AI computational (inference) cost can be pushed to the edge of the network

October 15, 2026
by Nicholas Knisely
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Artificial Intelligence

News today that Apple and Meta announced Muse Spark Open, which is essentially a frontier AI model (the jagged edge of AI capability) running on a local desktop computer.

As Mac Stories puts it:

Muse Spark Open is at the bleeding edge of models that can be run locally on computers that can sit on your desk and don’t need more power than can be delivered from a wall outlet.

The cost isn’t trivial, but not out of range of a small business either. Total cost of the hardware is going to comparable to a modern commercial-grade construction vehicle. (Pickup truck or Van). And owning or leasing this equipment would let you provide dedicated AI services for your small staff.

While the focus has been on the building of massive data centers, there’s a parallel revolution happening as well. I don’t think stopping data center construction will change things the way people hope. (And I’m not in favor of more data centers to be clear.)

A call to the Academy for leadership in an emerging AI moment

October 14, 2026
by Nicholas Knisely
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Artificial Intelligence / Current Affairs / Science

Flammarion detail.It is clear that we are facing the rise of a new and profoundly disruptive technology. It’s not clear if this is going to be similar to other major disruptions or if this is unique. I’m not convinced anyone is able to honestly answer that by the way.

There has been a great deal written reacting to what people perceive the challenge to be, but I’m not aware of any broad, careful, reflective scholarly engagement happening at a rate that paces the accelerating technology of the frontier labs and the ways their products are being used.

There’s a call to arms (so to speak) directed to the academic community, posted on Techdirt’s blog; “Will Universities Respond To The AI Moment?”

The conclusion sums up the main idea rather neatly:

Universities have obligations to help support the societies in which they are embedded. Novel problems and possibilities presented by this AI moment undoubtedly call for substantial assistance from our educational institutions. The call has not been answered. In fact, many of the individuals best suited to assist universities at this time of public need are leaving. The public ought to demand more–from universities, from state and federal government officials, and from AI labs.

Universities can and should change their priorities and practices to better serve their external stakeholders. Different universities will adopt different approaches. Some will be more successful than others. This letter is meant to spark conversations that lead to tangible reforms,, not to advance a single best approach.

Much more here.

And, I think the same call to action needs to be made across the religious communities of the world as well. I know that there’s the beginning of conversations happening across mainline denominations and much more broadly in Catholicism. I hope that there is broader religious conversation planned – but I’m not hearing that it is. Perhaps one of you knows?

I’m pretty sure that we don’t have the luxury of time at this moment.

Taking things seriously – even when we don’t understand what they mean

October 10, 2026
by Nicholas Knisely
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Sermons and audio

How can we make sense of Gospel lesson that if we read it closely, seems to be manifestly unfair? The parable that Jesus tells in the portion Matthew’s Gospel read this week speaks of a King, who having been humiliated by his subjects, commands that the everyday people, bystanders essentially, be marched into his feast. One person doesn’t behave as expected to this forced summons; whether by simple failure or as an act of rebellion. The King confronts the person, ejects the miscreant from the feast with a sentence of eternal punishment – a person who was forced, against their will to a Wedding Feast to which they were not initially invited.

You can read the commentaries and sense the broad and historical confusion about this lesson. Some argue that it is two loosely connected parables presented as one. Some argue that the King would have provided garments for the guests. Some just skim by this and focus on what comes next.

I think the tension, as uncomfortable as it may be, is important. It is a mistake, to my mind, to imagine that every parable has a simple and edifying meaning. The discomfort may be the point, and letting that discomfort remain within us, allows the Spirit to form a great pearl in our souls as we struggle with things we don’t easily understand.

At any rate, it’s clear that God’s invitation, and our response, are of much more importance than many of us are willing to, or want to, recognize. And sitting with that truth may be the best we can do with this right now.

You can view the sermon directly at this link.

Greed and Avarice run amok can destroy us all

October 3, 2026
by Nicholas Knisely
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Sermons and audio

I am beginning this week’s sermon post with an explanation, and then an apology.

I’ve not posted a sermon here in a few months. Originally it was because I was on vacation this past August, and then that vacation transitioned into a month of frantic activity that meant I just didn’t have time or resources to film a sermon. (House of Bishops, AI Theology Task Force, diocesan events and conferences etc.)

I had a call from our most Senior Clergy Person in the diocese wondering where I was… And as part of that call I promised to get back on the schedule.

