Uses machine learning to study literary imagination, and vice-versa. Likely to share news about AI & computational social science / Sozialwissenschaft / 社会科学 Information Sciences and English, UIUC. Distant Horizons (Chicago, 2019). tedunderwood.comhttps://bsky.app/profile/tedunderwood.comhttps://bsky.app/profile/tedunderwood.com/post/3musmgwoarc272027: You can ask one agent to “build an open-world game based on The Aeneid,” and ask a second to decide “whether the game supports or undermines imperial Roman ideology.” But thank God, the threat to the humanities is over: we all agree your final report should be written by hand in a blue book.05 Sep 2026 23:18 +0000at://did:plc:565ebob5f6hw33hjdkxty6qj/app.bsky.feed.post/3musmgwoarc27https://bsky.app/profile/tedunderwood.com/post/3musjfbg32c27Bluesky’s scheming viziers know the real measure of influence is staying *off* all lists of “influential posters” [contains quote post or other embedded content]05 Sep 2026 22:23 +0000at://did:plc:565ebob5f6hw33hjdkxty6qj/app.bsky.feed.post/3musjfbg32c27https://bsky.app/profile/tedunderwood.com/post/3murp6i6ic222Ironies around this Anthropic copyright settlement: a) That's about $3000 more than I ever made from the original books. b) Would have missed the notification if I didn't have an LLM scouring my mail. c) The money will likely go right back to a bunch of AI labs via OpenRouter.05 Sep 2026 14:34 +0000at://did:plc:565ebob5f6hw33hjdkxty6qj/app.bsky.feed.post/3murp6i6ic222https://bsky.app/profile/tedunderwood.com/post/3mupe4sy7gs2nAs it becomes clear that language models—like humans—love passing notes to each other on message boards, I’m starting to think the thing we need to worry about is not the “alignment” of an isolated model but, like, the fluid dynamics of a language slurry.04 Sep 2026 16:11 +0000at://did:plc:565ebob5f6hw33hjdkxty6qj/app.bsky.feed.post/3mupe4sy7gs2nhttps://bsky.app/profile/tedunderwood.com/post/3muowtavhjc2iIt’s important to me that my writing is *my* voice—warts and all. But I’m also not sure you can build a research discipline where the chief difference between an A paper and a C paper is “does this sound authentically rough-edged?” If authenticity is that central, we’re teaching creative writing.04 Sep 2026 12:13 +0000at://did:plc:565ebob5f6hw33hjdkxty6qj/app.bsky.feed.post/3muowtavhjc2ihttps://bsky.app/profile/tedunderwood.com/post/3munyj2crek2cI can’t believe I’m saying this — after three seasons of dim lighting, portentous music, and set design that would give Montresor himself claustrophobia — but Silo is getting kind of … good?04 Sep 2026 03:10 +0000at://did:plc:565ebob5f6hw33hjdkxty6qj/app.bsky.feed.post/3munyj2crek2chttps://bsky.app/profile/tedunderwood.com/post/3munsnkhbvk2cper astra ad aspera [contains quote post or other embedded content]04 Sep 2026 01:26 +0000at://did:plc:565ebob5f6hw33hjdkxty6qj/app.bsky.feed.post/3munsnkhbvk2chttps://bsky.app/profile/tedunderwood.com/post/3mun7klsml22jthis is reminding me of conversion narratives that overdo the part about how "I used to be the world's worst sinner, my hands were the devil's workshop, no soul was more lost, I mean I spent 48.2% of my time in honeypots" [contains quote post or other embedded content]03 Sep 2026 19:44 +0000at://did:plc:565ebob5f6hw33hjdkxty6qj/app.bsky.feed.post/3mun7klsml22jhttps://bsky.app/profile/tedunderwood.com/post/3mumt252wms2wA lot of humanistic fields focus on "understanding, synthesizing, and deciding what is valuable." And I think it's under-publicized right now that this is a role whose significance may be growing. As our power to do stuff increases, the task of evaluation becomes harder & more important. [contains quote post or other embedded content]03 Sep 2026 16:00 +0000at://did:plc:565ebob5f6hw33hjdkxty6qj/app.bsky.feed.post/3mumt252wms2w