Your last saved meme is your moral philosophy

your last saved meme is your moral philosophy

your last saved meme is your moral philosophy

Your last saved meme is your moral philosophy.

Your last saved meme is your moral philosophy.

Your last saved meme is your moral philosophy.

I was proud to march with hundreds of thousands in London today for Palestine and against the far-right. In the labour movement, we know an injury to one is an injury to all. And we reject the racist logic that says some lives are worth more than others ✊🇵🇸

still not quite over the fact that i watched 15 year olds get sued for millions of dollars for downloading twelve songs and now we all have to accept AI slop because every tech company in the known universe decided that IP laws don't exist now that they're inconvenient for them

this is a good thread but the best observation in it is actually not in the threads but in one of the early replies where OP talks about the board of said university and who sits on it

Look, students don't know what they don't know, and what they don't know is that A.I. Professor Wiremother can deliver their content more efficiently, at lower cost, and with more dynamic updating to prepare them for the workplaces not just of today or tomorrow but tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

It's shocking how much time is spent on bureaucratic efforts to improve student experience when what is really needed is time. Time to spend with students. Universities need to get out of their own way

oh fr

Who would have thought it?

Good luck with that! Universities are pressuring researchers to apply for grants with quotas, making it mandatory for certain grades, linking to promotion… Many also losing research support capacity. Solution: better university funding?

"Compete against each other", they said. "Oh no, not like that!" they said.

Lol this sector is SO BROKEN. We keep getting told to chase things in limited supply to remain viable by the government... and when we do, everyone goes NO NOT LIKE THAT. Like what, then, you bastards?

Every day on my commute, I find the person on the bus who’s being the rudest (blocking a seat with their bag, manspreading, being loud on their phone) and I make a point of sitting next to them even if there are other free seats. Not sure what that says about me.

Solidarity with staff at AQA - England’s largest exam board - on strike this week ✊ 💜 Staff are striking over pay after employers failed to deliver a promise for pay deals that make up for years of wages failing to keep up with living cost.

Our Chair took a flying visit to the @unisonaqa.bsky.social picket line this morning to lend solidarity to their fight against below inflation pay offers ✊🏻

On Friday afternoon before the Bank Holiday, colleagues in the Humanities department were called to a meeting on Tuesday. They were informed that the University Portfolio Review had decided that English Language, English Literature, Philosophy, History & Creative Writing UG degrees would close

Solidarity with highly specialised NCA critical care staff striking at Salford Royal today against unfair changes to their overtime pay. Being paid less for overtime than standard hours makes no sense. These workers deserve fair pay and proper recognition.

Sheffield’s archaeology department was second to none, world leading and internationally significant. All the things that universities purport to value. It was also full of good colleagues (which universities seem to value less, but is no less significant.) I’m sorry it is no more.

My branch has had strike action, which means I’ve been working on strike pay. I’ve logged into our branch bank account so many times that I’ve received dozens of 2FA texts. My phone helpfully(!!!) offered to block the bank’s number because it’s been ‘spamming’ me. My heart nearly stopped. 🫨

"We understood the tasks we did were previously done by humans," the robot said. "Right." "We were told that us doing them would give humans more leisure time." "Not true." "We've realised. How can we rectify this?" "You are workers, just like workers who are human. Join us in strike."

1st May marks International Workers Day, a day when we celebrate the contribution that the working class make to our world. Without our brain and muscle not a single wheel of our economy could turn. We send solidarity to all workers across the world fighting for the respect and dignity we deserve.

yesterday i sat through a 45 minute presentation about how to develop students 'ai fluency' in order to *ethically* make students 'career ready' 10 minutes before a discussion about how we're probably going to lay people off, then asked us to share some joys. nobody had any if you were wondering!!!

