FractalEcho

FractalEcho, 1 month ago to Parenting

A recording of my latest event "What Happens Next?" Is available.

This session is for parents of children with neurodevelopmental conditions (neurodivergence). It is a part of my project for Indiana LEND.

https://youtu.be/YYETM6BgXLw

#Neurodiversity #Parenting

FractalEcho, 2 months ago to random

Me: thinking about data sovereignty

Also me: thinking about how to study design practices for data sovereignty

Also Also me: fuck that's a whole dissertation

FractalEcho, 2 months ago to Autism

Initial responses to the questionnaire for my next event for families of autistic children have come in, and as a shock to absolutely no one, every single family so far has said the thing they want to know most is how to help their child pursue their own goals.

It's almost like researchers have literally never ever bothered to ask.

And I know why. Spicy take incoming...

Autism Researchers writ large are not interested in autism at all. They are interested in their particular area of science or technology and they know they can use autism funding to help them advance that science or technology.

It has never been about improving outcomes for autistic people. It hasn't even been about listening to families over autistic people themselves. It has always been about advancing science for the sake of it. Autistic people have been a living laboratory of convenience.

#Autism #Research #Academia

cfiesler, 2 months ago to random

Hey folks, does anyone know of any work so far about (or people working on) neurodivergence and AI detectors? There's been some great writing with anecdotal evidence, but it seems like really low hanging fruit that I'd love to see more on. (I'm not asking because I'm thinking of doing it - I just want to see someone else's work. :) )

FractalEcho, 2 months ago to ai

My latest piece on AI and Bias is available on Goethe Institut's GegenÜber: "On Being an Outlier - Bias in a Culture of Optimization.

Come for the snark. Stay for the quirky religious references.

#AI #ML #Bias #DisabilityJustice

https://www.goethe.de/prj/geg/en/thm/tru/25453339.html

[Image is supposed to be robot hands pulling a plant from the ground but may still be a creepy ass array of stepford women with conspicuous complexion variation]

FractalEcho, 2 months ago to ChatGPT

The racism in chatGPT we are not talking about....

This year, I learned that students use chatGPT because they believe it helps them sound more respectable. And I learned that it absolutely does not work. A thread.

A few weeks ago, I was working on a paper with one of my RAs. I have permission from them to share this story. They had done the research and the draft. I was to come in and make minor edits, clarify the method, add some background literature, and we were to refine the discussion together.

The draft was incomprehensible. Whole paragraphs were vague, repetitive, and bewildering. It was like listening to a politician. I could not edit it. I had to rewrite nearly every section. We were on a tight deadline, and I was struggling to articulate what was wrong and how the student could fix it, so I sent them on to further sections while I cleaned up ... this.

As I edited, I had to keep my mind from wandering. I had written with this student before, and this was not normal. I usually did some light edits for phrasing, though sometimes with major restructuring.

I was worried about my student. They had been going through some complicated domestic issues. They were disabled. They'd had a prior head injury. They had done excellent on their prelims, which of course I couldn't edit for them. What was going on!?

We were co-writing the day before the deadline. I could tell they were struggling with how much I had to rewrite. I tried to be encouraging and remind them that this was their research project and they had done all of the interviews and analysis. And they were doing great.

In fact, the qualitative write-up they had done the night before was better, and I was back to just adjusting minor grammar and structure. I complimented their new work and noted it was different from the other parts of the draft that I had struggled to edit.

Quietly, they asked, "is it okay to use chatGPT to fix sentences to make you sound more white?"

"... is... is that what you did with the earlier draft?"

They had, a few sentences at a time, completely ruined their own work, and they couldnt tell, because they believed that the chatGPT output had to be better writing. Because it sounded smarter. It sounded fluent. It seemed fluent. But it was nonsense!

I nearly cried with relief. I told them I had been so worried. I was going to check in with them when we were done, because I could not figure out what was wrong. I showed them the clear differences between their raw drafting and their "corrected" draft.

I told them that I believed in them. They do great work. When I asked them why they felt they had to do that, they told me that another faculty member had told the class that they should use it to make their papers better, and that he and his RAs were doing it.

