Professors from across the country have long been lured to Florida’s public colleges and universities, with the educators attracted to the research opportunities, student bodies, and the warm weather.
But for a swath of liberal-leaning professors, many of them holding highly coveted tenured positions, they’ve felt increasingly out of place in the Sunshine State. And some of them are pointing to the conservative administration of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis as the reason for their departures, according to The New York Times.
DeSantis, who was elected to the governorship in 2018 and was easily reelected last fall, has over the course of his tenure worked to put a conservative imprint on a state where moderation was once a driving force in state politics. In recent years, DeSantis has railed against the current process by which tenure is awarded, and with a largely compliant GOP-controlled legislature, he’s imposed conservative education reforms across the state.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, but it’s good to remember that the “public square” is vast. Poisoning it isn’t going to be as simple as poisoning 4chan.
Also, on the topic of AI, what if their information-gathering improves over time, too? Sure, there will be bad versions, but there are already bad human actors, and we’ve mostly learned how to identify and fact check them.
I think your scenario is certainly reasonable, but I don’t think it’s the only option, either. Plus, I’ve already seen people saying things like, “That sounds like an AI wrote it.” Current and future generations may simply learn to detect AI and take any claims skeptically.
Either way, hard to say what the future holds with any real accuracy.
Well there’s one Facebook, there’s one Twitter/X, there’s one Reddit (or two if you want to count Lemmy), etc. Not as vast as you might think.
Bots are very fast and inexpensive to use and can be done multiplicatively very easily.
I hope you’re right, but I don’t have your confidence in the future that you seem to do.