But, here’s the apology part, this week, returning from the House of Bishops and just completing a diocesan Climate Social Justice event, I just couldn’t manage this week. I’m sorry Holy Deacon. I’ll try to work with my staff to make sure I have time next week.

But I don’t want to have nothing available, so I’m reposting the sermon from three years ago. It was a good one. (I first preached a version of it in 2008 when I was Dean of Trinity Cathedral in Phoenix.)

The subject is the Parable of the Wicked Tenants of the Vineyard. The key point is this:

“…the message we need to hear is that overreaching and trying to amass fame or wealth can be an explosively dangerous thing to do.

Do you, do people, realize how similar an attempt to grab things or status for ourselves is to what the tenants of the vineyard were trying to do, whoever they really represent in the parable? An attempt to grab for ourselves means that we are, by virtue of that act, violating the 10th Commandment, and thereby setting ourselves up for a fall.”

Here’s hoping for next week!

MIT report on AI’s impact on education – and what to do about it.

September 13, 2026
by Nicholas Knisely
Artificial Intelligence

A study at MIT has found that Generative AI tools are having a significant impact on the way students are learning. That’s not terribly surprising in of itself, but the report presents data and results that support the assertion and makes suggestions about what to do about it.

Skipping to the end of the report, in summary:

Adapt educational processes for an AI-aware world (Section 3.1)

Campus-wide and as soon as possible, review what our students need to learn. Led by instructors and departments, this “AI-aware” process will inform the design of classroom activities that are more social and experiential, and in tune with innovative assignments and assessments that provide feedback on those key student outcomes. This will also require an investigation into the nature of grades and grading.

  • Facilitate this process by providing instructors with dedicated resources (for example, additional TAs) and by adapting physical spaces for experimentation, community-building, and AI-free interaction and assessment.
  • Create “communities of practice” at MIT that allow members to share challenges and findings, as well as tools and techniques to improve teaching and learning.
  • Center people, community, and the residential experience (Section 3.2)

Reinvigorate and reclaim the residential experience based on shared experiences, transparency, and a focus on in-person activities.

  • Thoughtfully integrate AI literacy and responsible and ethical AI use as a foundation and throughline for student work, attending closely to how it connects to specific disciplines. This will demand technical proficiency, of course, but it hinges on adopting a human-centered approach to AI as an augmentative tool.
  • Build processes, teams and tools to enable continuous reflection, iteration and improvement (Section 3.3)

Establish roles, processes, and ongoing committees to address these challenges.

  • Collect feedback and data, stay apprised of research and best practices, connect with peers and learn from them.
  • Provide technical and educational support to enable all of this.
  • In addition, we identify a set of concerns about the wider impact of AI on society, jobs, the environment, and more, that also bear on our on-campus AI policy.

There’s tons more here. If you’re involved in teaching or in education (board service, classroom work, testing, etc) you need to read and digest this report. I’m active in all three areas so this is a goldmine for me. Pass it around to people who need to see it.

9/11 and the 25th Anniversary

September 11, 2026
by Nicholas Knisely
Current Affairs

Today has been heavy, hard for many of my friends; weighty for the rest of us. We’re remembering a moment when this nation changed, when the world order changed and neither for the better – at least not that we can see with the light given us today.

We took a long moment of silence and reflection in Morning Prayer as we gathered around the altar in diocesan house. We started spontaneously sharing stories; where we were, what we remembered, what the impact had been on that ominously beautiful September day 25 years ago. We remembered people we lost, friends who have never been the same, and a sense of trust in the future has not returned.

Lunch was more of the same. I sat with a group of friends outdoors, and we listened as the bells were tolled all across the city of Providence, marking the anniversary. And we started sharing memories. And there was silence, though this silence was unbidden, a response to the stories and the memories that had been evoked by the bells.

In my office, there’s a picture that was painted by a friend and former parishioner at Trinity Cathedral in Phoenix, Arizona, Vada Smith Roseberry. Vada was an artist’s artist. She had an extraordinary eye for color, shape and texture. But the things she created weren’t simply beautiful because of the technical mastery she demonstrated; they were beautiful and moving because of the emotion that she communicated in them.

Over the years she gifted my family with a number of her watercolors. (We have a for-real gallery in one of the hallways of our home filled with her art.)

But towards the end of my time in Arizona at the Cathedral and towards the end of her life, I got an unexpected phone call from her husband Gerry. Vada wanted to see me: immediately. Could I come right away?