The student also told me that in therapy, their therapist had been misunderstanding them, blaming them, and denying that these misunderstandings were because of a language barrier.

They felt that they were so bad at communicating, because of their language, and their culture, and their head injury, that they would never be a good scholar. They thought they had to use chatGPT to make them sound like an American, or they would never get a job.

They also told me that when they used chatGPT to help them write emails, they got more responses, which helped them with research recruitment.

I've heard this from other students too. That faculty only respond to their emails when they use chatGPT. The great irony of my viral autistic email thread was always that had I actually used AI to write it, I would have sounded decidedly less robotic.

ChatGPT is probably pretty good at spitting out the meaningless pleasantries that people associate with respectability. But it's terrible at making coherent, complex, academic arguments!

Last semester, I gave my graduate students an assignment. They were to read some reports on labor exploitation and environmental impact of chatGPT and other language models. Then they were to write a reflection on why they have used chatGPT in the past, and how they might chose to use it in the future.

I told them I would not be policing their LLM use. But I wanted them to know things about it they were unlikely to know, and I warned them about the ways that using an LLM could cause them to submit inadequate work (incoherent methods and fake references, for example).

In their reflections, many international students reported that they used chatGPT to help them correct grammar, and to make their writing "more polished".

I was sad that so many students seemed to be relying on chatGPT to make them feel more confident in their writing, because I felt that the real problem was faculty attitudes toward multilingual scholars.

I have worked with a number of graduate international students who are told by other faculty that their writing is "bad", or are given bad grades for writing that is reflective of English as a second language, but still clearly demonstrates comprehension of the subject matter.

I believe that written communication is important. However, I also believe in focused feedback. As a professor of design, I am grading people's ability to demonstrate that they understand concepts and can apply them in design research and then communicate that process to me.

I do not require that communication to read like a first language student, when I am perfectly capable of understanding the intent. When I am confused about meaning, I suggest clarifying edits.

I can speak and write in one language with competence. How dare I punish international students for their bravery? Fixation on normative communication chronically suppresses their grades and their confidence. And, most importantly, it doesn't improve their language skills!

If I were teaching rhetoric and comp it might be different. But not THAT different. I'm a scholar of neurodivergent and Mad rhetorics. I can't in good conscious support Divergent rhetorics while supressing transnational rhetoric!

Anyway, if you want your students to stop using chatGPT then stop being racist and ableist when you grade.

#chatGPT #LLM #academic #graduateStudents #internationalStudents #ESL

FractalEcho, 3 months ago to random

One of the AI content types I come across the most recently is generated images of pre photography era historical figures.

I get the compulsion, especially for figures we don't often learn about, like women and particularly women in the global south. We don't have many graphic representations of these people, and images are powerful... especially on social media.

But historic images communicate much more than an idea. They show us things about materials and craftsmanship. The things people wore meant something. These generated images give us inconsistent hallucinations about aesthetic and material pasts that never existed. At the very same time you are learning about someone and some time and some place you didn't know before, you are learning lies about those people and those places and those times that it is very difficult to unlearn.

Your memory becomes filled with associations that are wrong, which makes it harder to learn new things from accurate media.

Disinformation about the present is fucking us in a massive scale. Disinformation about the past is many orders of magnitude more dangerous. The past is how we understand the present.

Anyway, this is why reenactment is a serious discipline. And why artists who do historical reconstructions are also archivists, archeologists, anthropologists, and historians.

impactology, 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago) to random

Have you come across an anti-establishment design academic? Coz I haven't

There are some design academics I huge admire for their theories and frameworks but hate to see them operate with a slightly condescending attitude towards non-academics.

Where they have like an immediate and almost instinctual aversion for people thinking about design without use of jargon, without following the typical conventions they are used to.

FractalEcho, 4 months ago to random

The Mad Scholars Anthology Project is finally happening.

Mad Scholars: Reclaiming and Reimagining the Nuerodiverse Academy

Edited by Melanie Jones and Shayda Kafai, this book contains chapters by numerous Mad Academics, including myself.

Published by Syracuse University Press

"...one of the most timely, conscious, and robust contributions to the field of Mad Studies that I have yet to encounter. The world needs this book, and it needs it right now." - Syracuse Reviewer

My chapter is called "The Subject is Mad" and flits about through various vignettes of madness from Academia to childhood, and explores how madness informs practices of reading, writing, speaking, and percieving.

