Is there any #sociologist around who can have a look at the account that passes around massive amounts of 'short primers' on 'easy sociology' to the @academicchatter group? Is it just AI-generated garbage or is it actually something useful?
“Symbolic interaction, a key concept within social constructionism, emphasizes the importance of symbols and gestures in social interactions. Through these symbolic exchanges, individuals negotiate shared meanings and construct their understanding of reality. For example, the meaning of a handshake may vary across different cultures, highlighting the subjective nature of cultural practices.”
@pettter@academicchatter ^^ this is just outright wrong, plain and simple. That is not what symbolic interactionism is not does it even approximate how a symbolic interactionist would describe their work. But it is precisely what an LLM might make up based on what symbolic interactionism sounds like it might be.
@cyberlyra@academicchatter Thanks! Yeah that sort of mostly-almost-but-not-exactly-right-and-occasionally-catastrophically-wrong is very much an LLM characteristic. Really great of you to have a look!
@pettter@academicchatter not sure what to do about it now, though. I mean, other than tell everyone to mute? I’m sure my students will read this site and think they know what feminism is etc. Hm.
@cyberlyra@academicchatter I've reported them to mastodon.social, and one could do the same at Facebook/Twitter if there was any chance of it having an impact...
As for getting them off the internet entirely, I think that might be a tricky one...
@pettter@academicchatter and yes “mostly-almost-but-not-exactly-right-and-occasionally-catastrophically-wrong” is a great way to describe LLM generated text. It unfortunately takes a little more time to read through to spot a gotcha moment, though.
@pettter@academicchatter I am totally unfamiliar with this phenomenon but I am happy to look it over. What is the account or is there a way to look at their toots?