I misunderstood what was happening and grabbed anointing oil and a stole and walked down the block as fast as I could.

When I got to her bedside, there she was, curled in on herself and smaller than I had seen her in weeks, but still filling the room with presence. She gestured toward a wall, and Gerry explained that she had decided to part with a favorite painting of hers, one that she had painted not long after the events we’re remembering today.

She and Gerry told me the story behind the painting. After the collapse of the towers and the emotional devastation that followed she was filled with a need to see “Ground Zero” in Lower Manhattan. She and Gerry had flown across the country and somehow managed to talk their way through the barriers to stand in the midst of the rescue workers who had turned St. Paul’s Chapel, an Episcopal Church that was just 100 yards away from the base of the two towers. The darkness, the dust and destruction were devastating to her. But she told me, as she explained the painting, that she found a profound message of hope there too. It was the banners that the church hung on the church gates and the flags of our nation and our church that flew above them.

What she saw in that moment became the painting above. It was a painting she had painted for herself, one that she looked at from her bed as she fought a long battle with cancer. It was a reminder for her that even when things were terrible, when there was no good and happy ending, there was still hope and courage to be found.

She found her courage in those banners. That courage helped her keep moving and living – and creating more art – in the years that she had left. And that courage is what inspires me today as I remember her story on this 25th anniversary.

Things changed that morning. They changed for the worse. Maybe we’ll get back to something like we thought of as normal before that morning, maybe not. Not all stories have happy endings. But there is always joy to be found. And courage to be shared.

May we continue to find both in our midst as we strive to be faithful to our call – both as a church and as a nation. That would be an excellent way to mark the day.

Roseberry St Pauls Chapel 1

Om Malik on the naming of Mythos

August 3, 2026
by Nicholas Knisely
Artificial Intelligence

Om Malik died recently. He was a keen observer of the tech industry, insightful and thoughtful. He was also an insider in that area; maybe that’s what gives his writing such power.

In his last published essay, on the meaning of the name “Mythos” that Anthropic has bestowed upon its best frontier model, he reflects on the ways that the company and its president Dario Amodei are using a constructive narrative to legitimize Generative AI.

The whole essay is really worth your time, but this observation in particular stood out to me.

[…]Dario has collected the two most powerful character references on the planet. The President gives temporal legitimacy. The Pope gives moral legitimacy. No other AI company has done both. That is no accident.

Augustus had the Senate and the priests. Dario had the Oval Office and the Vatican. The structure is the same. Two thousand years apart.

Plato would recognize this immediately. He spent his career distinguishing the philosopher who seeks truth from the sophist who manufactures persuasion. The sophist is not lying exactly. The sophist is selecting, sequencing, and presenting in ways that produce belief without requiring the audience to do the work. Mythos, for Plato, was the domain of poets and myth-makers. Useful for educating the young, dangerous when deployed as a substitute for rigorous argument among adults. He would look at Anthropic’s naming strategy and see sophistry wearing philosophical clothes.

That characterization of the frontier model as a form of sophistry… it feels like it points out something I’ve been missing. The model’s output, the process it uses, doesn’t denote understanding. The output is a summary or a distillation of others understanding. It masquerades as something that understands, but it doesn’t. It’s simply a very sophisticated mathematical process that guessed the next word or words in a preceding sentence.

That can be useful for some purposes, but it has profound limits – especially to those seeking truth.

Sophistry. That’s worth reflecting on at some length.

Do go and read the rest of his essay.

August Vacation

August 1, 2026
by Nicholas Knisely
Sermons and audio

Beach Roses.It’s August and that means the best part of the summer is upon us. (I’m a big fan of the latter part of summer.) I’m going to be off for much of this month, and otherwise occupied with some weekend events for the rest.

Rather than recycle some old sermons, I’m going to just ask your forbearance for the next four weeks or so.

I hope wherever you are, you’re going to get a chance to savor these days too.

Blessings!

+Nicholas

Is it possible to unlock the true meaning of the parables?

July 25, 2026
by Nicholas Knisely
Sermons and audio

I reposting my sermon from six years ago. I was thinking about what I’d say differently this time, and couldn’t think of anything…

It’s a beautiful weekend here in Southern New England. I hope, if you’re here, you’re getting out to enjoy it. (I am!) It the weekend of the Newport Folk Festival and next weekend is the Jazz Festival. It’s a good time to stay local and enjoy your neighborhood!