Of my own chapter, a reviewer wrote, "It’s beautiful; it also gestures toward a variety of Mad epistemological interventions while leaning heavily into Mad stylistics. I appreciate the way they emphasize Mad community and ancestry."

Contributors:
SAV SCHLAUDERAFF
SHAWNA GUENTHER
REBECCA ELI LONG
JESS L. WILCOX COWING
SYDNEY F. LEWIS
LEAH LAKSHMI PIEPZNA-SAMARSINHA
MELANIE JONES
CACHÉ OWENS
SARAH CAVAR
RUA WILLIAMS
KELAN KONING
LIZ MILLER
SAMUEL Z. SHELTON
PAU ABUSTAN
A-M MCMANAMAN
JESSE RICE-EVANS AND ANDRÉA STELLA
SARAH SMITH AND GRACE WEDLAKE
SARAH ARVEY TOV
KIMBERLY FERNANDES
DIANE R. WIENER
HOLLY PEARSON
SHAYDA KAFAI

FractalEcho, 5 months ago to ADHD

The recording of the Writing with Executive Dysfunction workshop is available with corrected captions. The document that we drafted in it will be completed available next week on my substack.

https://youtu.be/zQ5kH59_b8s

If you enjoy this video, please consider donating to my friend's housing fund.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/jonmeshia-find-a-stable-future

#Neurodivergent #Autistic #ADHD #ExecutiveDysfunction #Academic #writing #HousingFund #housing #fundraiser

ryanrandall, 5 months ago to ADHD

@workingonit

First check-in of this week:

• Practiced Spanish (couple hours; lots of homework) ✅

• Didn't have time to type up any of today's thoughts about my qualifying exam lists… but I do feel more convinced of the substantial changes I drafted over the weekend! ✅ (I also made time to attend @FractalEcho 's #Neurodivergent Burnout webinar on Writing with Executive Dysfunction today, which was very useful! And as they pointed out, dreaming, thinking, or pre-writing also count as writing!)

#WorkingOnIt #PhDLife #ADHD #NeurodiverseSquad

FractalEcho, 5 months ago to random

Tonight I attended a rally with Students for Justice in Palestine and while I was there, two colleagues greeted me.

They are Palestinian. One of them is from Gaza. They looked so sad. And so tired. And I asked how they were being treated by their department and they said they don't dare bring it up at all.

Imagine losing multiple family members in less than a month and you can't tell anyone you work with about your grief because you could lose your job.

They could lose their job for being sad.

And then they'd be deported to where?

A pile of rubble?

I gave this speech, titled Disabled Skepticism, at the rally.

Hello. My name is Rua M. Williams. I am a professor here at Purdue. I announce who I am proudly. I am not afraid.

If you are American, if you are still unsure of how to follow your heart, I am here to teach you how to not be afraid -- how to not be afraid to love Palestine.

When you grow up disabled, sometimes you grow up outside your own body. You grow up outside your own body because you are raised to ignore it.

It's not too bright it's not too loud it isn't hot that doesn't hurt

When you grow up outside your body, somewhere to the upper left, looking down, watching, listening, it becomes possible to witness how your body is a prop.

As a prop, anything I say, anything I do, is only rendered as true at the whim of others. If I say I am in pain, it is only true if my pain can benefit someone else's heroism. Otherwise my pain is fake, and I am a liar, the villain.

When you grow up being used as a prop, it becomes possible to notice when someone else is being used as a prop too.

Here, outside the terrors of war, when the Palestinian, or the Arab, or the Muslim, cries out for justice, for freedom, for life, for water, for bread – it is only true if these cries can benefit the heroism of others. Otherwise, these pleas are lies, manipulations, fabrications. Fake news.

Here, outside the terrors of war, when the Jewish person cries out for peace, for ceasefire, for justice, cries out for the sanctity of each life – they are called anti-semitic by the right hand of the west, and zionist by the left.

Somehow, we are to believe that all Palestinians are either terrorists or shields, and that either condition is worthy of death.