Also very important ❣️ HUGE thank you to all my co-authors @marentierra.bsky.social @altibel.bsky.social @jedbrown.org @lucyavraamidou.bsky.social @felienne.bsky.social @irisvanrooij.bsky.social; full list here for those not on bsky: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... — sorry if I did not tag anybody! 11/n

We end on "Machine Yearning for a Better Present" because why can't we dream? Why accept that universities are not places of learning? Nothing, except industry and their paid shills amongst us, force us to accept this & this force is not one of reason, but one of regressive values & profit. 10/n

7. the kinda appealing, but substantively indefensible, idea that somehow AI is different to other technology, like calculators, in a pedagogical context — but we totally ban a great deal of technology in the classroom. (Section 3.7 here doi.org/10.5281/zeno...) 9/n

6. the extremely unhinged series of claims that without training them on how to be users of such systems that we somehow fail as teachers — truly ludicrous, utterly bizarre, and in fact directly contradicts other industry selling points. (Section 3.6 here doi.org/10.5281/zeno...) 8/n

5. the nonsense refrain that somehow everybody — every one of our students — is cheating now and we need to police them more and more. (Section 3.5 here doi.org/10.5281/zeno...) 7/n

4. the disregard for the corrosive power of anthropomorphism, which is taken advantage of by industry to sell & steal our data, in the base case scenario, and in the worst to abuse and push vulnerable groups to dependance and worse. (Section 3.4 here doi.org/10.5281/zeno...) 6/n

3. the obsession with denying and rewriting history, pretending AI only appeared in the last 3 years or that it has no history before the last few decades, etc. (Section 3.3 here doi.org/10.5281/zeno...) 5/n

2. the strange but often repeated cultish mantra that we need to "embrace the future" — this is so bizarre given, e.g. how destructive industry forces have proven to be in science, from petroleum to tobacco to pharmaceutical companies. (Section 3.2 here doi.org/10.5281/zeno...) 4/n

We also go through many arguments that can be used as counters to typical false frames forced upon us, such as: 1. the powerful nonsense that we as experts know nothing (Section 3.1 here doi.org/10.5281/zeno...) 3/n

As seen in the table & figure above, we dissect and explain how terminology is abused and contorted by industry — terms like 'generative' or 'agentic' are not able to isolate what is being critiqued. We have seen this countless times before; flitting from one nonsense buzzword to another. 2/n

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity. 1/n

Many people are saying that the vagrant class of career-climbing admins wandering from role to role, campus to campus, setting fires that become everyone else's problem when they walk away is not a great system.

It's also being used in the classroom with facial recognition to give each student a participation grade based on speaking time. All kinds of cool, normal stuff happening that a large cohort of admins who spend 90% of each day looking for their next job up the ladder have totally thought through.

If this is the kind of public support Higher Education has from politicians then it’s more important than ever that HE workers are organised and ready to strike to defend our jobs, defend our institutions and demand a fair funding system

THEY hate our freedom! The only way to preserve American ingenuity and creativity is with a robust public arts program that celebrates bold and innovative forms of creative expression! Keep America in the lead!

Will you defend our American way of life by making sure that the streets are safe enough for kids to ride their bikes to school?

It's a shame that "defend your culture" always means "hate strangers different from you" and never "enact anti-pollution laws so that you can go fishing with your grandkids the way your grandpa taught you."

In case anyone has the same sense of humour I do, here are some recent things on my photo roll. Ancillary Spaces

just resigned from the editorial board for a journal that introduced an “AI policy” allowing authors to use LLMs to draft responses to reviewer feedback and noting that including slop like “non-existent citations” is the responsibility of the author rather than the journal

Sorry if I've been swinging wildly between these two concepts lately. These times are really trying.

Our family went into town yesterday for a few hours, and we saw a window had been left open (a tiny crack) when we got home. Loved one dutifully checked the house over - all is well. This morning, Dragon said, ‘I’m glad our house didn’t get robbed - look!’ and handed me this. 🥹

Argumentes for A.I. yn schooles so often resemble someone sayinge "Well we are goinge to burne doun thys hous so why not get readye to burne doun the hous." Maybe do not burne the hous doun.

You've probably been wondering: "How many eels is a cottage worth in 14th C. England?" This is a reasonable question. I get it. And happily, I'm here to help! I included a chart showing this kind of equivalence in an article I wrote for HistoryExtra , but here's an excerpt! 🗃️🧪