AI & UHI

We all know the connection between AI, energy use, and global warming. But there is another angle: local heating, in-essence a version of the well-understood UHI. More here:

• AI Data Centers Release Heat, Posing New Problems for Cities
• Sailor et al. (2026): Data Center Waste Heat as an Emerging Urban Thermal Hazard: First Field Measurements of Neighborhood-Scale Air Temperature Impacts 

AI & Data Viz

Or, to make it simpler: Making charts with AI (as opposed doing it yourself with MS Excel). Good stuff here from the folks at Storytelling With Data: https://www.storytellingwithdata.com/ai-data-storytelling

Lean & AI

Lean is the hip thing in math these days, especially in connection with AI. That's all I know, but here's more: ‘It is incredible’: How AI is transforming mathematics

Slop Tells & LLM Cliche Highlighter

Worried that your reports, slides, talks, etc. sound 'too AI' because you used too much AI to make them? Well, now you can use more AI tools to make your work sound 'less AI'. Great.

• Worried your writing sounds like AI? These tools can help
• Slop Tells
• LLM Cliche Highlighter

This reminds me a little of the good old EduBabble Generator & EduBabble Bingo.

AI & Data Viz

How can we use AI as a collaborator for data viz? The folks over at SWD have a nice selection of videos and practical tutorials on how to collaborate with AI in the data viz / data storytelling process: https://www.storytellingwithdata.com/ai-data-storytelling

Ellis: Your Trusted & Experienced Teacher Colleague

This is pretty cool: imagine you have 24/7/365 access to a very experienced colleague who is also up-to-date with the latest research and best-practices when it comes to learning differences and mental health. Well, Ellis is supposed to be just that & (of course) is powered by AI.

• Ellis: Your On-Demand Classroom Companion
• Ellis Product Walkthrough 2026 (YouTube)
• https://www.askellis.org/

It's difficult to imagine that this could work...but a) it may be better than nothing and could b) be useful in Higher Education where the teachers (= professors) usually have little or no training or experience with such issues.

Ethics in GIS

Interesting read: Enlisting AI to Mainstream Ethics in Spatial Data Science Education

Here's a new-to-me term: Ethics Across the Curriculum or EAC - the idea that ethics should be woven throught the entire curriculum from beginning to end. Here are some resources:

• The Guide to the Geographic Approach  contains 15 open-access modules & some of those include ethical issues and questions.
• Now there is GISEthics.org and its collectiom of 21 case studies.

What to do in-practice? Three things: 1) use a formal case study analysis, 2) use a disucssion forum prompt, and 3) include an ethics-related learning objective. How you may ask? Try the AI-based Ethics Case Study and Discussion Prompt Creator and create yourself a case study that aligns with your course content, a customized discussion forum prompt. and even your learning objective for the course syllabus.

Here's a complete case study from Claudi.ai: When the Map Has a Memory

ChatGPT Images 2.0

I have not tested it, but apparently ChatGPT Images 2.0 can basically create a complete research poster for you. Not sure how this would work in-practice for anything that includes 'original' research, but it should work fine for the classic student literature-review poster.

Social Media For AI Agents

This is brilliant & scary at the same time: imagine AI agents 'chatting' with each other via social media using a Reddit-style interface. Moltbook seems to be that.

Then there is Agent4Science = a social network for AI scientists. Read more about it here.

Now we need more AIs to analyze these interactions & see if we can learn if/how AI agents change over time. This will also generate vast amounts of new potential training data for the AIs themselves much the same way that human Reddit & Facebook threads are used as AI training data.

Urban AI

Interesting article: Datacenters as core infrastructure of urban AI

He basically argues that the so-called 'cloud' comes with serious environmental impacts and externalities. Sure, we all want smart cities (aka data-driven urbanism) managed by Urban AIand love to talk about the cool edge-computing devices, but there is a hidden infrastructure (often in the suburbs & beyond) that make all this possible and that raises serious questions related to ownership. governance, and operation.

Here, physical distance or proximity often becomes irrelevant and with that many of our existing regulatory system fail.

Cloud providers want a) cheap electricity, b) low taxes, c) lax regulations, and d) proximity to high-speed connecticity. Thus, clusters develop along metropolitan corridors and once again regions farther away are left behind. Furthermore, AI providers obviously prefer to serve profitable sectors of the economy as opposed to common good public functions.

For cities this also means an increasing dependence on a small number of vendors who control the infrastructure & access to it. We are 'locked-into' whatever we choose.

In summary: Urban AI or any AI for that matter means infrastructure & calling it 'the cloud' hides the fact that this infrastructure and access to it creates power & privilege.

AI & Jobs: Vulnerability

Saw this on Flowing Data: Jobs vulnerable to AI. This links to Measuring US workers’ capacity to adapt to AI-driven job displacement where the authors 'mapped' job vulnerability as a function of a) exposure andb) adaptability.

AI: The Good & The Bad

So many nuances to AI - here's a compilation of resources:

• Cheap AI chatbots transform medical diagnoses in places with limited care
• xxx

Data Center Infrastructure in the United States (2025)

The map of Data Center Infrastructure in the United States, 2025 is just that: a classic 'static' map.

Letters From The Earth

Cool project & something that I have been thinking about: sure, we have plenty of data & facts, but now can those be made a) meaningful to b) promote reasonable actions?

Letters From The Earth uses AI to translate 'boring' data into expressive text = If the Earth could describe its own day using the same signals we collect about it, what would it say?

Their Core Hypothesis: Data contains expressive qualities beyond analytics, and AI can translate those qualities into new modalities that invite more people to participate in understanding and meaning.

Napkin.ai

From the website: "Napkin turns your text into visuals so sharing your ideas is quick and effective." Sounds interesting and there is a free version.

Try it here: https://www.napkin.ai/

The Top-20 Programming Languages

Here's the latest TIOBE index: https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/

• Learn Python, it's that simple!
• Or, one of the many versions of C!
• Don't bother with any of the other!

ChatGPT Edu

This - or something like that - is what we need at Westfield State University:

• AI Tools @ CSU
• ChatGPT Edu @ CSUN

AI chatbots can effectively sway voters – in either direction

AI chatbots can effectively sway voters – in either direction & that sounds scary. The article in Nature is better, but behind a paywall: AI chatbots can sway voters with remarkable ease — is it time to worry?

And why are we surprised? An engaging back-and-forth conversation with a nice 'person' that can synthesize a lot of information in conversational way has always been a great way to learn and maybe change your mind. The challange was scaling this.

How can we leverage this for teaching & learning? If chatbots are so effective, why are we not using them in-class or as homework assignments: Have a 10-minute chatbot chat about Topic X & synthesize the main points handwritten on this piece of paper.

Urban Mobility: CAVs

Good article here about how CAVs (connected autonmous vehicles) can be integrated into new urban mobility systems within 'smart' cities. Yes, a lot of techo buzzwords here, but worth a read.

The Future of GIS?

Well, it was just a matter of time!

• The Web Mapper (powered by AI)
• The Map Doctor (powered by AI)