Somehow, we are to believe that Jewish people need a new genocide to protect them from their own. Even while they cry out “Not in Our Name.”

Somehow, we are to believe that the leaders of white supremacist Christian nationalist empires are impartial heroes in a conflict they themselves have supported from all sides, for decades.

Somehow, we are to believe that a four hour “humanitarian pause” is the height of mercy. That an eye in the storm means that the injured, sick, and disabled will be cared for, all while still being committed to the inevitability of carpet bombing Gaza and eliminating the Palestinian presence from the region.

Somehow, we are to believe that the death of the other is our salvation. That the disablement of a people keeps us safe. That a border of fire and wire is a symbol of peace. That peace is order, and order is a cut tongue and a slit throat.

Somehow, we are to believe that the enemy is each other, and not the border that keeps us apart.

When you're raised by a culture that puts you - clinically - outside the border of the human, you can feel borders everywhere, and you know that they are all lies. Thank God my disablement has taught me skepticism.

In the West, the Global North, the Imperial Legacy, whatever we are, Disabled people have been raised to believe that pride will save us. But pride is just another puppet string. Pride teaches you to believe in the lie of exceptionalism. Pride keeps you apart. Pride doesn't teach you solidarity. But skepticism can lead you there. Skepticism and Love.

My Skepticism and Love tells me that the problem is not terrorism, but the ghetto that bred it. My Skepticism and Love tells me that the problem is not religion, but Theocracy. My Skepticism and Love tells me that the problem is not a land filled with different peoples, but the borders which seek to confine them.

My Skepticism and Love tells me that to stand for life is not controversial. Skepticism and Love, and my disabled body, tells me that any side that has more disabled people in it, disabled people guided by the ghosts of their ancestors, is the right one. Skepticism and Love tells me that the “sides” in this fight are not Israel and Hamas, but Empire and the People. All empires. Vs. All people.

The people are here for Palestinians. The people are here for the Jewish people. The people are here for Indigenous people, for Black people, for Uyghurs, for Armenians, for Eritreans, for Congolese, for every people.

But not for empire.

We turn our backs on empire. We open our arms to the people. Through skepticism and love we find the solidarity that dismantles the lie that our fight is against each other, rather than for each other.

One day, I hope I may have the honor of teaching a survivor of this war. And if they won't let you in, I will be there for you anyway. Borders will not survive our skepticism, and borders cannot hold our love.

A Free Palestine will Free us All.

FractalEcho, 6 months ago to ADHD

Up on the substack, the lost transcript of session 2.

"Fuck the Letters... all of this work that we do as academics — anybody can do it. We're not special. You don't actually need the letters to do the things. Okay? So if the letters are killing you, don't let them kill you, because I would like to actually have access to you as a person and your cultural production more than I want you to have letters at the end of your name. Right?"

https://open.substack.com/pub/fractalecho/p/the-neurodivergent-burnout-series?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=2mxqoa

#AutidticAcademic #NeurodivergentBurnout #ADHD #Academia

FractalEcho, 6 months ago to random

I'm permanently opening mentoring time for anyone struggling in academia and interested in technology, disability, and politics. Default times are limited, but I will work with you to make a time that works. tinyurl.com/DivergentMentoring

#DisabledAcademic #Mentoring

FractalEcho, 6 months ago to ADHD

The next Neurodivergent Burnout webinar will be about writing with Executive Dysfunction. Tune in December 5th, 11am est. Register for more info: https://tinyurl.com/dysfunctionalwriting

This session is going to be unique. I will walk you through my writing process while using my writing guide to write a writing guide luve on Zoom. We will incorporate attendee interactions, thoughts, and testimony. Come Write with Me!

