term blog also means that I figure prominently as a source for ChatGPT and software like Perplexity. Interestingly, I don’t recall ever seeing a single referral from Claude. In the last year I’ve had more referrals to this blog from ChatGPT than I have from Facebook or Bluesky, though interestingly LinkedIn drives more traffic.

In other words there’s a complex relationship between online visibility and model visibility. Given that online visibility is the key driver which led social media to be institutionalised into higher education in the UK, this is very significant for academic careers even if it takes a long time for it to consolidate into a widely recognised incentive structure.

What other factors lead to increased model visibility? Ultimately this is a matter of visibility within the training data, but the patterns of visibility produced by this are challenging to conceptualise. What are the positive and negative outcomes of increased model visibility? Casey illustrates one in terms of visibility to journalists but there are many others.

*I did this in a very impressionistic way but it would be interesting to do this as a robust quantitative exercise.

#CaseyNewton #GenerativeAIForAcademics #higherEducation #SocialMedia #socialMediaForAcademics #trainingData #visibility #wordpress

Webinar: Is it possible for academics to use LLMs in a responsible and ethical way?

The emergence of ChatGPT and other generative AI tools presents both opportunities and challenges for academia. While these technologies offer powerful capabilities to support scholarship, their thoughtless adoption could undermine the very foundations of academic work. This talk introduces a framework for incorporating generative AI into academic practice in ways that enhance rather than replace human thought. Drawing on extensive practical experience, it demonstrates how conversational agents can serve as intellectual interlocutors rather than mere productivity tools, while examining the broader implications of these developments for the future of universities. There is an urgent need to establish what constitutes responsible and ethical use of LLMs for academics, which means taking seriously the argument that this might not be possible.

Register here: https://digitalsociety.mmu.ac.uk/event/ai-literacies-public-launch/

#GenerativeAIForAcademics

🖥️ Are you running a reading group on Generative AI for Academics?

I’m joining an online reading group in Sweden tomorrow who have been reading Generative AI for Academics together over recent weeks.

If you’re doing something similar, I’d be happy to come and discuss the book with you – just get in touch here.

#GenerativeAIForAcademics #markCarrigan #readingGroup

Webinar: Thinking with Machines: How Academics Can Use Generative AI Thoughtfully and Ethically

DARIAH Friday Frontiers seminar series
Friday 2nd May, 4pm IST / 5pm CEST / 6pm EEST

Title: Thinking With Machines: How Academics Can Use Generative AI Thoughtfully and Ethically

Speaker: Mark Carrigan, University of Manchester

Registration: https://dariah.zoom.us/…/register/xbJkSexDQuq_0asz4rMdZg

Abstract

The emergence of ChatGPT and other generative AI tools presents both opportunities and challenges for academia. While these technologies offer powerful capabilities to support scholarship, their thoughtless adoption could undermine the very foundations of academic work. This talk introduces a framework for incorporating generative AI into academic practice in ways that enhance rather than replace human thought. Drawing on extensive practical experience, it demonstrates how conversational agents can serve as intellectual interlocutors rather than mere productivity tools, while examining the broader implications of these developments for the future of universities.

Speaker Biography

Dr Mark Carrigan FRSA FHEA is a Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Manchester where he is programme director for the MA Digital Technologies, Communication and Education (DTCE) and co-lead of the DTCE Research and Scholarship group. Trained as a philosopher and sociologist, his research aims to bridge fundamental questions of social ontology with practical and policy interventions to support the effective use of emerging technologies within education. He has written or edited eight books, including Social Media for Academics, published by Sage and now in its second edition. His latest book ‘Generative AI for Academics’ was released by Sage in December 2024. He jointly coordinates the Critical Realism Network while being active in the Centre for Social Ontology and a trustee of the Centre for Critical Realism. He is a board member for a range of publications, including Civic Sociology, the Journal of Digital Social Research and Globalisation, Societies and Education.

#generativeAI #GenerativeAIForAcademics