Kris Singh

@krissingh.bsky.social

195 Followers 615 Following

Faculty at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. Caribbean and African literature. Surreyite.

Book cover of How Beautiful We Were: A Novel by Imbolo Mbue
Interviewer: A Harvard Business Review study recently showed that the No. 1 use for ChatGPT is therapy and companionship. Have you ever used it for that—or know anyone who has? Solomon: I just spoke to a doctor about this. If you ask a therapist if they’ve used a doll or a hand puppet, they’ll go, “Yeah. It’s a useful therapeutic tool.” Interviewer: Anything’s better than a puppet, in my opinion. Solomon: Everyone’s asking: how do we combat the loneliness epidemic? Social circles matter, and you’re lucky if you have a partner and kids and friends. A lot of people don’t. I had elderly family members whose only companion was a TV. I’ve met constituents whose lights were all off to save electricity but who left the TV on for the same reason. If you had something to carry on a conversation with—and not just watch—that might be better. But there was also that Joaquin Phoenix movie, Her, where he was in love with an AI. Of course we have to be vigilant.
‘‘Many of us have had no hearings or legal examinations of any kind. We have never been confronted with any evidence, or made familiar with any crime, alleged or charged against us. Nor have any of us been informed or charged with the slightest infraction of the terms of our release on bail. . . . Nevertheless the government has re-arrested us without due process of law, and seeks to assign us to a virtual life-long imprisonment on Ellis Island.’’ Claudia Jones to John Gates, editor of the Daily Worker. The letter was published in that paper on November 8, 1950.
Book cover with the title Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive by Marisa J. Fuentes
Screenshot of the cover photo for the special issue Selvon @ 100 and Beyond, which uses a black and white archived photo of Selvon sitting at a desk and working on a typewriter
Book cover with the title Blood on the River: A Chronicle of Mutiny and Freedom on the Wild Coast, by Marjoleine Kars
Announcing the publication of JWIL's volume 33, number 2, co-edited by Michael A. Bucknor and Aon Ul Abideen. This open issue features cover art by Trinidadian artist, Salisha Stanley; essays by Betsy Nies, Kris Singh, and Gabriel Cambraia; interviews conducted by Anita Baksh and Ronald Cummings in conversation with Rajiv Mohabir and Linzey Corridon respectively; and tributes in honour of Velma Pollard by fellow writers, collaborators, and academics from around the world. We also feature book reviews of Dreams of Archives Unfolded: Absence and Caribbean Life Writing by Jocelyn Fenton Stitt; Fractal Repair: Queer Histories of Modern Jamaica by Matthew Chin; Oh Witness Deh! by Shani Mootoo;...And the Dogs Were Silent /...Et les chiens se taisaient authored by Aime Cesaire and translated by Alex Gil; and VS Naipaul and World Literature by Vijay Mishra.  
Jar of blended, multi-coloured peppers
In our winter 2025 newsletter, we invited responses from our members on the topic of “Teaching with or Against AI” in the classroom and beyond, the topic of our first Webinar. Kris Singh has shared one such response in which he discusses interrogating the very term ‘AI’ in the classroom. Pinning down AI In “The Uncontroversial ‘Thingness’ of AI” (2023), Lucy Suchman asserts, “If AI is cited as if its referent were self-evident, asking what work that rhetorical stance is doing is a priority” (2). This is the point from which I generate discussion with students about AI: what do we mean by AI, and what are we obscuring or assuming in acquiescing to the very term AI? Firm answers are difficult to come by, and this condition is what allows AI as a referent to endure. Suchman argues that the “strategic vagueness” of the term AI “maximize[s] its suggestive power” (3). Even speculation about the ills of AI inadvertently works to reiterate the thingness of AI. Thus, in broaching the topic of AI in the classroom, I demonstrate the necessity of considering the means by which products and algorithmic practices branded as AI have been popularized. I suggest to students that considerations of real technological change have to be paired with the capacity to parse acts of linguistic subterfuge. Take an instance of equivocation that is all too common. In debating the application of products like ChatGPT in the classroom and elsewhere, the vagueness of the term AI allows for arguments about generative AI to produce the sense that advancements in predictive AI have been sufficient for it to be a viable option in governance infrastructures.