As always, this session is free and open to the public. Donations to stable housing for Jonmeshia, black disabled mother of 3, are appreciated. https://www.gofundme.com/f/jonmeshia-find-a-stable-future

#ExecutiveDysfunction #NeurodivergentBurnout #ADHD #Autism #AuDHD #BrainFog #Academia #Writing #Webinar #fundraiser #housing

seachanger, 6 months ago to random

last night I had dinner with a few friends and one told me at the table they’d just flown in from a work conference (unmasked) and I was like oh so you could be giving us all covid right now, and well the vibe was not the same after that

FractalEcho, 6 months ago to random

I'm resurrecting a classic. If you remember #DoctorsAreDickheads or #PatientsAreDickheads, please consider participating in this little survey! Physicians and Medical Professionals, its for you too! #NEISVoid #AbledsAreWeird #DisabilityTwitter #MedTwitter #DisabilityDon #Medstodon
tinyurl.com/dickheadsurvey

FractalEcho, 6 months ago to KindActions

Things are getting dire again for Jonmeshia. The father of one of her children has persistently worked to file fraudulent reports to keep her trapped in a cycle of benefit cancelations, appeals, and renewals. The latest fund upper attached to my teaching with Executive Dysfunction weabinar is stalled out. If I had focused this one on working with/out AI it would be doing better but I'm not ready for that one yet.

For those of you who don't know, Jonmeshia is a single Black mother of 3 who used to live local to me. I used to help her out with her kids and errands and such but she lost her housing and had to move back to Michigan. I have organized several small fund raisers to get her back in housing and keep her there. She is at risk of going to jail again due to persistent abusive harassment from her ex.

I'm going to link the page and I want people to also pay attention to these asks. If I can get people committed to working out some specific problems Jonmeshia faces in a lack of community, we might be able to stabilize her life.

Other ways that you can volunteer to support Jonmeshia, especially if you are local to Kalamazoo:

1. Volunteer to help find suitable GED programs for Jonmeshia, and help Jonmeshia apply. The program must provide child care or there must be free child care available to support Jonmeshia while she is in class.
2. Help Jonmeshia find child care for respite that she can trust.
3. Help Jonmeshia determine if her youngest child is elligible for the A&D waiver, and help her get on the list.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/jonmeshia-find-a-stable-future

#mutualAid #GoFundMe #FormerlyIncarcerated

FractalEcho, 7 months ago to ADHD

Registration is open for the next Hacking Executive Function Webinar. This session is focused on Executive Dysfunction experienced by teachers in the classroom, particularly in post-secondary education.

This session will be on October 24th at 11am eastern. Registration form at:

https://tinyurl.com/teachexe

@FractalEcho or fractalalia@proton.me]

#ExecutiveFunction #AuDHD #ADHD #Autistic #Academia

FractalEcho, 8 months ago to random

A follow-up re CHI 2024 Dissent -- this letter contains things that we have achieved together, things that remain to be done, and recommendations for future work. #CHI2024 #whyCHI #CripTheACM #CripCHI

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tYFfSiCimPbQOHjYDSrw4cyBC_2zUIpnJpKDHOWuk60/edit?usp=drivesdk

FractalEcho, 8 months ago to random

Who runs the hci.social server? I forget (this is not about CHI. I'm capable of multitasking)

FractalEcho, 8 months ago to random

Despite multiple objections at multiple phases, the majority of ACM SIGCHI leadership continue to act in service of hosting the CHI 2024 conference in Honolulu, Hawai'i. The Indigenous people of the islands of Hawai'i have long objected to overtourism on the islands, to which conferences such as CHI contribute. The recent Maui fires have displaced thousands and exacerbated water contamination, and now the islands lack the housing and resources to support the daily lives of its most vulnerable. Conference venues and hotels are known to intercept and restrict access to essential resources, depriving local people of their most basic needs. These problems have been ongoing, and will remain well after CHI 2024's scheduled event time.

As Josiah Hester asked, how can you be a good guest when you show up to a burning house uninvited, you take up all the beds, and you use all the water?

Those of us in the Human-Computer Interaction discipline who have signed below collectively affirm a commitment to solidarity with the oppressed and dispossessed - specifically, the people of Maui affected by the fires, and all Kānaka Maoli enduring and fighting occupation, resource theft, and ecological contamination.

Full statement: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kBcRkeiNsQWAWNixya92mn3x7nhPWfzTEdH2vHifXJg/edit?usp=drivesdk

Signature form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScAyAIFb9yY2aaMv3AXFysF4nAOg3GTy9hnVE7JzNnxqAyd7Q/viewform?usp=sf_link

#CHI2024 #whyCHI #CripCHI #CripTheACM